Girls behaving badly: FINA 10K Marathon World Cup

I was going to wait for permission before I made this blog post but screw it, I'm impetuous.

It appears the girls are still beating each other up in the open water events whereas the men are being summarily polite. I discussed this with two time Olympian, Clay Evans as to why the men are so polite and he said every man out there has played water polo and knows it would be mutually assured drowning if they struck another competitor.

I heard from a very solid source that Edith Van Dijk got her goggles intentionally torn off her face by a southern European competitor. She was in 4th or 5th place at the time but stayed the course with a 11 place finish. Having accomplished that, this blog has to like her now.

Last year at 2007 FINA World Championships we heard lots of stories of femme violence and I don't know what to think of it. A post I made last year: What Happens Under The Water Stays Under the Water talked about some of the dirty tricks the ladies pulled on each other. [Link]

UPDATE: I also want to add that with the upcoming 2008 FINA Championship in Sevilla, Spain; a race where the top ten men and women will get an automatic Olympic berth, I was told some girls are trying to establish a "water-polo-player-like" reputation so they can swim in "cleaner" water.

One girl in particular got her fanny handed to her when the pack turned upon her after she displayed some aggressive behavior. Consequently there is some sort of game theory equation here and I think it goes like this: collectively bully the strongest but pick your battles carefully.

I think the photo to the right is Edith Van Dijk. Ooops, My bad! Here is a photo of Edith I yanked across the network from a news article at Radio-Canada.ca: [Link]