The 15th Pan-American Games are currently going on in Rio (July 13-29).
Tennis team: The USTA named the tennis delegation (as was mentioned by Zoo Tennis). The four men on the U.S. team are Stephen Bass of Notre Dame, Travis Helgeson of Georgia, Todd Paul of Wake Forest and Luke Shields of Boise State. And the four women competing in Rio are Audra Cohen of Miami, Megan Falcon of LSU, Natalie Frazier of Georgia and Kristi Miller of Georgia Tech.
“Your face is the Congo!”: The Americans set an unfortunate tone with this stupid scandal last week, but they’ve since recovered to win medals and some support from the Brazilian spectators. (via IHT)
Going green: What’s most interesting to me about the games is the event’s workforce uniforms: the thread used to make them are created from recycled PET bottles (250,000 bottles were used in the process). The ecologically-friendly dyeing process involved water-based products.
ITF, ATP, SETWA: are you all listening? This is something you should require (or at least incentivize) of all your tournaments. Think about all the clothing made for each ballperson, line official, umpire (not to mention event volunteers, staff, etc.); all the tchotckes, flyers, and food given away (that’s plastic, paper, and wrappers all thrown away); and the energy used to run a tournament (generators? batteries?). There are lots of aways to go green in many aspects of producing and running a tournament, so we should research and implement them.
Come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve seen a “green” campaign from any major event (or even from any major player). What’s up with that?
Erwin says
The sad part is the cost-effectiveness… But even your clients need to know that their cause is not the only one out there. So what if you end up raising 4 million instead of 4.5 (because you went green)? They should just take the money and sleep better at night… what’s the point of finding a cure — whatever the disease — if the survivors don’t have a world to come back to?
Austy says
I’m guessing the tournament’s producers see no significant financial or public relations benefits making their events go green. As a producer of large scale events myself, I’ve tried to think of cost-effective ways to go green, and there’s very little I can think of that would make a noticeable difference. Please keep the green production tips going though!
Erwin says
I can’t wait to see the tennis.com post about it 🙂
Nick says
FINALLY! Someone wants to talk about “Green Tennis”. I have been thinking about doing a post about this for a long time, but haven’t found the right tone to approach it with. Tennis needs to catch up with the rest of the world when it comes to trying to reduce our waste. The tours are going to have to start realizing that in order to sustainable – in many factors – they’re going to have to start being conscious of the impact they have on our planet.