Breaux Greer is breezy and fun loving, the type of person who could be egged on at a bar to see how fast he can throw a baseball or how far he can throw a football.
Hint: Do not challenge him. Greer has thrown a baseball 98mph. He has thrown a football 94 yards. He has thrown a golf ball from Lane 1 at one end of a running track to Lane 1 at the other end, close to 400 feet. He has thrown a javelin 233 feet without a run-up.
At 27, Greer is the world's second-ranking javelin thrower this year, and he seems to be a strong candidate to win a medal next month at the Olympic Games in Athens. Making the US team should not be difficult, assuming his left knee, which he says has an injured anterior cruciate ligament, holds up.
In the qualifying round of the US Olympic trials on Thursday, Greer protected his knee with a cumbersome brace and barely tested it. On his first throw, with only a two-step run-up, he threw 259 feet 10 inches. That led the 12 throwers who advanced to the final on Saturday afternoon.
To get to the Olympics, Greer must also survive the complex qualifying system used by the US. He is the only American who has met the Olympic A qualifying standard of 268-4. If Greer loses, he will not go to the Olympics if the winner fails to reach the A standard by Aug. 9. But if the winner reaches the A standard, he and Greer will go.
That situation is remote because Greer is so good. His attitude helps.
"I don't take it seriously," he said. "I throw straight, and a lot of people haven't figured out how to do that. A lot of things come easy to me. My philosophy is that you run and you throw it. But the technique? I may never figure it out."
Over the years, most of the javelin throwers who have figured it out have come from Finland, Germany, Hungary and Russia. The only American to win an Olympic javelin medal was Cy Young (not the legendary baseball player) in 1952.
Greer is 6 feet 2 inches and 225 pounds. He trains in Athens, Ga. In his spare time, he has written about 30 alternative rock songs, but, he said, "I try not to listen to them."
He started throwing the javelin as a high school senior in Monroe, Louisiana, and in 1999 earned a degree in exercise physiology from Northeast Louisiana (now the University of Louisiana, Monroe).
He has won the last four national championships, and like many other javelin throwers he has worked through shoulder problems. He fell two centimeters short of making the Olympic qualifying mark in 1996 and finished 12th in the Olympics in 2000.
The javelin throw looks easy. Actually, the thrower needs strong legs and a strong arm and must master a complex throwing technique.
"There are a million guys who can throw 80m," Greer said, "but they just throw it wrong."
Eighty meters equals 262-5. Five weeks ago, in the Bislett Games in Bergen, Norway, Greer set an American record of 87.39 meters, or 286 feet 8 inches. That was a mixed blessing, because on that throw he hurt his knee.
"It didn't hurt, but something felt wrong," he said Thursday. "It doesn't affect my throwing. I've just got to suck up the pain for the Olympics."
The world record is 323-1 by Jan Zelezny of the Czech Republic in 1996. Greer has his eye on that and more, specifically 100m, or 328-1.
"I want to be the first guy to throw 100m," he said. "It's my time.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB