When Matt Grevers jumped into the pool prior to this last weekend's 100-meter backstroke at the Missouri Grand Prix, he had diamond on his mind, not gold.

The two-time gold medalist had concocted an elaborate plan to propose to his longtime girlfriend, fellow national-team swimmer Annie Chandler, atop the medal stand. All he had to do was get there.

Grevers ended up winning the race. And when organizers asked Chandler to present the medals to the three top finishers, she didn't suspect anything out of the ordinary. When Grevers dropped to a knee, Chandler's reaction says it all:

Courtesy USASwimming.org

"I've just been searching for a unique way to pop the question," Grevers told reporters. "My whole family is here and I figured it would be a perfect opportunity and a unique situation."

Originally, Grevers had hoped to propose while Chandler was on the medal stand. A fifth-place performance in Friday's 100 breaststroke scuttled those plans. He didn't want to do it on Sunday, so his

Canada's Jason Dunkerley (left) competing in the 2008 Beijing ParalympicsJust when you got your faith in humanity back, along comes a jogger to sue a pair of blind Paralympians who rely on Sport Canada funding.

One has to tread lightly when writing about a lawsuit that's before the courts. Suffice to say, federal government bureaucrat Mimi Lepage probably won't get much sympathy in the court of public opinion for suing Paralympics runners Jason and Jon Dunkerley, who have been blind since birth, for long-term injuries she says stem from they and their guides colliding with her a Sunday morning jog in early 2010. Lepage is seeking $350,000 from the Dunkerleys and seven other unnamed defendants, even though she was able to complete a 10-km race three months later.

Common sense would suggest that there is no way a man who competes in a Paralympic class "for runners who have no light perception in either eye and are unable to recognize the shape of a hand at any distance or direction" can be held to the same standard of care as a sighted person. Yet Lepage's lawyer says this is how it has to be — "It is not a fair system for either side." Yeah, it is almost as unfair as being born without the gift sight many of us are fortunate to take for granted, he did not add sarcastically.

From Gary Dimmock:

In documents filed in Ottawa court on Dec. 22, 2011, Lepage says she was running south on the west side of the Rideau Canal when the Dunkerley brothers, their guide runners, and others in their running group crashed into her from behind.

The claim says that after the collision the Dunkerleys fell on top of Lepage, injuring her so badly she had trouble walking and has been unable to tend to housekeeping, let alone run.

"The collision was caused by the negligence of the defendants, Jon and Jason, who, as elite runners and users of the public recreational path, owed a duty to other users of the path not to create a risk or harm to those users," the statement of claim alleges.

The lawsuit against the blind runners also alleges they were "running at an unsafe speed given the circumstances, including their abilities, their method of communicating with their guides, the terrain of the path, the size of their running group, and the number of other users of the path at the time." (Ottawa Citizen)

Stars like Alex Morgan will have to find somewhere else to play this year.

It's been a few days of highs and lows for women's soccer. Shortly after Sunday's CONCACAF Olympic qualifying tournament final in Vancouver drew a record-setting crowd of 25,427 to watch Alex Morgan and the U.S. knock off Canada 4-0, the news came out that the Women's Professional Soccer circuit would be suspending its operations for 2012 at least partly as a result of a legal battle with former franchise owner Dan Borislow . That's going to dramatically change the picture in the months leading up to the London Olympics, and not just for American players like Morgan who are now without a league, as WPS featured national team stars from Canada (including Christine Sinclair, Karina LeBlanc and Lauren Sesselmann), England, Brazil and several other countries. Without WPS in the picture, those national federations will have to significantly alter their plans for how they approach the Olympics.