Last week might well go down as one of the most humiliating in Russia's tortured sports history. We've already reported how Russia was devastated by failure at the U.S. Open tennis championships in New York (hardly any of its ridiculously overrated players, male or female, even managed to get as far as the fourth round; as of Labor Day, with the fourth round well underway, there were more Americans -- 4 -- left in the singles draw than Russians and America was a legitimate contender to take 3 of the four main titles in singles and doubles, while Russia could be considered a serious contender for none of them).

And then there was the bad news from the Land of the Rising Sun. The United States routed Russia at the world track & field (a/k/a "athletics") championships in Osaka, Japan, last week as well, taking twice as many total medals as Russia and more than three times as many gold medals as Russia (also more than any other country, the U.S. dominated the event). Russia was relegated to third place, behind Kenya, in the gold medal count and second place in the total count.

More glorious success for Vladimir Putin's Russia!