Lenseless Glasses at the Olympics

Reuters has posted an article claiming that some Olympic volleyball players are wearing glasses with no lenses during games. It's all about money, of course:

beach volleyball players at the Olympics took to the court wearing frames with no lenses. "The lenses fog up because of the humidity, so you can't wear the glasses without popping out the lenses," U.S. men's volleyballer Phil Dalhausser told reporters on Monday. High humidity is a regular feature of the weather in Beijing at this time of year. Several beach volleyball players wear glasses at night to reduce the glare of floodlights or protect their eyes from flying sand but the frames serve no other purpose than sponsorship.

I haven't seen any pictures of these frames-but-no-lenses athletes, but the story makes sense if the athletes are obliged to wear the glasses because of a sponsorship deal.

Sports

Posted on Wed Aug 13, 2008


Comments

I saw it the other night with the American Dahlhauser on the sidelines. But later there were lenses in them when he was playing. I'm thinking they are sunglasses with removable lenses for non-playing times just for the sponsorship reason.
Posted by Corwin, The Master Physicist  on  Thu Aug 14, 2008  at  10:47 AM
Dalhausser and Rogers were playing with the lensless glasses, I believe both in their first match with the Latvians and a later match. The commentators mentioned it about every two minutes.
Posted by Ledasmom  on  Thu Aug 14, 2008  at  10:59 AM
yeah i just watched the dalhausser and rogers vs
Switzerland and both americans were definitely wearing lenses in their glasses
Posted by dstein  on  Sat Aug 16, 2008  at  08:38 AM
On a side tangent, if you followed FOX network's most recent season of "So You Think You Can Dance," one of their top two finalists (I believe he went by the moniker of "Twitch") sported that look from auditions all the way through to the last show. Not entirely sure if that suggests that look's origins were with the hip-hop set, or if they're just running with it now. Interesting to see it elsewhere.
Posted by Conan The Librarian  on  Mon Aug 18, 2008  at  12:48 AM
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