Sports Category
Sports news, commentary and scores with wit and added value. We compare and contrast the best and worst sports reporting in the mainstream press, blogs, TV and online. We love the English Premier League (Arsenal, Liverpool, Spurs, Manchester United and Manchester City) and all things football but we cover cricket, rugby, the Olympics, tennis, golf, F1 and highlights of the sporting year.
Ann Romney’s dressage jockey say dressage is affordable on a ‘normal budget’
AS soon as a horse appears in the title sequence to a TV show your writer turns the channel over or the telly off. The show will either be a costume drama or feature people who want to live in one. So, then, to the Olympics, where Jan Ebeling is riding Rafalca, a dressage horse owned by Mitt Romney’s wife Ann Romney.
Ebeling wants to assure us that dressage is not as expensive as you might suppose. If you budget right, you might have some cash left over for a holiday home in Sardinia. So. Can dressage be a go-to sport for inner city schools? Says Ebeling:
If you look at our team, there’s nobody who’s a millionaire. When I grew up we had no money. I worked my butt off. I cleaned stalls. People saw the talent and would let me ride their horses. Money is not something that defines dressage. It’s something you can do with a normal budget.
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Posted: 29th, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
Corporate sponsors ignore free 2012 tickets to watch Olympics on massive telly while eating burgers
MORE news on empty seats at the London 2012 Olympics.
“I was at the Beijing Games, in 2008 and one of the lessons that we took away from that, is that full stadia create the best atmosphere, it’s best for the athletes, it’s more fun for the spectators, it’s been an absolute priority….It’s a shame this happened, but we are going to do everything we can to make sure we fill up these stadia” – Jeremy Hunt- Culture and Sport Secretary.
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Posted: 29th, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
London 2012 day 2 – the best photos
THE best photos from day 2 of the London 2012 Olympic Games:
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How Beckham drove his Olympics 2012 speed boat
DAY 4501 of the David Beckham Olympics: the speed boat races…
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A history of Olympics cock-ups
THE Olymics got off to a jittery start this week, when the North Korean women’s football team walked off in protest after the South Korean flag was mistakenly displayed at Hampden Park.
The organisers apologised, explaining that the faux pas was a case of human error rather than deliberate snub, and David Cameron was swift to step in and smooth ruffled feathers. But it will come as some consolation to know that it is a rare Olympics indeed that passes off without some kind of cock-up…
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Posted: 27th, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
The Olympic torch hits London – photos
DAY 69 of the Olympic Torch relay: London. The sun shone. The crowds cheered. London looked brilliant. Really brilliant. The Olympics are all about people, humanity being pushed to the limit by courage and endeavour. Of course, the setting matters. Place and politics give the Olympics their backstory, making the edge of competition sharper. When the cost of security, selling burgers and bullshit legacies is overlooked, the sport is fantastic value. The lasting memories of London 2012 will not be the fear foisted by stories of security lapses, terrorists, missiles and sexual exploitation, rather it will be those magic moments yet to come when humanity strives to better the rest. Forget the on-message stuff about it being inclusive. That’s the politics. For the elite athletes, this is their moment. The rest of us are happy to watch…
Glasgow Rangers buy 11 South Korean women footballers – North Korea weeps
IT was the kind of mistake you might suppose the North Korean would roll with. When the second match in group G of the Olympics women’s football tournament began in Glasgow, the boffins in the big screen booth heralded the arrival of the North Korean women’s football team with the South Korean flag.
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Posted: 26th, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
Twitter Olympics claims first athlete: Voula Papachristou dropped for ‘racist’ tweet
THE Twitter Olympics are underway, and we’ve got our first victim: Voula Papachristou, a Greek triple jumper, told her twitter followers:
“With so many Africans in Greece… At least the West Nile mosquitoes will eat home made food!!!”
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Posted: 25th, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (4)
Spain’s Olympic kit visible from space (photos)
SPAIN’S Olympic kit is visible from space. Alex Fàbregas tweeted a photo of himself in the kit and the words: “Olympic equipment, there are no adjectives …” Of course, there are many adjectives. Too many. And like that kit, thy’re going cheap if your buy a gross for cash…. 
Explaining racism to Arsenal’s Emmanuel Frimpong and ‘Scum Yids’
THE FA have charged Arsenal player Emmanuel Frimpong with improper conduct for a tweet in which the injured player called a Spurs fan “Scum Yid”. That was in response to the Spurs fans tweeting Frimpong: “I prayed you break your arms and legs.”
As the Spurs fan reels in pain at the mean name calling, doubtless too traumatised by the sheer horror to check his inbox, the FA go on the record:
“Arsenal’s Emmanuel Frimpong has been charged under FA Rule E3 for improper conduct in relation to recent comments made on Twitter. The allegation is that Frimpong posted comments amounting to improper conduct and/or which brought the game into disrepute, which included a reference to ethnic origin, faith or race.”
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Olympics prostitution triggers London STD explosion (so they say…)
ON all that London Olympics prostitution… The routine is simple: any major sporting event is heralded by media scare stories on the sex trade. London 2012 has been no exception.
In January 2010 Tessa Jowell, then Minister for the Olympics in the previous government, told MPs:
“Major sporting events can be a magnet for the global sex and trafficking industry; this is wholly unacceptable. I am determined that traffickers will not exploit London 2012.”
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Posted: 24th, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comment (1)
Ambush advertising in sport – a history
AMBUSH!
Olympic boss Lord Coe put his well-shod foot in it this week by announcing that people wearing the wrong logos would not be permitted access to the Games.
He was referring to Pepsi t-shirts rather than ordinary punters wearing non-adidas trainers, and the real subject of his concern was ‘guerrilla’ or ‘ambush’ marketing – the attempt by non-sponsors to invade the cordon sanitaire that is placed around venues to protect companies that pay millions of pounds to endorse sporting events. All the same, he has been accused of overreaction in many quarters. (Others, of course, argue that protecting sponsors allows the games to thrive.)
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Posted: 23rd, July 2012 | In: Flashback, Key Posts, Sports | Comment
Team GB dancing police makes London Olympics envy of the world
WHILST trad jazz is the theme tune for a lost cause, the dancing policeman is its expression. As the Olympic Torch his Sevenoaks on Day 5687 of its journey from Athens to London, a motorcycle policeman did a street dance.
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Bradley Wiggins wins Tour de France – someone check if he really is British
AND with Bradley Wiggins became the first Briton to win the Tour de France, the world’s greatest race. When Wiggins won the race’s final time-trial, it meant that he will arrive in Paris as the Tour de France victor. Well, unless… Unless sport tosses up something extraordinary. Unless on the 120-kilometre twentieth stage from Rambouillet to the Champs-Elysees, Wiggins is the victim of a chain of unfortunate events.
Astoundingly, Wiggins’ Sky teammate, Britain’s Christopher Froome, is likely to finish second. Before these two, no Briton had ever made it onto the podium. Fourth was best. In 2009, Wiggins’s fourth place equalled Robert Millar’s 1984 finish.
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Posted: 21st, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (3)
Stunt bikes not victim of Olympics opening ceremony cuts – but they are
HOW’S that Olympics opening ceremony coming along? LOCOG’s director of communications says the happening is not being cut:
“It is not actually being cut…What is actually happening is tightening up…One small segment…has been cut and that is the bit with the stunt bikes.”
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Michelle Jenneke warms up
MICHELLE Jenneke warms up for the hurdles:
Posted: 21st, July 2012 | In: Sports | Comments (8)
Olympic torch bearer Jerri Peterson bypasses Olympic tattoo police
JERRI Peterson, 54, invested in a new tattoo to mark the day when she carried the Olympic torch through Derby. Peterson, from Atlanta, USA, got to hold the torch because she works for a hotel chain that’s paid lots of money for the right to call itself the “official hotel provider to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games” and does charity work.“I always wanted to have a tattoo but I never quite felt passionate about any one thing to have it put on my body permanently. So when I was selected for this wonderful honour, I thought ‘that’s it – I’m ready to have my tattoo’.”
John Terry escapes the thought police – real racism exists beyond football
THANKS to Chelsea captain John Terry and Anton Ferdinand, the court of Great Britain and Northern Ireland know that ‘FBC’ stands for “fucking black cunt”. The other thing we know is that an innocent man – Terry might be a dislikable oik but he is no racist – can be condemned by the right minded with a cause.
Comments on Terry have come thick and thicker. Manchester United’s Rio Ferdinand showcased his stupidity with a tweet about Ashley Cole being a “choc ice”. Cole held the sensible opinion that the matter should never have reached court.
Duwayne Brooks, Stephen Lawrence’s friend who was there that night when the black teenager was murdered by racists, tells The Times’ readers:
So there can be no denying that the “not guilty” verdict at Westminster Magistrates Court is a setback for those of us who want to drive racist language out of the game… A guilty verdict would have been a breath of fresh air for football at all levels in Britain.
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Posted: 19th, July 2012 | In: Key Posts, Sports | Comment (1)
Spurs buy flying pig from cash-strapped Malaga
SO. Who is Spurs’ new transfer target? Football rumours work a lot like tabloid gossip, inhabiting a shadowy area between utter made-up nonsense and the slimmest morsel of truth. Today, the BBC says:
“Spurs have been linked with a move for Malaga striker Jose Salomon Rondon, 22, who has scored 27 goals in two seasons at the cash-strapped club. Giovani dos Santos could move in the opposite direction.”
That would be thercash-strapped Malaga, owned by the impoverished Sheikh Abdullah Al-Thani:
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London Olympics politburo bans negative views online
LONDON 2012 can’t beat Beijing 2008 on the spectacle. We can’t beat beijing 2008 on the number of athletes. But LOCOG might just match Beijing 2008 on the despotism. Having cleared St Paul’s the Westminster roundabout of protest, and banned the scatter cushions, this from the LOCOG online terms and conditions:
Links to the Site. You may create your own link to the Site, provided that your link is in a text-only format… and agree that no such link shall portray us or any other official London 2012 organisations (or our or their activities, products or services) in a false, misleading, derogatory or otherwise objectionable manner.
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How to do the Olympic Long Jump…the hard way
THE Times newspaper will now instruct its readers in how to peform a perfect long jump…the hard way:
X-Pole London Olympics turn pole dancing into an Olympic sport
IS pole dancing, aka “vertical gymnastics” (fnar), destined to be Olympic sport? It should be. Sportsmen love audience participation.
In readiness, keepers of the pole dance flame have created X-pole, a contest in London for “pole sports”.
Poles are well represented, as you might expect, but so too are all east Europeans, the GB and, controversially, Heidi Hildersley representing Scotland. (Is a caber a pole? Discuss.) A much smaller filed competes in the mena;s section, with GB represented by Jean Modestine, whose name suggests he does the show dressed in Comfi-Slax and holding a fan.
