Tag: Sport

Europe triumph again

The Ryder Cup has made for some great viewing over the past three days. I couldn’t believe the amount of putts that the Europeans sank, especially today – the Americans had no answer. Clarke’s emotion on winning and the respect that his fellow golfers had for him was good to see although I think the BBC saying that ‘Sweden’s Henrik Stenson robbed Darren Clarke of a fairytale ending’ was a bit strong. Highlights were Casey’s hole in one and Clarke’s chip in on the 16th yesterday.

High fives to Sky also – their HD coverage of the tournament was superb. Overall a tremendous tournament made better by us winning…and in some style too.

Sports Saturday

  • Philips HD TV – £1600
  • Sky HD Box – £300
  • Sky Monthly Subscription – £52
  • Watching England get knocked out of the World Cup again on penalties, Terry and Beckham shedding tears and Andy Murray winning magestically all in high definition – priceless

Andy MurrayWhat an amazing day of sport. First Andy Murray. Great performance especially as Roddick was serving so well. Still think it’s too early to be thinking of semi’s or final’s but that performance today was one of the best sport moments of the year so far. As for England they didn’t play well when they had eleven men, they had the better of the game after Rooney was sent off, the substitutions were frankly bizarre (take off wide man and put on Crouch, aka gigantaur, with no one left to cross it?) and to be honest the England team performance throughout the world cup did not merit a semi final place. Bye.

Looking forward to Murray in the 4th round now. Just how far can he go? I hoped that the comments on his website would be a bit more positive after the nasty stuff left over the last week but the one copied below shows that despite a really good post match interview some people just never let up.

If you weren’t such an unbelievably lucky hitter and hoper, so incredibly dull and such a nasty piece of work, it would be easy to look past the fact that you’re so dam ugly.

I thought Mr Burns was a cartoon character. I didn’t realise he was real and had offspring.

So sad.

Ellen

ellen
After 72 days at sea Ellen MacArthur has broken the record for the fastest solo round the world voyage. Just under an hour ago she broke the current record with one day and hours to spare. This has been a gripping challenge to follow and you cannot have anything but admiration for what she has achieved. It’s hard to imagine being alone (with on shore support team) for that length of time, grabbing 15 minutes of sleep where possible and keeping a massive boat together. During the voyage she has repaired a generator, a mast and also replaced a hard disk on a laptop. I could maybe have managed the last one but certainly not the other two.

Does put into perspective what I have achieved in the last 30 years! Well done Ellen.

 

Traitor?

Its Scotland vs Norway on Saturday and I really am confused as to the result I want. 40% of me wants to see Scotland do well. The other 60% wants them to get cuffed and hopefully move a step closer to getting rid of Berti Vogts. His comments this week on how this game is not win or bust (a draw will do) were disappointing and made only to try and protect his job. His press conference at the start of the week when announcing the team was also very unprofessional and it’s now time for the Scotland manager to move on. I don’t believe a new manager would make a dramatic difference but do believe a Scottish manager would install more passion and pride in the players.

Europe Win the Ryder Cup

Colin Montgomerie has just holed the putt thats clinched the Ryder Cup for Europe. For the first time I’ve listened to golf on the radio (5 Live) and it’s…..difficult. It’s time’s like this that Sky is tempting. £99 for Sky+ and a monthly subscription to Sky Sports for £33 is making my mouth water but I hope the feeling will pass over the next few days.

Back to the golf – a fantastic win for Europe although the Americans looked out of sorts not helped by some odd pairings on Friday. It looks like a late night for me as I catch the highlights on BBC2.

It’s All Over

The Olympics that is. The last event, the men’s marathon was spoiled by some nutter running onto the track and pushing the leader into a barrier. I’m sure it’s the same idiot that ran onto a grand prix track last year (Silverstone?). Don’t think it affected the outcome as the guy was tiring but to think you’ve spent four years training for someone to do that. Fool.

Highlights have to be Kelly Holmes, Matthew Pincent and Amir Kahn. The 1500m was superb and to top the night off the shock of the men 4x100m – I thought the Americans had snatched it but 1/100th of a second is all that matters. Pity about the boxing but the kid (17!!) did really well to get to the final. These have been great games with something to watch almost every day – previous Olympics have always got off to a slow start or had dull days but not this time. Roll on Beijing.

Olympic Contrast

holmesWatching the Olympics tonight showed the difference winning and losing can make. Kelly Holmes in the 800m was magnificent, and the shock on her face will probably be all over the front pages tomorrow. That she only decided to run this race last week was surely a bluff, no?

Contrast her win with Paula Radcliffe last night. At first I felt she had let herself down in the way she had ‘given up’. In hindsight that was harsh – the conditions were tougher than I had realised. I would have struggled to walk never mind run a mile in that heat. To see her still upset today and admitting she was baffled as to her loss of form shows just how difficult it is for her to even understand what she went through. I thought last night it was an odd time to run a marathon as I always remembered from previous games that it took place in the early morning. It’s no surprise to read today that it’s believed the run was held in the late afternoon for American TV. I guess we’ll never know how different the outcome would have been if it had started 10 hours earlier.

 

Olympics

The performances by GB in the Olympics over the last 3 days have been superb. Highlight had to be the coxless fours yesterday morning. Not only was the race good to watch, but seeing Pincent crying on the podium brought home how much effort these guys put in and what it means to them. The cyclists have also been good to watch and the sailors have done well although I’ve had more fun watching Rangers in Europe than trying to sit through a sailing competition. It makes snooker almost watchable.

Hopefully more success today for Paula Radcliffe in what will be a tough race in the early evening heat.

The best team won

Cracking game of football last night, and like any team who loses on penalties England were very unlucky. However Portugal deserved the win. They played good attacking football and had the most possession. England seemed content to sit back and soak it up – they really should have chased the game and tried to kill it. As for Campbell’s goal that was chalked off, Terry did have an arm on the goalie and everyone now knows the protection a goalkeeper gets. If had been the other way round with Portugal scoring a late goal and the referee allowing it we wouldn’t hear the end of it from English fans saying they were cheated. Nae luck.

As for Beckhams penalty…I’m still laughing much like the Portuguese supporter last night. Priceless.

Summer Of Sport

Its begun – the best summer of sport in a long time. Euro 2004 kicked off yesterday with a couple of entertaining matches. Don’t know about the silver ball though. Looking forward to the rest of the matches though, especially the France – England game tonight. Come on France ;-). BBC has a really nice way of viewing match highlights – the Virtual Replay. Choose a match, choose an incident and then watch it from any angle. Lovely.

Next week Wimbledon begins (Martina in the singles), we’ve got the rest of the F1 season (Button’s first win tonight?) and it will all be rounded off with the Olympics in August. Can’t wait.