More musings from the Beijing Olympics. No NASCAR again etc etc

Gone in 9.69 seconds

In the two days since the last of my Olympic musings the Blue Riband athletics event has come and gone. It's the 100m metres. I'm not really sure the "Blue Riband" label is warranted, true it's the event that will most likely grab the headlines and live long in the memories of those that watch, but surely the "Blue Riband" of Athletics should be the epic decathlon, two days of great all round athletes, rather than 10 seconds of greased-whippet running. Anyway - rant over.

The 100m metres needed a positive storyline, after all the pre-games press inches have been very negative - drug related and negative. And from the off it looked like it was going to get one. The Jamaican World Record holder Usain Bolt, the man whose time he beat, Asafa Powell, and the reigning Olympic champion, Tyson ####, all competing against each other on the biggest stage. This was going to be good.

And the preliminary rounds didn't disappoint, with all three through to the semi-finals, but while Tyson #### struggled through his round, Usain Bolt seemed to be barely breaking sweat. There are times watching sport on TV when you find yourself almost involuntarily yelling at the TV, and so I found myself yelling "He's jogging, he's bloody jogging" (needless to say his jog is faster than I could run in even the most optimistic of my dreams) as he started slowing down seemingly 2/3rds of the way into the race, still winning my an insane margin.

But things went off the rails in the semis - ####, lacking 100% fitness was beaten into the final, and while two other Americans - Walter Dix and Darvis Patten - made it through to the final it made the way clear for an almost uncontested Jamaican 1-2 between Bolt and Powell, with Michael Frater threatening to add a third Jamaican to to the podium.

The final. About 10 seconds of the most explosive sport you can get. When you say 10 seconds it sounds very quick, but it always seems to last double that as commentators scream analysis and runners move back and forth for the duration of the race. There was an air of expectation. If Usain Bolt can win by that distance easing down long before the end, what could he do it he was pushed. We may never know. Because, in fairness he wasn't, he again felt able to start his arm-waving celebration a good 10metres before the end, and while Bolt ran a new World Record time of 9.69 seconds, Michael Johnson, commentating for British TV estimated he could have run 9.65 - a truly epic time. While Bolt was wheeling away on a lap of honour (which presumably also smashed a few world records) it was only then that TV cameras cut to the silver medallist celebrating, but not Powell, as the world expected but Richard Thompson of Trinidad and Tobago, and then the bronze, Walter Dix. In the various replays it showed Powell finishing 6th, in a historic race that saw the highest number of finallists run under 10 seconds in Olympic history, with Powell being the last of the six.

"I won by this much?" L-R - Thompson (Trinidad & Tobago), Bolt (Jamaica), Patten (USA), Frater (Jamaica) - (Photo: New York Times)

When the man who until very recently held the world record only finishes sixth, what does that say about a sport? That it moves as fast as it races.

Now pray no-one tests positive.

Phelps rumbles on

Ah, the unstoppable juggernaut that is Michael Phelps, but today a suprising new chapter was added to his ever expanding saga. He won (but it was really, really, really close) - see the venerable Lisa Horne's analysis for more.

I first heard of this through the article linked above (damn these time differences making everything happen at 3am) and at first wonder just how close it would need to be for the human eye to start telling you that someone who finished second had won. Now, a bunch of hours on I've seen the race, and to tell you honestly I still think Phelps finished second. Be it my eyes, camera angles of the quirks of physis that affect light going through water, but I could swear that the Serb gets the touch. To hear that the Serbian team's protest was rejected after the judges reviewed TV footage. I don't know what footage they were watching (or indeed how big the TV was) but I want it.

  How?!? Phelps (top) outreaches his Serbian opponent, although it doesn't look like it here (Photo - BBC.co.uk)

Of course, I would never doubt the Olympic judges, or the battery of electric timing wizardry they point at the walls of swimming pool, but I'm a natural born cynic and with the Chinese with a little slice of history on their patch in site the window for a conspiracy is at least half open.

Union Jack Underpants

In sport there are few days when you can stand up and be proud to be British, today was one of those few. So indulge me. (for this section "we" = "Britain")

In what the (very unbiased) British media was dubbing Super Saturday Britain won 9 medals.

• Rebecca Adlington won a second gold medal in the 800m Freestyle swimming, beating the World Record by a Phelps-esque 2 second and making her the most sucessful British female swimmer ever (for an island nation you'd think we'd be better at swimming).

• The Mens coxless 4 took Britain's 3rd consequetive gold medal in the event, apparently another one that is labelled a "Blue Riband" event, although that might just be because we'd just won it. Two other crews won bronze in their races.

• At the track cycling we took 5 medals. Chris Newton got Bronze in the moderately sensible Points Race, before Chris Hoy and Ross Edgar got gold and silver respectively in the entirely unhinged PIzza-delivery-bike-following insanity of Keirin. Meanwhile in sensible events Bradley Wiggins and Steven Burke got gold and bronze in the 4k pursuit.

Aside from being entirely biased, this section does have a point. How does 9 medals (4 golds, 1 silver and 4 bronzes) in a single Olympic day compare to all time records.

I have no idea whether any stat for this exists, but surely 9 medals is a pretty sound benchmark.

                                      Nope, I have no shame

Or alternatively more musings about the Beijing Olympics. There's even less NASCAR here than last time, and that was just a picture....

They Tricked Us.......

I take everything positive I said about the Olympics opening ceremony, basically because because a lot of it came together not in around the Birds' Nest stadium in Beijing, but in a post-production office infront of a bunch of techno ####ins. First came news that the flaming footprints, symbolising gunpowder (you know the stuff I praised in my day 1+2 blog entry) had been computer generated, and then added to the "live" broadcast. And if that didn't make you feel dirty enough they've even started medling with children's voices. The red dress-ed girl who we all saw singing at the ceremony, was not infact singing at all, in what is probably China's answer to Milli Vanilli. Instead the voice of another was played, and the girl on stage - 9 year old Lin Miaoke mimed over it. Of course, you can say that such practices have been going on in show buisness seemingly forever. But it gets slightly more sinister when you look into the official reason for it, which is (apparently) it was in the best interests for China. Yes, the People's Republic felt it so necessary to have a perfect singing nine year old that they risked the integrity (especially if you think of several high-profile mime screw-up) of the ceremony.

Left: Who you Heard  Right: Who you Saw (BBC.co.uk)

It's bad enough that, with performance enhancing drugs everywhere in sport, you have to take every great performance, every heroic come-back, every underdog-come-good story with a sizable pinch of salt. Now it seems that even the Opening Ceremony is not averse to some performancing enhancing jiggery-pokery.

There's something in the water

It's become perfectly clear for whatever reason that the Water Cube, the venue for Beijing's swimming events, is seriously fast. There might be something in the water, the sides might be slightly sprung, allowing a better push off on the turn, or alternatively, the swimmers might just be getting better (although if you can't trust a 9 year old girl, who can you trust).

World, national, Olympic records are all tumbling seemingly after every race, a certain Mr Phelps has three World Records already. There also seems to be a high number of what I have come to refer to as 'Outboard motor moments', when a swimmer will pull back an absolutely enormous gap in a very short distance, like they had strapped an outboard motor to their feet (see I'm putting nothing past them). My first sight of this phonomenom came in the 400m Freestyle when Briton Rebecca Adlington seemingly flew the final length to win gold, despite not being place 1st, 2nd or 3rd at any of the split time after any of the previous 7 lengths.

But then came the real miracle, the race that has been the subject already of a handful of blogs around here - America's win in the 4x100m relay. This was what I thought was a crucial part in Michael Phelp's potentially historic Olympic - where he relies on other people to get him gold medals. I feared that the relative faliability of, well, everyone else compared to Phelps may threaten his chances. But as it happens, exactly the opposite happened. After three legs the French team were leading by a seemingly insurmountable distance. Commentators were already writing the obituraries for Phelp's 8-gold title. Maybe so was Phelps. One man hadn't. That man was Jason Lezak, swimming the anchor leg for the US. In the final 50m Lezak gained a distance equal to the entire body length of his French rival to come home first, breaking the World Record by 4 (yes 4) seconds. I don't know what sort of plans there are inside the US swim team, but no matter how many medal Phelps gets I think Jason Lezak's name should be just after his in the history books.

So it's 3 gold medals from 3 events for Superfish, with three World Records to boot. While he ultimately aims to get 5 more gold medals, he only needs one more to gain another, very sizable accolade - that of the most successful Olympian ever. I don't think it needs pointing out just how massive that is.

                                       Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid

Medals Togo

In the run up to the Olympics I read one blog on here (that I haven't the energy or the courage to face the Whoops! monster to find) that asked who this year's Eric the Eel world be. For those of you who don't know Eric was a swimmer from Equatorial Guinea who competed in the 2000 Olympics, he famously was claimed to have trained by outswimming crocodiles. This was probably made up, as at the time he managed - double that of the medal contending athletes - he would have been eaten long before Sydney came around.

Anyway, since then I've been looking for a spectacular underdog story to match Eric, and I think I've found one, and this one even wins a medal. His name is Benjamin Boukpeti. He is a canoeist. He is a legend.

His country, Togo, had never won an Olympic medal before. If I was asked where I though any Togo-ese medal would come from I would have picked one of the events where the African nations traditionally do well, such as the long distance athletics event. I would not have picked canoeing. But that's probably why I'm tryping this from my house, while others are being paid to make predictions and intelligent comments in Beijing.

Boukpeti finished 3rd in the K-1 slalom event, bringing forth one of the best celebrations I've ever seen, involving general hysterics and smashing his paddle in half over the front of his boat. Meanwhile the Beijing organisers were probably frantically looking for a Togo-ese flag.

                       The Man, The Boat, The Paddle(s). The Legend

Caution: No NASCAR here. Oh wait.......

Take That Canadian Pit Lane Speed Limits (NASCAR.com)

There you go, now back to the Olympics

Did you get it?

Before Beijing’s opening ceremony I was all ready to write something about the pointlessness of the opening ceremony in the various international sporting events. Normally they’re all full of odd dancing which is supposed to symbolise the history and culture of the host nation(s) that you need an army of commentators with the official guide book to hand to explain. Normally if you watch them at all it’s only because the opening game/event etc. Follows directly after. I was already to go on about the rubbish the Chinese gave us on Friday.

But wasn’t it actually rather good? It had the normal culture and history theme – China’s inventions – the compass, paper, movable type, but not presented in impenetrable interpretive dance. There was interpretive dance, but the messages it was trying to put across weren’t lost by it. They even thought outside the box (and/or stadium) with the footprints of flame symbolising gunpowder moving across the whole city. Of course the organisers let themselves slip into the appalling clichés of international events. The happy-happy underlying theme of ‘harmony’. I’m sure we’re all familiar with the Olympic spirit, we don’t need to be reminded of it – especially when cynics can point to the events that have surrounded the route of the torch relay that ended in Beijing as a sign that this Olympics was about as harmonious as a small war before the ceremony. There were the typical outrageous moments – exactly what place do little singing children of men in green lycra with lightbulbs in have to do with, well anything.

 Yes. But what does it all mean (BBC.co.uk)

Perhaps the most grating bit of the whole thing was the bit where the Chinese organisers’ hands were tied. The parade of the athletes. We know that lots of countries and athletes take part in the Olympics – we don’t need proof by seeing them walk before our very eyes. Of course a lot of tradition is tied up in this parade – the Greeks leading everyone out, the honour an athlete gets of carrying his/her nation’s flag – but it’s getting daft now, especially as sports (and so athletes) are added and more and more countries decide to make a bid for independence.

Phelps Watch

“Superfish” has 1 of 8, and in some style. He took enormous 1.41 seconds off his own world record for the 400m Individual Medley. Sometimes when sports reporters boast about someone “smashing” a record you can pretty much guarantee it’s poetic license. Anyone who describes Phelps’ swim as such is telling the honest truth. When TV graphics show the little progressing green line showing WR pace, you’re not meant to think “that line should really speed up”.

Of course it’s not always going to be that easy, although no one told him that as he made it look similarly easy in the 1st round of the 200m Freestyle. One other hurdle he cleared was done so without him even being there as the US team went through to the next round in the 4x100m Freestyle relay.

As for whether he’ll actually get the 8 golds his aiming for, I’m afraid I’d have to say “no”. Not only is it an epic ask of his fitness, but he has to contend with the busy schedule of heats and finals. In other sports fans worry if their team has peaked too early, Phelps has to peak for finals one hour, while keeping something in reserve for the heats in another event. He also has to contend with putting his fate in other’s hands – in the relays. Even when he is part of the team, unlike in the 4x100 heat, there are three other guys who can go too slow, mess up a change, whatever. That happens and it’s quest over.

Alternative Olympic Events

Every Olympics this debate – with answers of varying stupidity – appears. In Beijing there is the ‘Most Ineffectual Protest’. So far the standout is by 4 protestors who campaigned against the Chinese government (the protest was so rubbish I don’t know the full reason) during the Dressage. Yes, the Dressage. That “Sport” where people in top hats make their horses go sideways in an arena demarked by suburban picket fences. I’m saying nothing about the validity of protests, but if you want to get seen don’t do it in the Dressage. Try the Swimming, Athletics, run out in front of the marathon. You’ll get seen. The only coverage I’ve seen of this protest is ten second of the four being carried away while a horse (and top-hatted rider) seem more bothered by, well anything.

The second event the “Most Bemused Look” came from Chinese Shooting Gold Medallist Guo Wenjun, who after the traditional medal ceremony and photos was bemused to find here fellow medallists Natalia Paderina (Silver) and Nino Salukvadze (Bronze) conversing across her – presumably in Russian – before being called over by photographers for their own photo. The reason being that Paderina is Russian and Salukvadze Georgian and the two felt it necessary to venture into the “Sports people playing politics” that has already blighted what is meant to be Sport. The Chinese, either through ignorance of the relevant world event, or something more selfish had the look of “Why aren’t I in that photo, I won, I’m from China, take my picture” while she tried to keep a straight face and hold her position on the podium until the three could eventually leave together.

Chinese confusion unfortunately out of shot (hence the confusion) (BBC.co.uk)

A British Boxer also put in his entry in the “Just Plain Dumb” event by being sent home before throwing a punch for being overweight. I don’t follow boxing. At all. But surely the weight you have to get to for different classes aren’t a surprise. You know what you have to do, you weigh yourself, are you overweight – yes – eat less – no – it’s OK. It’s not rocket science.

The New Berlin

More than once in the run up to the Games they have been mentioned in the same bracket as the 1936 Berlin Olympics, famous of course for being staged in ####’s Germany, for being so dominated by politics. I’m not sure you can really compare the two, but if anyone is going to make the comparison, I’m going to ask “Where’s Jesse Owens?”. Owens won 4 gold medals, much to the disgust of ####, and so made sure that actual sport is remembered at least along side the politics around it. If these games are going to guarantee themselves being remembered as just that someone needs to step up and take on the Jesse Owens position.

Etc. Etc.

Wasn’t the USA v China Basketball an anti-climax. After all the hype I was expecting a close contest, but pretty soon it turned into a USA whitewash. If China was the best that the “Redeem Team” have to face then redemption should come very easily.

Also a completely biased wearing of Union Jack Underpants. Nicole Cooke sprinted to victory in the 75km Cycling road race. You have Michael Phelps and swimming, and Athletics, and Basketball, and well half the Olympics. We Brits have Cycling and Sailing – it’s not much, let me gloat while I can.

One Gold Medal and she's so famous she now plans to invent her own country (which of course will make the opening ceremony longer come 2012) (BBC.co.uk)

CAUTION: No NASCAR here (well one reference), it's only one of the tags as that's where most of my stuff goes. It's all Olympics here. It's also my first whirl at pictures in a blog post, and as you can tell by the title, I'm not starting small.

There are only a handful of days before the 2008 Olympics, the 29th edition of the “Greatest Show on Earth” starts in the Chinese city of Beijing. Over the 16 days there will be 302 events, covering 28 sports, with roughly 10,500 athletes from 205 competing nations. There will be tears, cheers and at least one really good argument during that time, as well as a few events that not even the sports experts paid to foresee don’t expect. Ahead of the opening ceremony on the 8th August – the date 8.8.08 is seen to be lucky in Chinese culture – here’s my look at a few storylines and the sports and events I’m looking forward to.

The Storylines

Drugs

Sorry to start on a pessimistic note, but there can be no doubting that drug doping is the main story in athletics (and all sports more or less) this year. British Sprinter Dwain Chambers will not be travelling to China, despite winning the national trials championship, after he failed to overturn a ruling that bans him from the Olympics for life after testing positive for THG in 2003. Former Olympic champion Marion Jones is currently in jail on perjury charges linked to her taking drugs. The 2000 Olympic US 4x400m relay team handed back their winners’ medals last week in the wake of Antonio Pettigrew admitting to taking drugs during the tournament.

Drugs have been a central part of so many historic Olympic moments – the scenario with Ben Johnson in 1988 – the rather more comical “scooter accident” that befell two Greek sprinters in 2004. There WILL be a drugs based disqualification at the Olympics this year, the only question is who and when we’ll get to the truth.

China

Right, this is going to make sure that FOXblogs will never get through one of the fabled Chinese Internet filters. The very fact that the Olympics in China is a marvel. The run up to the games has been blighted with political unrest.  The protests – in France, the US and UK – during the Olympic Flame’s world relay over China’s treatment of the people of Tibet set the undertone. Even today in what has been termed a “terrorist attack” 16 Chinese policemen have been killed. The event was well away from Beijing itself, but it’s not the news you want to here from a host country this close to the opening ceremony.

There are the before mentioned internet filters – allegedly internet sites such as Amnesty International have been blocked from the computers at the Olympic media centre. China claims this filter has been removed giving what the IOC describes as ‘unprecedented’ internet access in China. While this is, or course, worrying you do have to wonder what sports journalists want with sites about human rights organisations. As well as this there is the smog. The TV coverage over here have been keeping track of the pollution levels and they are, as of today, roughly twice the target for developing nations, despite the fact that the city’s main polluter – a steel works – has been shut down and half the cars have been taken off the roads. The exact levels are dependent on the weather – winds, temperature, rain – and so difficult to predict in the long term. However it is expected that the endurance events to take place in the city itself – the marathon and the cycling road race – may be postponed if pollution levels are deemed too high.

What to watch

The individual sports and events you might watch will differ from person to person – the events your nation stands a good medal hope in, the sport you follow outside of the Olympics – but I’ll try my best take off my Union Jack underpants and present this largely unbiased.

The obvious thing is you MUST watch. Watching the Olympics you are always aware that you have the chance of witnessing history. In my era it’s Donovan Bailey’s 100m run in Atlanta, or Marion Jones’ win, which will forever be engrained in my mind thanks to the British TV commentary of “This is Olympic Games, you’re not supposed to win by that much” (in hindsight this was right). The more senior of you may name Mark Spitz's 7 swimming golds, or the Israeli athletes sad fate in Munich. No matter what age you are, if you watched an Olympics you can probably remember something.

Athletics

The athletics is the obvious sport to watch. It’ll be where the main storylines come from and where heroes (and villains) will most likely be made. In the Blue Riband 100m there is the three way battle between American Tyson #### and Jamaicans Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell. There are the incredible feats of endurance in the distance running, and the sheer absurdity of the 3000m Steeplechase and its trademark water jump. The all round athleticism of the women in the heptathlon and the men in the epic decathlon has to be admired, although many of them seem to finish the two day events appearing to be held together by straps around their joints. Plus the chaos of the jostling and change-overs in the relays, especially the 4x400m.

     The water jump of the 3,000m steeplechase is cleared by runners for another lap.

Swimming

Although it may be dismissed – “swimming is not a sport, it’s a way of not drowning” – swimming is very much the second Olympic sport. It may not be the most spectator friendly sport around but it will undoubtedly be the highlight of the games’ opening week. On top of this place American Michael Phelps on going quest to emulate Mark Spitz’s 7 golds and immediately you have a recipe for  a piece of history you can watch from your front room.

A chance to watch history as Michael Phelps goes for 7 gold medals. And his name on his hat is the best chance you have of ID-ing him mid-race, unless you'd recognise his back, shoulders and rear end from the top row of the arena.

Track Cycling

It’s sad yes, but I have a soft sport for the madness that is Olympic cycling. Take away the relatively restrained events – the pursuits, time trials and sprints and your left with three events – the points race, keirin and Madison that have to be seen to be believed. The points race – 20+ cyclists and 160 laps  with points being awarded for leading laps and lapping the rest of field. Madness. The Madison teams of two cyclists and 200 laps in a relay format. Actually scratch that “ relay” doesn’t do it justice. One rider grabs the other by the forearm and slings him forward in the least safe Olympic event ever, frequently with results that will have you referencing Talladega NASCAR wrecks for comparison. And now the pinnacle of insanity – the Keirin. In the most bizarre start of any event riders follow a moped to a pre arranged speed for a handful of laps before racing for 2km in an event that often has more disqualifications than finishers. If these descriptions don’t take your fancy then I haven’t done well enough, but you should still watch them.

                       The Keirin - what the Japanese invented when they were drunk

I’m sure you all have your favourite events and the reasons for them, and could (and feel free to) make passioned claims for them, but those are mine.

With any luck I can keep up with events as they happen in Beijing and keep updating here.

The FA Cup is the thing of legend. It's the sort of thing that tends not to exist in mainstream North American sport, it throws up games the like of which are not seen in many other sporting competitions. Games where internationally renouned players, playing for clubs with millions of pounds (or should that be dollars) in the bank, and fans in every time zone in the world, are pitted against teams playing in grounds where only a few thousand people can attend, with players who rather than owning massive houses, several cars and a private helicopter, have to go to work like you and I, being anything from a PE teacher to a dustbinman.

One of those massive clubs is Liverpool, owned (at the moment at least) by US duo Tom Hicks and George Gillett, home to international stars Ryan Babel (Holland), Fernando Torres (Spain) and Steven Gerrard (England). They've won 5 European Cups and the FA Cup seven time

One of the minnow clubs are Havant & Waterlooville. Havent & Water-who-ville I hear you say. Well, I don't blame you, they currently lie 123 league places below Liverpool, playing their regular league games in the 'Blue Sqaure League - South'. They are home to such renouned talents as Jamie Collins (School Football Coach) and Tony Taggert (Dustbinman)

And yet for one day, these polar opposites of sport will be put on a level playing field (it's being played at Liverpool's home ground, as undoubtedy Havent's is on a slope as all non-league grounds are required to by law).

It took only a few minutes for the first goal to go in. And I bet you can't guess who it was to. Havent & Waterlooville. Yep, that's not a typo. Richard Pacquette (no news on his occupation) scored after 8 minutes. Don't worry I had to check as well. But it didn't last long, Lukas scored to make it 1-1, but then it happened again, as Havent made Liverpool look like the underdogs as they took advantage of 'hapless', to quote the BBC website, defending, the dream day was back on. Then off again,as Israeli international Yossi Benayoun made it 2-2.

Liverpool were booed off at half time and it was time for Reds' manager Rafa Benitez to earn his paycheck, presumably turning red with the amount of screaming involved. And what ever shade of puce he managed obviously worked as (unfortunately) Liverpool can out looking like they were really better, scoring 3 goals in the second half through Benayoun, who completed his hatrick, and Peter Crouch.

After the match Havent were rightly saluted, applauded and every Liverpool player gave a Havent player an incredible souvenier - their shirt. And even though they lost they still smiled like they'd won.

Yes, it was a dissapointment that Havent didn't perform the biggest Cup shock of all time, or at least of recent years. But I'm not really sure that matters. for a combined about 40 minutes binmen, plasterers and teachers were the talk of a sporting nation. People who don't support Liverpool, or Havent, in fact people who don't even know where Havent is were watching this game like their lives depended on it. The FA Cup remains a gigantic draw in the world of football. Cup matches are often where the spirit of football is seen, they are often the most exciting matches of a season. The 'romance', the 'drama' and 'magic' of it may or may not exist, but it breeds the sort of matches that will remain on archive reels for decades. I don't care how 'almost' this match was, it will still be spoken about for years to come.

WARNING: This is serious, verging on politics and foriegn policy. But I feel it needed saying. Although the title specify motorsport, this subject covers every sport.

The 2008 Lisbon-Dakar Rally, traditionally run at this time of year annually has been cancelled amid safety fears.

On Christmas Eve 4 French tourists were murdered in the African nation of Mauritania, where 8 of the rally's 15 stages pass through, and further threats have been made directly to the rally and it's participants.

There was, perhaps, no way of avoiding cancelling it, even at this eleventh hour. The logistics of the rally are mind-boggling - stages hundreds of miles long, where cars, bikes and trucks spend hours in isolation, in inhospitable terrain. Any possibility of increasing security would be similarly mind-boggling. Yes, helicopters are frequently used to track competitors, as well as for TV purposes, but these are as likely to be targets as anything else, and to physically man the route, well, the number of people would be huge.

Many may say that cancelling the Dakar is "letting the terrorists win", in a way it is. The cancellation has undoubtedly cost millions. The teams, who were ready in Lisbon, have wasted development, the driver and riders, a fair chunk of who are privateers, running the race out of their own wallet have wasted time (and money). The nations the rally was due to go through have lost out in the exposure they get, and the money brought into their economies. But where does general good, that done to the countries involved, become more important that any safety concerns.

But what does this, admittedly obscure event have to do with the state of sport in general.

This is not the first time that politics, especially terrorism, has come into conflict with sport. After 9/11 (by all means correct me if I am wrong) the opening season of the NFL was put back a week, and the Ryder Cup golf tournament was postponed, as it was meant to go ahead only weeks after the attack.

The problem at the heart of it is this. Should sporting occasions have something of the "Blitz Spirit" about them, that they will go ahead to show any agressor that we will carry on, indeed as a celebration, for example turning the Ryder Cup into an exhibition event, with Americans and Europeans playing together, rather than against each other. Or do we allow them to change what we do, ensuring security, but giving in.

I understand that with this issue there may be the fact that events are cancelled out of respect for the dead. This happened very recently when several cottish soccer matches were cancelled after Motherwell Captain Phil O'Donnell collapsed on the pitch last week, and died shortly afterwards. Would this man have wanted the sport he loved to stop for him, or would he like the fans of the sport and the teams, and the players themselves to do what they enjoy. What he enjoyed.

WARNING: Again, no NASCAR, more funny shaped balls

OK, well here goes.

First off congratulation to South Africa, even as the most biased England fan alive, I would have had a nagging doubt, had England retained the cup that the bet team in the world actually weren't the world champions.

The game was better than many, possibly I had feared as the red & whites kept the Springboks within reach right up till the end, providing the right amount of drama for the neutral. There was no repeat of the South African try fest that swamped England 36-0 in the group stages.

Right now, why we lost. We lost because we relied on Jonny. He got two penalties yes, but our seeming game plan was to try and get it back to him for and endles array of drop goals. Which never came. He missed two. And as I predicted in my preview there were none of the glaring errors which helped the English team past France, and no tries therefore. But England did make mistakes, the most glaring and perhaps stupid was a trip on a South African player as he ran through to chase his own kick. This gifted them three points, which at the time, moved them ahead of us in a game that was always going to be about staying within a score of two. There were more times when the English team could have been punished, such as when they continued to slow the South African attack down when they seemed sure to score.

But this rule breaking was not totally one sided. There were several times when the Springboks could have been penalised for offences, offside, obstruction. Not serious but an extra 6 or 9 points from penalties could have made all the difference.

Then we come to the big one. THAT WAS A TRY!! It's beyond me what the guy in the TMO booth saw to disallow it. English TV showed it from every concievable angle and everyone that was in any way useful showed the ball was down before any of the player was touching the ground and in play. It turned out that the chance came from only major attacking flash of brilliance from the English team, perhaps the best from either team. Again to put it into context an unconverted try would have made the score 8-9 to SA, with a conversion England would have been leading by one.

It was sad to see Jason Robinson, who has probably embodied English Rugby for the last four years, not only fail to win the cup, to being forced to hobble off before his time. Indeed England chances probably disappeared when the Elder Statesmen started to fold. Jason Robinson, Lewis Moody, Mike Catt, who outshone Wilkinson's kicking game all went off injured.

We never deserved to be there, so we can take some pride from that, and the best team of the tournament won the Cup.

As an overview this tournament has been one of the greats. Suprise results from the off when Argentina beat France, underdogs going far further than they should, knocking out 'proper' rugby nations - Ireland, Wales. The favourites failing in the knock-out stages - Australia, New Zealand. And a deservingly good game to finish it all off.

Is it cliche to say the biggest winner was rugby?

WARNING: Absolutely no NASCAR here, it's all about men without pads chasing an odd-shaped ball. Just putting it there as it's where most of my other posts have been. Normal NASCAR service will be resumed if there's something interesting going on in Martinsville.

There's something wonderful about the British pshyche, we can spend the best part of 4 years throwinf every insult in the book at our national sporting teams, yet they do well for 2 weeks and we suddenly forget everything.

That is exactly what's happening now, the flags have started to appear clipped to the top of car windows and flags have been seen draped across windows. It's the Rugby World Cup final, and somehow England are in it, for better or worse.

Unfortunately it's against South Africa, a good team in any light, but more importantly the team that beat the English 36-0 when they faced each other in the tournament's group stages. A game I felt I had to turn off to avoid depression - it went beyond train wreck bad to well...something worse to watch than a train wreck. I can only imagine the South African players rubbing their eyes with disbelief when they saw who they were playing to be the best team on the planet.

Yet despite this evidence in favour of the Springboks walking all over us again a lot has happened in the rugby world in the last few weeks. The two favourites - New Zealand and Australia both lost in the last 8 stage, to France and England respectively, games the southern hemisphere sides never should have lost on paper. As well as this the South Africans, while obviously making it through games have not been peerless, conceding 20 points to comparative minnows Fiji and 13 to Argentina in the semis. All of this says one thing. Anything can happen.

What is obvious is that the Springboks are the favourites, and the way that England have got through the past two rounds will not work against them. We cannot rely on Jonny 'minorly a one-trick pony' Wilkinson to give us three points every 10 minutes or so. That will simply not be enough. But at the same time tries against the South Africans will be hard to come by. The only try England have scored in the knock-out stages came because of a French player's mistake - letting the ball bounce - it is mistakes like this that the South Africans won't make.

Another danger is that England have peaked too soon. No matter that the French played no where near as well as we know they can, the Englih team have already come through two mammoth games - physically and mentally, and now they have to do it again. The self proclaimed 'Grumpy old Men' in the English team do know one thing for sure. They really shouldn't be where they are, and only South Africa stand between them and a serious chunk of history - no team has ever retained the Rugby World Cup. 'Only South Africa' - see it doesn't sound so hard when you say it like that.

But it is hard. For crying out loud there's a South African who can outrun a greyhound or something (although quite how good a training regime this is remains to be seen, especially as we don't actually have any greyhounds on the English team). Even worse, Josh Lewsey, the man who scored England's try against France is injured, however, his probable replacement - Mark Cueto - is one of the few positives to come out of England's inter-world cup wilderness. As well as him we have a player who should be up for the challenge to say the least. Jason Robinson. He pulled a hamstring during the England-SA group game and at that point it looked like career over, as he's retiring from rugby after the championship, now he has a chance to go out on a monumental high.

Still, I can't see the trophy going to anyone but South Africa, it's just a case of what the score is. There is a danger, as in the group game that the Springboks will run away with it from the off. If that happens then it's game over. If, however, England can stay within, say 5 points, of South Africa up to half time, or even later, then we have a real chance of snatching it and elevating Jonny to National Demi-God.

WARNING: No NASCAR here, only cars without bumpers and drivers who don't view right-hand-turns as a novelty. Just exposing myself to the knowledgable motorsport fans here.

About 12 months ago we found out. That an untested rookie from Stevenage and the charismatic Spanish double world champion were going to driver for the previously fragile McLaren team, while the world's mot boring Finn was replacing the cheating German with a giant chin in the bulletproof Ferrari.

A year on and I don't think you'd have paid a psychic who said we'd be here, like this, let alone what we've been through to get here.

Welcome to the 2007 F1 title race.

In a season that's basically been a chore to watch, with only Canada, Germany and Japan offering anything that resembles anything that resembles excitement, the best action seems to have been between lawyers. While on track the two teams have been chasing each other like Cops and Robbers off track it's all been literally cops and robbers. Betwen leaked e-mails between Spaniards, high profile sackings on both sides, Italian police searching the McLaren garage at Monza and more disqualifications than you can shake an FIA branded stick at this season has been more about the pin-stripe suit, not the fire-proof suit.

Last race out in Shanghai, China Hamilton simply needed to finish ahead of Alonso and the title was his. From Hamilton's pole position this was easy, right? But then the rain started, then stopped, then started, then stopped. McLaren engineers failed to grasp that tyre wear down, which resulted in Lewis having an accident an SUV driving commuter would be embarrased about, let alone one of the world's elite drivers. Anyhoo amid fears he'd upset Fernie and the prohibited protest chin-fuzz would re-appear the McLaren principle stayed away from the big red Dastedly & Muttley alike 'Stop the Spaniard button.

All of which sets the drivers championship up like this.

1. Lewis Hamilton - McLaren - 107 pts

2. Fernando Alonso - McLaren - 103 pts

3. Kimi Raikonen - Ferrari - 100 pts

Now the final race is in Interlago, Brazil, a place known for changable weather, sizable crashes and interesting races. What makes it great for the season decider is it neither favours one team, nor the other. The longer wheelbase Ferrari suits the long straights and the sweeping corners, while the McLaren is suited to twisty back part of the track. All three of the drivers above have a chance of winning the title.

Raikonen has the most outside of chances, needing both cars ahead of him to finish poorly relative to where they've been running the rest of the season. But, if you want to import NASCAR-like conspiracie here, a Ferrari win would suit the FIA, and removing any doubt over whether McLaren's cheating won the title.

Alonso needs to beat Hamilton, which is difficult enough considering Lewis has proved to be a formidable qualifier in a sport where starting position is all important, as well as having to overcome the possibility of the 'S.T.S.' button actually existing. He also has something to prove. He's the double champion, he's been whining all year about how he's not the undisputed No. 1 in the team. Now is his chance to put the rookie in his place and show the skill we all know he has. Also this, if he is going to another team next year, probability he is, this is his chance to deliver the finger to the team that's #### him around all year.

Hamilton is in the box seat, leading by what equates to 2 positions. He's shown he will do anything to win, although he'll stop short of Schumi tactics (cf. Adelaide 94, Jerez '97, Monaco '06), but he will make his car very wide. He does lack expericence, as the feeder serie he's raced in before didn't include Brazil, so he's coming in blind, however, that hasn't stopped him yet this season.

What is clear is that F1 needs this last, title deciding race to be a blinder, for one reason or another. Otherwise this will be remembered a the cheating season, and not for anything on track. The fact that the FIA have assigned a few scrutineers just to make sure McLaren don't cheat, favouring one driver over another, shows they believe the same thing.

But, there are unkowns. Has Hamilton got the bottle for the final hurdle, will McLaren realise that tyres wear down, will Ron Dennis conspire to stop Fernie, will the FIA conspire to stop Ron, exactly how many rules will be broken and who will whinge about who.

Find out as the tried and tested rookie takes of the toys-from-pram-ejecting Spaniard in the bulletproof McLarens, against the world's most boring Finn in the fragile Ferrari in.....

Interlagos or Bust.