Sour Taste Of World Championship Could Become Sweet Revenge

By Shane Thomas

While a great deal of sport is devoted to its winners, sport is actually more about failure than success. The same way that every fairy-tale needs a dragon to be slain, sport's tales need a loser to be vanquished and leave the victor exalted.

And like fairy-tales, there is a demarcation as to who plays the role of winner and loser. Two weeks ago, we approached the World Athletics Championships in Daegu with a clear expectation of the men and women who would leave South Korea triumphant. But it turned out to be a championships where many of the sport's understudies decided that this was their time to grab the spotlight and leave track & field's more established names in the shade. The meet became a less duplicitous version of the wonderful Joseph Mankiewicz film, All About Eve.

The list of established favourites that failed to top the medal rostrum became the story of the championships; Usain Bolt, Jessica Ennis, Yelena Isinbayeva, Phillips Idowu, Allyson Felix, LaShawn Merritt all missed out on expected gold medals. The only marquee names who seemed to be unaffected were David Rudisha and Sally Pearson - whose performance in the 100 metres hurdles was arguably the star-turn of the championships.

The reasons for these relative surprises were varied. Idowu, Felix, Ennis & Merritt all performed well - normally well enough to win gold - but came up against a new generation of athletes who seized their moment. Isinbayeva looked ring rusty after taking time away from the sport, with Daegu coming too soon for the Russian. And Bolt... well, enough has already been written about his false start in the 100 metres.

But this needs not be a portent of the established powers being swept away by a new breed of runners, jumpers and throwers, as these World Championships will matter little in a year's time. The countdown to the 2012 Olympics has truly begun, and for the competing athletes, every moment of the next 12 months will go towards ensuring that they arrive in London at the very peak of physical conditioning. While winning a World Championship can make one a national hero, winning an Olympic title makes one a legend.

Coming up short in Daegu only brings London into sharper focus. And the pain of failure could end up as a crucial part of a redemptive summer next year. All these aforementioned athletes are champion performers, and it's not in their nature to settle for second best. We've seen the likes of Bolt and Ennis be dominant on the track. It'll be fascinating to see what happens when their mood changes from supreme to angry.

Daegu 2011 will have left a sour taste in the mouth for some. Which could make London 2012 the place to witness their sweetest revenge.




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The Future Arrives As Bolt Faces Reality Check

By Shane Thomas

The men's 100 metres final has come and gone at the World Athletics Championships, and as you can see in the photo above, Usain Bolt isn't the one who's celebrating.

So what happened? Ever since his remarkable showing at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, Bolt has been the sprint king. Whether the 100 metres or 200 metres, the Jamaican has wiped the floor with his competition and raised the bar of what people thought was possible in sprinting. Now Bolt hasn't had a particularly good build-up to these championships; he's missed Diamond League events with injury problems, and was beaten early in the season by the American, Tyson Gay - who seemed to be destined for a career as the perennial nearly man.

But Gay was absent from these championships, and Bolt's countryman, Asafa Powell also missed out on running in Daegu, due to a groin problem. Powell has run the fastest 100 metre time of 2011 so far, but with him and Gay gone, it seemed that all potential roadblocks had been removed. The path was clear for Bolt to retain his world title, and thrill the South Korean crowd with another potentially supersonic and effervescent display.

Watching Usain Bolt is an occasion in itself, and I made sure that I was awake on Sunday morning to watch him in action. Listening to the television commentary, they had already ordained Bolt as the winner. As far as they - and most of the press corps were concerned - the script has been written in advance. This was another chapter in the stellar career of Bolt. We had our king, let him go and claim his crown.

One shouldn't be too harsh on the media for this prognostication. Bolt has redefined the boundaries of what is possible in track sprinting, and while some has questioned his state of readiness in the lead-up to the championships, those doubts seemed to be allayed in the qualification rounds as Bolt stormed through to the final with absolute ease. Not only was the man with the reputation, but - once again - he was the man in form.

As the runners lined up in their respective lanes, Bolt was at his most ostentatious. As his name was announced to the crowd, the camera pulled up alongside him. Never one to miss out on an opportunity to grab the spotlight, he pointed to the runner on his left, and then to the one on his right, before dismissively shaking his head. It should be stated that Bolt never means any disrespect with such behaviour. It irritates some, but it has become all a part of the package with Bolt, and it entertains a lot more people than it annoys. The preamble was over, the runners set themselves in their blocks, and then...

Off went Bolt. The only problem was that the gun hadn't. The Jamaican false-started. The rules on this are clear. One false-start and you are automatically disqualified. No-one knew this better than Bolt as he roared & tore off his vest in pure frustration, the defence of his world title over. The disbelief on Bolt's face was matched by the reaction of the crowd. Athletics' marquee name left the track in ignominy.

Now many have said that this has shown the folly of the "one false-start and you're out rule". A year ago Tyson Gay said, "If Usain Bolt false started it would be a wake-up call. If it happened at the World Championships or Olympics, the result is going to need an asterisk by its side. Without him, it wouldn’t make sense."

That may be so, but misses the point altogether. Rightly or wrongly, these are the rules that are in place. And it is a proviso that has existed in swimming for decades with negligible criticism from the punditocracy. The reason that this has now become a story is because it happened to Bolt, who had been hitherto untouchable. I once wrote on this blog that every now & then, sport produces a person who bestrides their event like a god, making it all the more implausible when they are shown to be a mere mortal.

With Bolt gone, the race was down to seven mere mortals. The god was no more, leaving the field clear for an opportunist. And it was Bolt's fellow Jamaican, Yohan Blake who seized his opportunity.

Blake is Bolt's friend and training partner, and has been dubbed by the Olympic Champion as, "the future". He is only 21, and is the youngest man to run the 100 metres in under 10 seconds. Blake showed on Sunday that not only has he the talent, but the strength of character to not be distracted by his friend's disqualification. Rather than live up to his moniker, Blake has arrived on the big stage. In the end, it was a comfortable win, as he ran the only sub-10 second time in the race.

Bolt will be back to defend his title in the 200 metres, and in the post-race interviews Blake predicted that Bolt will be "angry", when he returns to the track in South Korea. We've seen Bolt beatific, but what will he be like enraged?

Either way, it'll be must-see television. Part of me thinks that this makes the story of Bolt all the more compelling. Many find serial winners boring, but this adds a delicious layer of drama to the 100 meters at the Olympics next summer. We thought that London 2012 would be Bolt's coronation. Now it could be his redemption.


Don't forget to download 'The Greatest Events in Sporting History' from www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH

Wigan Get Benefit Of The Doubt

By Jonathan Wilkinson

I must have re-written this blog post in my head about 4 times yesterday during Leeds Rhinos defeat to Wigan in the Challenge Cup Final at Wembley.

After about 25 minutes this post was shaping up to be all about how Leeds had failed to turn up for the second year in a row, and were brushed aside in another embarrassing display as Wigan raced to a 16-0 lead. Leeds were making unforced errors, missing tackles, and failing to stop Wigan's offloads. We were lucky to be only 16-0 down, as a tide of Cherry & White shirts stormed forward, including a length of the field try involving the Tomkins' brothers.

Leeds then began to play and grabbed 2 tries before the end of the half; all of a sudden I was starting to write something about restoring pride, going down fighting, and showing that we were not the whipping boys the press so desperately wanted us to be so they could write pieces about their "darling" Sam Tomkins.

The first try of the second half was going to be all important and we got it. All of a sudden, something that seemed impossible just 20 minutes ago was looking possible; we could win this game,  as we were just 2 points behind and clearly in charge of the game. Wigan were in shock, they were on the ropes. Fortunately for them the ref decided to give them a hand by making a string of errors that would ultimately decide the game.

Now this brings us to the 3rd post I wrote, the one I wrote about 10 seconds after Ganson decided that Wigan had won the game by giving them the benefit of the doubt. That post would have been entitled, "Refs screw the Rhinos, the cheating BASTARDS!" Now let me briefly explain that the benefit of the doubt in any video ref decision in rugby league goes for the attacking team, which means if the video ref cannot decide if a player grounded the ball or not, he will award the try, which in itself is a highly flawed rule; that a game can be taken away from a team because a ref is unsure. So when this flashed up on the screen to give Wigan the game, it angered me, basically we had lost the game because a coward was unsure, and didn't want to make a call, despite the fact that the ball was in full view on the camera. I would have much more respect if he had just put try up on the screen, I would have felt robbed still, as it was clear to me - as a unbiased Leeds fan of course - that it wasn't a try.

However, I agree it was a tough call. But Phil Bentham can not use the same excuse for the string of errors he made that swung the game towards Wigan. Here is a list:

1. At the end of the first half, he failed to sin-bin a Wigan player for a cheap high shot on Bishop, after he had chipped ahead.

2. More crucially, he missed a forward pass that led to Wigan's first try in the second half. This is a recurring nightmare for Leeds, as it was a try from a forward pass that had handed victory to Wigan at the DW stadium earlier in the season.

3. He somehow gave Wigan head and feed at the scrum that lead to Wigan's last try. The ball had clearly hit the Wigan player before going into touch. Bentham could have even gone to the screen to learn how to restart the game. Instead he happily handed Wigan the ball.

This leads me to the last post, the one I'm writing now. The truth lies somewhere in between all of the above. Before the game we would have taken the final score, we had been told by everybody in the press that Wigan would win by at least 20 points. And after going 16-0 down, they were getting ready to write that story. Instead we got a great game of rugby, where the result was in doubt right till the last 3 minutes. We also got the rough end of all the key decisions by the ref but at the end of the day you cannot gift any team a 16-0 lead and expect to win. Sure we were robbed but ultimately not by the refs, but by ourselves. If we had played the full 80 minutes we would have won the game. If the ref had made the right calls, we might have won. That's the difference.

Don't forget to download 'The Greatest Events in Sporting History' from www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH

Honouring Pat Summit - Guest Post From Ro Karen

This is the kind of guest post that I never would have expected to have on this blog. My Simply Syndicated podcasting stable-mate, Karen, is more likely to be wax poetic on genre fiction than sport, but the following story shows that the human endeavour inherent in sport can positively affect all of us, not just those with subscriptions to Sky Sports or ESPN. So without further ado, here are Karen's thoughts on Coach Pat Summit...

"You Don't Know What I'm Capable Of"

- Pat Summit

I know a little bit about what she’s capable of. She’s been the head coach of the University of Tennessee’s Lady Vols since 1974. During this time, her coaching skills have brought UT 1,037 victories; her teams have only been defeated 196 times. She’s led the Lady Vols to the Final Four 18 times - more times than any other men’s or women’s college basketball coach — winning the championship 8 eight times. She coached the U.S. women’s basketball team to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics, which was one notch better than the silver medal she won as a member of the team during the 1976 Olympics. Many of her girls have gone on to walk in her footsteps as coaches in their own right. Some have carried her lessons inside them through their own trips to Olympic victories. Some continue to wield the skills she helped them hone, onto WNBA courts across the country. More important than any of this, every one of the eligible athletes who played for her went on to graduate with a degree. She’s made certain of that.

And these are just the “big” stats. There’s lots more to her beyond what I carry around in my weird noggin.

I’m not much for sports or stats. But Pat Summitt has always amazed, inspired, and humbled me. She is a remarkable role model and, pardon my feminist streak for a moment, if she was a man in charge of a men’s college or NBA team, with the same set of stats that I just quoted, her name would be synonymous with the game itself, on the lips of every basketball fan from the Bay of Fundy to the Gulf of California.

Regardless of this lack of deserved ubiquity, the facts cannot be disputed. Summitt holds the record for the most wins of any college basketball coach, man or woman. She’s brought home more NCAA championships than any other women’s basketball coach. She was part of the inaugural inductees to the women’s basketball hall of fame, she’s also in the basketball hall of fame, she’s received the ESPY award for coach of the year, she’s got roads, gyms, and courts named after her…

…and now she’s announced that she has the early stages of Alzheimer’s. She’s 59 years old.

My heart hasn’t stopped breaking ever since I first heard this news.

I know what this disease is capable of. I know how cruel, how unrelenting, how unmerciful it is. How it can rob the grace and intelligence of even the strongest wills. I’ve also already had my heart broken once before, with North Carolina State’s Coach Jimmy Valvano. I hate to link Valvano and Summitt, since I think that Summitt has many, many more years ahead of her…perhaps even enough time that doctors will finally find the key to stopping or slowing this disease. I only mention Valvano here because of one of his most memorable quotes: “Don’t give up…don’t ever give up!”

I hope Coach Summitt fights this with every ounce of the resolve that she carries in ample supply. I hope she never gives up. And I hope that every girl who has donned the orange of the Lady Vols, who has been pushed to their limits and beyond, who has been brought to tears and finally to triumph, and who has left the University of Tennessee that much more remarkable as an athlete and as a woman never forgets that it was Summitt’s fire that helped to forge them.


Don't forget to download 'The Greatest Events in Sporting History' from www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH

This post can also be read on Karen's blog at - http://lobablanca.com/blog09/2011/08/25/you-don’t-know-what-im-capable-of/

Karen can also be heard regularly on the genre fiction podcast, Starbase 66, available at - http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/starbase66/

World Championships Look Short Of Stardust

By Shane Thomas

The World Athletics Championships begin in South Korea tomorrow, but you'd be forgiven for having no idea about it. The London Olympics is drawing ever closer, and the hype has become a millstone around the neck of the World Championships. While the pinnacle of track & field is undoubtedly the Olympics, I look on with sadness at the decreased relevance of an event that at one stage was one of the biggest occasions in the sporting calendar. It's a meet where Mike Powell broke Bob Beamon's world record in the long jump, where Sergei Bubka won 6 gold medals in a row, and a place that bore witness to the incredible consistency of Merlene Ottey. The standard of competition was generally equivalent to the Olympics. Had it not been a biannual event, you could make a case for the World Championships being just as significant as its more celebrated sister.

I have fond memories of being glued to the television as a 9 year old, watching the World Championships in Stuttgart, as Linford Christie, Sally Gunnell & Colin Jackson all won gold medals for Great Britain - Jackson setting a world record in the 110 metres hurdles that would last for 13 years.

And it'd be remiss of me not to mention Jonathan Edwards taking the triple-jump to unfathomable heights in 1995, as well as Michael Johnson cementing his legacy as the greatest sprinter of his generation throughout the nineties and noughties (is "noughties" the correct term?).

But the relationship between the championships and the Olympics is no longer symbiotic. As the Olympics bubble inflates, the world championships looks to be punctured. Yesterday, Asafa Powell pulled out of the 100 metres with injury, joining Tyson Gay on the sidelines. With Usain Bolt below-par and looking distinctly beatable this season, the blue riband event of the meet has lost much of its sheen. Teddy Tamgho is also absent with injury, depriving us of a potentially enthralling battle between him and Phillips Idowu in the triple-jump.

While injuries are an unfortunate occurrence of the sport, you wonder how many absentees there would be if the Olympics weren't in a year's time. No-one wants to take the slightest risk of disrupting their preparations for London 2012, which has resulted in a distinct lack of star power in Daegu. It's understandable but also disheartening.

The one potential silver lining - for British fans at least - is Mo Farah. The long distance runner has been a revelation this season. His showed his ever improving quality when he won both the 5,000 and 10,000 metres at last year's European Championships. He then took the bold career decision to leave London, and relocate his family to Oregen to train under Alberto Salazar. This change has only made Farah an exponentially better runner; he has stormed past all-comers this year. Farah is no longer just a European force in the long-distance events, but now a world one. In an event that has been a fiefdom for African runners for generations, he goes to the South Korea with a genuine chance of beating the great Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele.

It's not that there won't be some world class track & field on display, but the must-see factor that athletics had after the Beijing Olympics seems to be conspicuous by its absence. Hopefully, I'm mistaken, but the sport desperately needs a memorable meet to keep the World Championships relevant. Otherwise, they'll end up like the Pan-American Games or the European Championships, and those occasions have the increasingly enervating feel of a school sports-day.


Don't forget to download 'The Greatest Events in Sporting History' from www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH

Murray Knocks A Brick Out Of The Wall

By Shane Thomas

With the final tennis major of the year taking place in four days time, Andy Murray had an ideal lead-in for the US Open by winning the Cincinnati Masters last weekend. The last time he won in Cincinnati, he reached the final at Flushing Meadows. But what is more encouraging is that he defeated World No. 1, Novak Djokovic to walk off with what is one of the most unusual trophies I've ever seen in sport (look at the picture at the top of this post to see what I mean).

In an era that contains both Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, many have overlooked the fact that in 2011, Djokovic has been the man. This has been his year, and then some.

After last year's US Open, I wrote about how Djokovic had shown discernible signs of maturity after losing in the final to Nadal. Leading Serbia to win their first ever Davis Cup at the tail-end of the season was a springboard to usurp the Spaniard at the top of the men's game. He won the first Grand Slam of the year at the Australian Open, battering & bullying Murray into submission, and hasn't looked back.

He went on one of the most astonishing unbeaten streaks in the history of the sport. He won his next 43 matches in succession, a record that was only one match short of Ivan Lendl's 44 match streak in 1981/82 and three short of Guillermo Vilas's 46 matches in 1977. From November 2010 to June 2011, Djokovic did not lose a single match.

As children, many future tennis players practice by repeatedly hitting a tennis ball against a wall. The repetition of this exercise aids concentration and technique. However, you never want to hit the ball too hard when doing this, as the harder you hit a ball off a wall, the faster it will come back to you.

Well, playing Djokovic is like playing against a wall. No matter how well you're playing, no matter what type of shot you hit, be it power, slice or spin, when you're up against Nole, that ball keeps on coming back. While Federer and Nadal have been at the top of the tree in men's tennis for the better part of a decade, if you were constructing a tennis player, he'd be like Djokovic. The Serb ticks every box; speed, endurance, athleticism, shot power and accuracy, and in the past year, he's added the intangible but pivotal qualities of belief, and a winning mentality to his armoury. The way he defeated Nadal in this year's Wimbledon final showed how the balance of power in the game has shifted towards Djokovic. At the time of writing his win/loss record is 57/2.

However, his achievements this year have been something of a double-edged sword. While the high standard of Nole's physical conditioning is without question, he has already played more matches than most players have in a season. He has repeatedly played less than 100% fit, but kept playing because he kept winning. He joked that he wouldn't mind losing a few matches to give him a chance to rest his ailing limbs.

Well last Sunday, the decision was made for him. He walked into the final against Murray with an injured shoulder, and Britain's No. 1 took full advantage, taking the first set 6-4, and taking Djokovic's game apart in the process. By the time Murray was 3-0 up in the second set, Djokovic made the pragmatic call to retire hurt. While it would have affronted his professional pride, it would have been folly to exacerbate an injury in a match that was as good as lost, especially with the US Open fast approaching. There are bigger, and more important battles to be fought.

Murray knows this as much as anyone. Winning Masters series events are nice, but tennis is all about the four Grand Slams. Any pundit worth their salt knows that Murray has the game to win in New York - indeed John McEnroe predicted at the start of 2010 that this year's US Open would be when Murray breaks his Grand Slam duck. There's no doubt that he likes the environs of Flushing Meadows, winning the boys' title as a 17 year old, and reaching the men's final back in 2008. Murray's game is best suited to hard courts, and while he will not be favourite to triumph next week, everyone knows that he is a genuine contender to lift the title in a little over two weeks time.

As for Djokovic, he remains to man to beat, but the first cracks have shown in a wall that had looked hitherto indestructible. There's no doubt that the exertions of this year are taking their toll, and how he fares will be dependent on him holding the foundations together for just a little longer.


Don't forget to download 'The Greatest Events in Sporting History' from www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/, e-mail us at sportshistoryshow@googlemail.com and you can follow us on Twitter @TGEISH

Episode 36 - 2008 Wimbledon Final (Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal)

Simply the greatest tennis match of all time. It may have only been three years ago, but Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal put on an exhibition of tennis that will last as long as sport is documented.

The Greatest Events In Sporting History' is available from http://www.simplysyndicated.com/shows/sportinghistory/