The dark truth behind the great spectacle
Lance Armstrong’s admission to doping earlier this week has opened up a grey area of sport that needs to be addressed – why are sports personnel so afraid to speak up if they know someone is cheating? Because that is what doping is, and there’s no two ways about it.
Former Great Britain road cyclist Nicole Cooke lambasted Armstrong earlier this week and made it clear she had no sympathy for him. She said that ‘when Lance “cries” on Oprah… spare a thought for all of those genuine people who walked away with no reward – just shattered dreams. Each one of them is worth a thousand Lances.’ Pretty strong words from the Olympic champion of 2008 who prides herself on being 100% ‘clean.’ Her retirement statement also included details of her finding ‘various bottles’ in the fridge at her team house during 1999 – being a young cyclist she felt she couldn’t do much because all of her team-mates were experienced professionals and she was just a novice, not even a professional yet. She took a stand and got rid of the drugs, yet it’s only now we are being told about it. And that is part of the problem – young athletes cannot report any form of cheating for fear of the older professionals ganging up on them, twisting the situation to make themselves look good and ruining the potential careers of the expendable youth. Cooke also shed some facts on Genevieve Jeanson, one of the greatest female cyclists of all time who admitted to drug use since she was 16 not long ago, but couldn’t do it until Jeanson herself had admitted it for fear of other cyclists turning against her. It’s bullying and should not be tolerated in sport, yet it seems that unless something drastic changes whistleblowers will only be those who already have solid careers, those who have respect and aren’t likely to lose anything as a result.
But even in these circumstances telling the truth can be just as difficult. Former Essex County Cricket Club bowler Tony Palladino was the man who told on Mervyn Westfield and Danish Kaneria for spot-fixing a one-day cricket game in 2009. But he didn’t report it for six months after the game because he ‘didn’t actually know what to do. We’d never had any training for that.’ Cheating has been rife in sport throughout many years, yet the players still don’t know how to report it. It was only when the Players’ Cricket Association gave him and his team-mates a talk saying that they had to report any instance of cheating because if they don’t they can be ‘liable as well’ that Palladino admitted what he knew. And in doing so he opened himself to a really difficult time at Essex before effectively being forced out. He did the right thing, he told the truth and kept the game respectable, yet he was the one who suffered for it. And it was the supporters who gave him the most stick: ‘I’ve had mostly positive stuff come back but quite a bit of negative stuff as well – not so much within the game but from supporters. Sometimes people didn’t 100 per cent believe me.’ Why is it us fans feel the need to defend those who have clearly done wrong? Fans of football teams are the worst, defending players who clearly cheat by diving and rolling around on the floor and then slating any other players who do it. We need to stop pressurising the athletes into thinking that they need to win in order to be loved and make them feel stupid when they cheat so they are deterred from it.
And it’s not only us fans and other professionals that stop professional sportsmen and women from having their say – it’s the National Governing Bodies and other groups based around the sports that also do it. Football again is a great example – how many players recently have been fined for airing their views on Twitter? Take Ashley Cole for example – he was fined £9000 for having a go at the FA for seemingly implicating him in the racism scandal with Mark Clattenburg at the back end of last year. While he didn’t exactly have his say in a very diplomatic way, he was punished for standing up for himself. And it seems that this is also a problem in cycling too, with Cooke suggesting that the ‘UCI have spent the past 10 years trying to defend the indefensible Armstrong position, with time wasting actions such as suing Paul Kimmage [journalist and former road racer who is strongly critical of drugs in the sport] for libel after Kimmage dared to bring their “good name” into disrepute.’ It seems that all NGBs want to do is show their sport off and attract more performers to make themselves more popular, and if that includes ignoring the fact that cheating is rife and silencing those who speak up then that is what they will do. Lance Armstrong’s interview on Friday certainly did nothing to dispel this argument. This has now led to us questioning anything we see that is an extraordinary act of sporting brilliance – is Andy Murray’s sudden rise to success drug enhanced? Is Michu on drugs, given the fact he was no-one before he came over here in the summer? What about Michael Schumacher in his prime? He must have been on drugs…
By coming clean Lance Armstrong has made everyone aware of just how much of an issue cheating is. It isn’t just a one-off thing that is hidden alongside lies and deceit, it is also clear to see on TV at times too. And yet when someone tries to speak up about it they are hounded, ridiculed and abused because no-one wants to believe that their sport is tainted. It’s unfair; it’s unjust; it’s just not cricket.
The year the man became a legend
2012 saw the emergence of Andy Murray as one of the true contenders in the world of tennis. He shrugged off the image that many British sportsmen and women seem to acquire of being ‘chokers’ in the big matches and proved many, many people wrong.
At the start of the year many British tennis fans weren’t keen on Murray, the man who never showed any emotion and classed himself as Scottish rather than British. There were even those who wanted him to lose in the Wimbledon final to Roger Federer. Unwittingly, this loss is what led Murray to becoming the dominant and much-loved player he now is. It spurred him on to prove to that he should be recognised amongst the greats of the game.
The year started solidly for Murray, winning the Brisbane International, his 22nd career title, to set himself up for the Australian Open. He played well throughout the tournament, but was unable to stop the rampant Novak Djokovic in the semi-final despite his best efforts. The rise of Djokovic to the top of the men’s game was another setback for Andy Murray – not only did he have to overcome Nadal and Federer in order to win titles, he now also had the Serb ahead of him. At this point it looked as though Murray may never win a Grand Slam with such fierce competition ahead of him in what many called the greatest tennis era of all time.
The defeat certainly looked to have had an effect on the Scot as he drastically lost form in the run-up to Wimbledon, failing to reach the semi-finals in any of the 4 major tournaments he played after and being knocked out by David Ferrer in the quarters of the French Open at Roland Garros. Questions were now being asked of Murray – would he ever win a Grand Slam? Was he good enough to win one in the first place? Is his mum holding him back? What about his temperament? But, although he didn’t win Wimbledon, his performances answered all these questions in a way we would never have expected.
His troubles, however, started even before the tournament began with him having to have an injection to help cure the back spasms that caused him so much pain in France. His start to the tournament was hard, having to come through 4-setters in both the second round and third round with no real fluency to his game, but it showed that Murray was prepared to slog it out to succeed. Indeed, his match against Marcos Baghdatis didn’t finish until 23:02, the latest a match has ever finished at Wimbledon. He then found his rhythm to force his way past Marin Cilic and Ferrer before out-classing Jo-Wilfried Tsonga in the semis. He had already proved a large majority of his doubters wrong and was the first Brit to reach the final of Wimbledon since 1938, but could he go that one step further and win? Ultimately it wasn’t to be as Federer was just too good on the day, but his emotional interview after the match was yet another moment that made the critics re-evaluate their views. In the space of 1 tournament he had gone from being a ‘Scot with no emotions’ to being the sweetheart of the British public.
The timing of the Olympics was just perfect for Murray – it meant he had a stage to prove that the nation’s newfound love for him was deserved. Winning a gold medal on home-turf for Great Britain would have been the ultimate silencer for any remaining sceptics, and he didn’t just win – he outclassed everyone. He dropped 1 set throughout the whole of the Men’s Singles and obliterated Federer in the final. It was poetic justice for a man so unfairly disliked for so much of his playing career.
But still Murray was yet to win a Grand Slam with only the US Open left in the current season. Everything looked to be in his favour though – Nadal was injured, Djokovic was no longer at his imperious best and he knew he had the beating of Federer. Yet again his ascent through the competition wasn’t easy, having to overcome tough games against Feliciano Lopez, Cilic and Tomas Berdych. But these victories proved again he had the stomach for the fight and this finally came to fruition in the final, with a fantastically determined 5-set win against Djokovic. He finally had his first Slam, and boy did he deserve it.
2013 is full of promise for Murray – he now has the opportunity to create history at the upcoming Australian Open by becoming the first man to win his first 2 majors back-to-back and, with Nadal still crocked and Federer not getting any younger, the prospects for at least 1 more Open title this year look very promising. Watch this space, he’s not done yet!
Andy Murray, the man who not only fought tooth-and-nail for success, but to win the hearts of the nation. And he did it in style.
Forget 1981, 2005 and 2010/11 – 2013 is going to be the best yet
Over the years there have been some truly amazing and career-defining Ashes series – from Botham’s Ashes at the start of the ‘80s to England’s first win Down Under for 24 years, England v Australia is a rivalry that sets a precedent for world cricket. However, I think that the 2013 series over here may just eclipse that, and here are the 4 reasons why I think this.
1. Revenge
Beating the Aussies is one thing, defeating them on their own turf another, but publically humiliating them in their own backyard… That’s just crossing the line! The Australian public were so outraged at their team’s shambolic display two years ago that they even went so far as to praise England (I know, I couldn’t believe it either!). Add to that the fact that they have lost 3 of the previous 4 Ashes contests and the boys from Down Under are going to be fully pumped up to atone for this next summer. Expect fire, tantrums, gamesmanship and a display of Bush Culture never seen before on these shores from the wounded beast in order to regain what they feel is rightfully theirs.
2. The battle of the quickies
Earlier this summer, Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander proved that you don’t have to hurt batsmen in order to get wickets on our shores and, with these two rivals boasting some of the greatest seamers in the world at the time of speaking, I feel that success is going to be all down to can bowl the most consistently. For England, James Anderson has proved that he should be recognised amongst the greats, including Steyn himself, after some masterful performances with the ball both in and out of his favoured conditions. In Australia, where the ball isn’t supposed to swing much, he was by far the best bowler in the series with 24 wickets, 7 ahead of anyone else, while in the recent tour of India he bagged 12 wickets, 8 more than any other seam bowler. He leads the attack with authority and skill and should be feared by all Aussies.
England boasts a fantastic stock of seamers to play alongside Anderson but there is one fundamental problem – they all have horrible injury records. Stuart Broad has been hampered by niggles over the last 2/3 years and this has caused him to drastically lose form, while Tim Bresnan has been nowhere near the bowler he was since his elbow operation a few months back. Steve Finn is looking every inch a top-class international seamer but his body is also starting to fail him, while both Chris Tremlett and Graham Onions both have serious back injuries to thank for stalling promising England careers. For England to win the series at least two of these bowlers have to be fighting fit and near, if not at, the top of their game.
Meanwhile, Australia’s quota of fast bowlers has risen from not enough to far too many since the end of that horror show 2 years ago. Alongside the veterans of Peter Siddle, Mitch Johnson and Ben Hilfenhaus are the wily John Hastings and youngsters Pat Cummins, James Pattinson, Mitch Starc, Trent Copeland and Jackson Bird, who impressed on debut against Sri Lanka just the other day. Like England, they are also struggling with the battle to stay fit but any one of these bowlers can turn a game on its head. Personally, I think Starc is the one to watch – he had a successful period over here last summer with Yorkshire so will know the conditions well and destroyed the South Africans with his pace and tenacity just a couple of months ago. Provided he can stay off the physio table long enough, he may just be the breakthrough act of 2013.
3. ‘My gloves are nicer than yours…’
With wicketkeeper-batsmen coming back into fashion I think the battle between Matt Prior and Matthew Wade will be a fascinating one come next summer. Prior has firmly established himself as one of the greatest ‘keeper-batsmen of the modern era, not far behind the legendary Kumar Sangakkara, after a slightly shaky start to his England career. He has undoubtedly been the country’s most consistent performer on the sub-continent in the last 2 years, shining against Sri Lanka, Pakistan and India, and his ability behind the stumps is unrivalled by anyone else. He has the ability to take amazing one-handed diving catches, score at a run-a-ball and even stick it out and play the long game if necessary and he has been vital to England’s success in recent years.
Wade, however, is a relative newcomer to international cricket. Having played just 8 tests at the time of speaking he has much to learn in international cricket but his statistics firmly show that he is a talented man. A batting average of 36.27 with two fifties and a maiden Test hundred coming against a tough South African attack is a solid foundation to build on, while he has also snared 25 catches and 2 stumpings with the gloves. But it is his inconsistency that means he is not guaranteed a place on the tour here next year. With the bat he will either get out for under 15 or over 65, while with behind the stumps he sometimes misses regulation chances yet can then follow that up with the most spectacular diving catches, including the one-handed special to dismiss Sangakkara during the Boxing Day Test. If he can use the rest of the Sri Lankan series to cement his place in the Test side then expect a strong fight from the small Tasmanian next summer.
4. Captains Marvellous
They have reinvented themselves as players after periods of horrific form during which they were almost dropped and are now two of the greatest batsmen in the world, as well as captains of their countries. In fact, the stories for both Alastair Cook and Michael Clarke are highly similar. Both burst onto the Test scene at a young age before their faults were discovered and exploited by ruthless opposition bowlers. Cook, however, is a man who has kept himself to himself over the years, grafting away at his game silently while certain other players take the headlines. He is loved by the entire nation for his hard work and dedication, but Clarke has a slightly different image in his homeland. He was a bit of a lad, if you see what I mean, and liked to party and get in the news. He had a model girlfriend and numerous spats with teammates and the Aussie cricket board. He was a talented troublemaker (remind you of someone else?) who almost became the pantomime villain of Australian cricket. The decision to appoint him as Ricky Ponting’s successor was not initially taken well by the public, but those feelings of resentment are long gone.
A whitewash of India started the year nicely for Clarke before a resounding 2-0 win against the West Indies followed. The 3-match Test series against was full of astonishing and exciting cricket, with Australia narrowly losing 1-0, before two obliterations of Sri Lanka in the last few weeks. Couple that with 4 double centuries in 2012, including 2 against South Africa, and becoming his country’s highest run scorer in a calendar year with 1595 runs in just 18 innings and, helped by a change in personality, he is now absolutely adored by the nation.
These are the men who will make the key differences next summer. They are the ones who are going to have to lead from the front, use what they have at their disposal to the best affect and create plans to get each other out. One thing is for certain – the 2013 Ashes series is going to be enthralling!
Wrong man, wrong job
He won the Champions League in his first season as manager of a new club, an FA Cup… a Community Shield and the European Super Cup and now it has been decided that former Liverpool manager Rafa Benitez is the man to guide Chelsea back to their ‘former glory days’ after the sacking of Roberto Di Matteo after the ‘Blues’ won just 1 of 5 games in November. That’s a bit ridiculous isn’t it – just 6 months ago the club was celebrating winning Europe’s most prestigious domestic title as well as the greatest cup competition in the world under the guidance of Di Matteo, yet owner Roman Abramovich suddenly felt that the Italian wasn’t the man for the job just because they hadn’t guaranteed their place in the next round of the Champions League and were only third in the Premier League. The sacking was a bizarre and unpopular decision but the appointment of Benitez was incomprehensible. The Russian billionaire must have been extremely drunk on some of his country’s famous vodka while making these decisions!
Just 5 years ago Benitez said he would never manage Chelsea because of his respect for Liverpool and yet now he couldn’t wait to take the job. Football managers are almost as hypocritical as politicians aren’t they! However it seems as though the only reason he has gone to manage Chelsea is to hang out with their rather large Spanish contingent as there aren’t many in the north west at the moment. Fernando Torres, Juan Mata, Cesar Azpilicueta and Oriel Romeu are all citizens of the greatest international football team at the time of writing and this must have been the major influence for the 52 year-old’s decision to take up the reins at Stamford Bridge. When he was manager of ‘The Reds,’ Benitez was the man who brought Torres over to this country and immediately made him a favourite of the Kopites, but his departure Anfield coincided with his fellow Spaniard’s form going down the drain and his injury count rising rather rapidly. Torres has not been the same player since and one of the conspiracies behind Benitez’s appointment is the hope that he can get the striker playing like he used to. But even Benitez seems to have written the striker off, saying that he may never be the player he was at Liverpool due to his lengthy list of problems – not something the fans or the owner wanted to hear!
If he thinks Torres will never be the same player again then it will be interesting to see what Benitez does in the forthcoming transfer window to address Chelsea’s striker shortage. His transfer policy at Liverpool was inconsistent to say the least – from 2004-2009 he bought 76 players and spent just under £230 million. This included the acquisition of now-Anfield favourites such as Torres, Dirk Kuyt, Xabi Alonso and Luis Garcia as well as current players Daniel Agger, Lucas, Glen Johnson, Pepe Reina and Martin Skrtel but he also invested in some absolute donkeys – £8 million was spent on Alberto Riera, £20 million on Alberto Acquilani and £19 million on Robbie Keane – while he also brought in players such as Andrea Dossena, Josemi, Charles Itjande and Nabile El Zhar who would do well to make it into teams in the EvoStik Southern Division nowadays. The fact is that Chelsea need a decent striker either to play alongside Torres or take his place in the team, which will hopefully give him a royal kick up the backside and force him to start actually trying again. At the moment Falcao is the player linked with the Blues and I think his acquisition will be hugely beneficial for them. With 22 goals for club and country already this season he seems the obvious affordable choice but the question is whether Benitez will feel it necessary to invest in him or try someone else who isn’t as good, or just someone Spanish with a cool name.
Another of Benitez’s favourite traits as Liverpool manager was to insult other managers for no apparent reason and declare a verbal war on them, with famous examples being Alex Ferguson and Arsene Wenger. This time around it is not other bosses he has been criticising but players currently playing – he has been in charge for less than 2 weeks and he has already told David Beckham he is ‘too slow’ to return to the Premiership and his whole team that they aren’t fit enough to win matches. He needs to calm down and focus on the job in hand rather than fight with people he will never win an argument with.
So, is Benitez the right man for the Chelsea job? I don’t really think I need to answer that one. The real question is who is and I feel there is only 1 answer. As a manager he has a 51.41% winning ratio as a manager, just 0.6% less than Benitez, has won a Champions League and an FA Cup and is a Blues legend. The man I feel should be in charge of Chelsea FC is… Roberto Di Matteo. He did nothing wrong when he was manager – everyone has bad patches, Sir Alex Ferguson would have been out of the Manchester United Job a long time ago if he was sacked due to a poor run of form – and won Chelsea their first ever European trophy and is loved by the fans. The Russian needs to get off his high horse, admit he is wrong and bring back the man with whom Blues fans have fallen in love with.
You should be dancing – it may just save your life
The ultimate farce
The unforgettable 2012 Olympics have given our nation an amazing legacy and also seem to have cured the problem (at least short-term) of a lack of youngesters participating in sport. The Games, however, have created a big dilemma – what on earth is going to happen with the stadium?
So far the suggestions have been it could host football, F1 or NFL, but everyone seems to have ignored what I think is the perfect solution – athletics! Why build a stadium with a running track and sandpits if you’re not going to use them? They say that this idea isn’t feasible but surely the greatest Games ever (not debatable) must have gone a fair way to paying it off… It should be used to host the British leg of the Diamond League every season instead of going up to Birmingham where all it does is rain. It could also play host to national championships and suchlike to give youngsters a feel of what they could be doing in the future. Also, there will be loads of people who will want to visit it having not got tickets and visit the place where Mo, Jess and Greg took us by storm so why change its purpose?
But we decide to ignore the simple solution with least hassle and try to fit a round peg in a square hole as us British not having the same normal brain structure as everyone else! Tottenham, Leyton Orient and West Ham are the football teams who have all bidded but their plans all have significant flaws! To start with, Spurs are based in an entirely different part of London so every home fixture will feel like an away game while Leyton Orient struggle to attract more than 2 fans so will bankrupt themselves and the nation! West Ham seem the best option because of the proximity but does their football deserve such a great arena?
Still, at least football is a relatively logical solution. Bernie Ecclestone finally seems to have lost it – he thinks London’s streets could play host to an F1 race with the stadium incorporated in it somewhere! That final part is so vague though – does he mean drive through the stadium itself or drive along a section of the circuit where drivers can see it for about a second? It would also mean having to close some of London’s roads, which really isn’t sensible as the they are already a nightmare (hence the Congestion Charge Bernie). By closing them all you are doing is turning more commuters into miserable and angry people. What I would like to see, though, is an F1 race with traffic still flowing through the circuit – now that would be entertainment!
And finally, even thinking about hosting NFL games in the stadium is an insult! How can a stadium that played host to some of the greatest sporting moments ever, where every athlete was participating for their nation, now be a home for a sport where nationality doesn’t exist and a player’s bank balance is the size of Luxembourg? Despite the fact that I was impressed that Boris knew what American Football was, his suggestion is rather worrying? Can he not see that this is the USA’s final step towards colonising us? Firstly, they gave us McDonalds to make us fat and slow, then it was Apple to bamboozle our poor minds and now they’re sending their ‘beefcakes’ over to finish the job!
Over to you chef…
So, Alistair Cook is the new England Test captain with the job of taking England back to the number 1 spot in the long format. But I think he has a greater job in trying to stop the team becoming the laughing stock of international cricket, where we are currently heading. This isn’t a criticism of anyone in particular but there are a number of factors that seriously need to be addressed.
The first is that England fans need to stop moaning about other teams and focus on their own. Yes, India have taken a slightly cheeky step in that they have not played any out-and-out spin bowlers in the recent warm-up match so England will be under-prepared going into the first Test, but surely that’s England’s own fault for making it so plainly obvious that they rubbish against spin? Having said that, why is it that our batsmen can make spinners such as Saeed Ajmal look like an absolute donkey one minute and then make him look like an Asian terminator the next? Just because he has a bent elbow when he bowls it doesn’t mean that he has turned into Murali overnight! And it’s not as if we don’t exploit home advantages during our summer of cricket by making maximum use of swing bowling against sides who come from countries where wind and clouds are as rare as a sunny day is over here, therefore putting them at a disadvantage. All India are trying to do is win a series against a team who they see as a massive threat, so we as fans should stop being bigger hypocrites than our government and do all we can to help our players do the impossible and actually win down in India.
England’s deficiency against spin is very worrying, however, and Kevin Pietersen has inadvertently not helped the situation in any way. In 2008 he branded India’s Yuvraj Singh a ‘piechucker,’ which is quite an insult for a spinner (I know this from personal experience having been called it a few times), yet just yesterday he took 5 wickets for an India A side against a full strength England XI, including KP. We have recalled the man, arguably the best batsman in the country, to bolster an inexperienced batting line up and he is getting out to a bowler who he reckons shouldn’t be playing Sunday League cricket – what on earth is this saying about our side? If our best player is getting out to a second-rate, part-time bowler then we are well and truly stuffed when the Test series starts in two weeks, with Ravi Ashwin and Praveen Ojha picking up 15 out of 20 New Zealand wickets not long ago. Cook needs to tell his players to keep quiet to avoid any more embarrassing situations such as this!
Finally, Cook and the selectors need to stop picking players with ridiculous names if we want to reverse our fortunes! There are so many English players whose names are also nouns and verbs – Cook, Trott, Bell, Onions, Swann… Thank God Phil Mustard isn’t in the team anymore otherwise we’d have most of the ingredients for a hot dog rather than a cricket team! Some of the names are highly appropriate though – Jonathon Trott rarely bats with any intensity while Stephen Finn can scare opponents like a great white when he feels like it, which isn’t seemingly going to be soon after he hurt his thigh over-stretching his ostrich-like legs trying to stop the ball. Even head coach Andy Flower’s name reflects his tenure in charge – he took over the team from the bottom, set some really strong foundations and made them big and strong before they have wilted away recently. And with Joe Root looking to firmly set himself at the top of the England order and Jos Buttler opening a door for himself in the middle order the trend that has spanned decades looks set to continue. In the ‘60s, ‘70s and ‘80s Geoffrey Boycott seemed to think that running would get him nowhere except for the local A&E department so avoided it like the Plague while ‘keeper-bastman Alan Knott used to bamboozle opponents with his extravagance in front and behind the stumps. Yet England have never had any real long-term cricketing success and I think this could be why! Our players need sexy, stylish names such as AB de Villiers or Shane Watson, not Graeme Swann, if we want to dominate the world! Still, I suppose the name Pat Cummins could worse…
So, here we go then…
My first post then – it’s much more daunting than it seems! I am here to offer a light-hearted and witty insight into some sporting issues that people take way too seriously. However, although I like to think I am, many people I know would like to argue that I am in fact not witty but just very immature… Anyway I hope you all enjoy my blog and please feel free to leave constructive comments if you want, or even make suggestions as to what you may like me to talk about. First real post should be up by the end of the week!
