The EU lives in false glories. Excluding Brexit, of course.
Table by Euro Informationen
It reminds me of the Soviet Union
Archive for the ‘Sport’ Category
and lo, the EU led all the rest ….
August 19, 2016Something rotten in the state of the Olympics
August 7, 2016That trainers in Russia systematically doped athletes they were training is probably true.
That the Russian sports Ministry turned a blind eye to this and even helped athletes escape detection is also highly likely.
That many Russian athletes are guilty of doping is almost certainly true.
That all Russian athletes have doped is almost certainly not true.
image americablog.com
Yet the International Olympic Committee (which is considerably more corrupt than FIFA) and the International Paralympic Committee (not very much cleaner) have decided to inflict a collective punishment on all athletes from Russia. It is quite clearly a “Collective Punishment” .
In times of conflict, Collective Punishment is a war crime and outlawed by the Geneva Convention.
Collective punishment is a form of retaliation whereby a suspected perpetrator’s family members, friends, acquaintances, sect, neighbors or entire ethnic group is targeted. The punished group may often have no direct association with the other individuals or groups, or direct control over their actions. In times of war and armed conflict, collective punishment has resulted in atrocities, and is a violation of the laws of war and the Geneva Conventions. –Wikipedia
The IOC is itself rotten and no matter how widespread doping was in Russia, there is no way in which infliction of a Collective Punishment – which by definition applies to innocents as well as the guilty – can be justified. It creates new innocent victims of IOC oppression.
As if the IOC was not rotten enough and oppressive enough.
“Bigger, faster, stronger” tarnished by Zika, doping, corruption
August 4, 2016The Olympic games (summer and winter) have been a high point in my sporting interests for some 50 years. But this year my usual enthusiasm is heavily subdued and my viewing will be accompanied by a very high level of cynicism. The dominating themes are Zika, doping and corruption and could completely overshadow any feats of speed or strength or skill.
Tomorrow is the official opening of the Rio Olympics. The torch arrived yesterday accompanied by demonstrations against the high cost of the games and against the rampant political corruption in Brazil. The military broke up the peaceful demonstrations with an exercise of – apparently – excessive violence. No doubt they are all on edge. Some preliminary women’s football matches were played in empty stadiums (and why on earth is football an Olympic sport?).
Some other peripheral sports, which should not be part of the Olympics (golf, tennis), have seen many of their stars pull out citing a variety of injuries and other engagements. But they are all dead scared of the Zika virus and can’t jeopardise their normal earnings. In any case there is little glory or credit in an Olympic medal for golf or tennis.
The closed shop that is the IOC, to my perception, is more corrupt than FIFA ever was. Every venue for the last 50 years has been “bought”. Corruption is endemic in the administration and in many of the sports. The boxing and wrestling and weightlifting tournaments are so “fixed” that the results are meaningless. The gymnastics championships are beset first by subjective judging and – always it seems – by politically influenced judging. Today the IOC announced that another batch of strange sports would be included in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Softball and skateboarding among others. Skateboarding? No doubt many thousands, if not millions, has changed hands.
It is swimming and track and field which – for me – are the essence of the Olympics. I would be quite happy to see diving and water-polo be dropped. Rowing and canoeing and sailing are probably valid disciplines but the equestrian sports are not. Trampoline gymnastics and synchronised swimming and beach volleyball are other ridiculous disciplines which have no place in the Olympics.
The sports at the Rio Olympics are:
Rio Olympic sports
I hope there are no catastrophes and I wish the Brazilians well. Brazil now really needs a successful games to feel good about.
No doubt I will spend many hours watching on Television. But I will not be as engaged and enthusiastic as I usually am.
Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr. – RIP
June 4, 2016Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr., aka Muhammad Ali passed away last night at the age of 74.
I first saw him win the Light Heavyweight Gold medal – on film – at the Rome Olympics in 1960. We had no TV then. He has floated like a butterfly in my view of the world for over 50 years.
RIP.
“Marcellus vanquished Carthage,
Cassius laid Julius Caesar low.
And Clay will flatten Douglas Jones
with a mighty measured blow!”
1960 Olympic gold medallist
Tennis players throw their matches when “they can’t play their best”
January 25, 2016As new details emerge about strange betting patterns around a mixed doubles match in the ongoing Australian Open, an Australian professional tennis player, Nick Lindahl (of Swedish birth) pleads guilty to corrupt betting and admits in court that he threw a match for gains to be made by betting for his opponent to win.
But some of what he revealed perhaps throws light on when top players throw matches – either directly for payment or for indirect gains from bets placed against their opponents.
First the report on the current match in the Australian Open. The statements attributed to David Marrero are more than a little weird and he has apparently been involved before with “suspicious matches”.
Yahoo Sports: How bold would a player have to be to fix a match in the middle of a match-fixing scandal? That’s the question buzzing around the Australian Open on Monday, where a suspicious mixed doubles match has reignited the match-fixing controversy that has surrounded the tournament since a joint Buzzfeed/BBC report was released last Sunday.
The suspicion started when betting site Pinnacle Sports suspended betting on the match featuring Lara Arruabarrena and David Marrero against Andrea Hlavackova and Lukasz Kubot. Large amounts of money were being placed on Kubot and Klavackova in what would normally be an obscure match, the head of the site told the New York Times.
“We saw a small number of people placing a large amount of money,” he said. “In context, these matches are rather small. That means that any aggressive betting behavior is very easy to detect on our side.”
This is the first Australian Open match that Pinnacle Sports has flagged this year. Hlavackoba and Kubot won in rapid fashion, closing out the match at 6-0, 6-3.
Arruabarrena and Marrero are each ranked No. 33 and No. 32 among doubles players on the women’s and men’s tours, respectively. Marrero was part of the team that won the 2013 ATP World Tour championship. They denied any match-fixing, saying that the reason for their unexpected loss was that Marrero has a knee injury. Then Marrero, who has played nearly 30 mixed doubles matches, gave a more bizarre answer.
“Normally, when I play, I play full power, in doubles or singles,” he said. “But when I see the lady in front of me, I feel my hand wants to play, but my head says, ‘Be careful.’ This is not a good combination.”
Arruabarrena questioned if a spectator had noticed the injury during their Saturday practice session and subsequently tipped someone off. The Times noted that this is not the first time a Marrero doubles match has raised suspicions.
In the meantime, the SMH reports on Nick Lindahl’s shenanigans:
A former Australian professional tennis player has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to a corrupt betting charge in a scheme to fix a match in Queensland. But Nick Lukas Lindahl will fight the allegation he tried to hide evidence related to match fixing.
Lindahl, 27, was arrested by the NSW Organised Crime Squad at Liberty Grove, in Sydney’s inner west, in February last year.
His court appearance comes just days after allegations of widespread match fixing rocked the international tennis world on the eve of the Australian Open. …….
During this conversation, Lindahl was heard encouraging Mr Fox to get rid of computer data and a mobile phone app, police allege.
“Just get rid of everything … hide it,” he said.
He also spoke about how he had previously told police he had thrown matches “because that’s what tennis players do when they can’t play their best”.
Mr Fox and Mr Wolfenden have already had their matters heard before court.
Lindahl has pleaded guilty to using corrupt conduct /information to bet on an event but pleaded not guilty to concealing conduct that corrupts a betting outcome of events.
It makes a kind of sense. Players expected to win but who are either feeling out of sorts or don’t expect to progress sufficiently far to win any real prize money, have much money to win by losing unexpectedly. That of course will be one of the key criteria for a “suspicious” match. And from now on, I shall be automatically suspicious of any unexpected loss early on in a tournament.
Related: Why did Tennis Australia board members quit on eve of Australian Open?
Hollande reaching for the heights
September 24, 2015From Kaspar von Erffa
French President Hollande with the captain of the French National basketball squad Sandrine Gruda
Drunken parents and nasty kids at the Swedish pony championships
September 22, 2015The image of the Swedish pony brigade took a beating this weekend. One usually expects cute ponies, bright young kids, horse-mad girls, enthusiastic and doting parents, some real equestrian skill and much fun.
(As a kid, many, many, years and even more kilograms ago, I was pony-mad and rode regularly at the gymkhana races at the Poona Race Course).
But it wasn’t quite good, clean fun at the Swedish National Pony championships as one might have expected. The national pony races in Ljungby degenerated this weekend into a destructive “orgy” with drunken parents leading their spoilt kids into juvenile vandalism.
smålänningen: The Ljungby Riding Club had organised the national pony championships to run from from Friday to Sunday in Sickinge. But instead of a pleasant event for children and their parents it degenerated into vandalism and police complaints.
“It all started on Saturday”, says Linnea Benjaminsson, who was one of the weekend’s functionaries. On Saturday night, she helped to rebuild the track for Sunday’s first jumping class, and already then some children were messing around in the indoor arena. When the race organisers arrived at the course early on Sunday morning, they found that the track had been sabotaged. Barriers had been shifted around and the numbers of the barriers had been jumbled.
“We left late in the evening so it must have happened during the night”, says Linnea, who thinks it is strange that parents allow their children to be out so late and horse around. Soon it was also discovered that a locker room was heavily flooded. It turned out that someone had deliberately blocked the drains in both sinks as well as in the showers and then turned the water on. “There was also a clogged toilet”, after hay bale plastic had been used to block it.
It seems many of the parents had imbibed more than a little heavily and were themselves behind some of the incidents. Some had been urinating in the dining area. These nasty little pony kids are not from deprived circumstances. The Swedish pony brigade – as in most countries – tend to be fairly well-off. And some of the kids are more than a little spoilt.
Behaviour 101. Nasty drunken parents beget nasty, destructive kids.
The natural world is overturned as the Japanese ” Cherry Blossoms” devour the S African “Springboks”
September 20, 2015The Rugby Union World Cup is on and the natural order of the universe has been overturned. The carnivorous cherry blossoms from Japan won their first ever World Cup match since 1991 (when they beat Zimbabwe), by bringing down the mighty S African Springboks. Or maybe that should be the once-mighty Springboks.
Holland beating England in a T20 cricket world cup match last year was shocking enough but still does not come close to yesterday’s astonishing result.
The S African team are now probably suffering from PTSD.
sbnation: Japan has stunned the world with a wholly unbelievable 34-32 win over South Africa in the Rugby World Cup. Before Saturday, the Cherry Blossoms hadn’t won a World Cup game in 24 years when Japan defeated Zimbabwe in 1991. They knocked off one of the favorites to win the whole thing.
Carnivorous cherry blossoms
springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis)
3 wins, 2 walkovers and the US open goes to Hingis and Paes
September 12, 2015They had a relatively “easy” draw in that they had 2 walkovers in their 5 wins to the mixed doubles title.
Mixed doubles is the afterthought in any tennis tournament and sometimes just a consolation prize for losing out in the singles, but for Martina Hingis (35) and Leander Paes (42), the mixed doubles is “mainstream”. They have just won their 3rd grand slam title of the year with the US Open title following their wins at the Australian Open and at Wimbledon. For Paes it was his 9th mixed doubles grand slam title and the highest number for any man. Martina Navratilova has 10 md titles – and two of those were with Paes (Australian and Wimbledon in 2003). It was Paes’ 17th Grand Slam title overall and Hingis’ 19th.
The combination of Martina Hingis and Sania Mirza which won Wimbledon, has also reached the finals of the ladies doubles at the US Open.
USOpen: Leander Paes has now won more Grand Slam mixed doubles titles (9) than any other man in the Open era with his victory in Friday’s championship match. Teaming with Martina Hingis, the No. 4 seeds defeated Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sam Querrey, 6-4, 3-6, [10-7]. …….. The win gives Hingis her first title at the US Open since 1998 and her first mixed doubles title here. It also marks Paes’ second mixed doubles title at the US Open, having last won in 2008 with Cara Black, and the ninth mixed doubles title of his career.
The Hindu: The fourth seeded India-Swiss pair, edged past unseeded Americans Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sam Querrey 6-4 3-6 10-7 in a tricky final to win their third Major title together this season. ………. With this win, Paes and Hingis, who also won Australian Open and Wimbledon titles early this season, have become the first mixed doubles team since 1969 to win three Grand Slam mixed doubles titles in the same year.
It was Paes’ 17th Grand Slam title overall and Hingis’ 19th.
Age is beauty at Wimbledon on Ladies Day
July 12, 2015It was Ladies Day at Wimbledon and much to revel in. Not least that the winners were now mature, young ladies even though they had all been precocious teenagers when they first hit the top. Serena Williams won her 21st Grand Slam (Wow!) and her 4th in a row. Martina Hingis teamed up with Sania Mirza to win the doubles in an exciting turnaround after being one set and 5-2 down.
Beauty is relative but there is little doubt that I rejoice far more in “oldest” winners as the years go by.
Serena Williams, 34 this year
Serena 2015 (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin via Yahoo)
Martina Hingis, 35 this year and Sania Mirza, 29 this year
Hingis Mirza – 2015 – photo Facundo Arrizabalaga-EPA
The k2p blog 