Thursday, December 24, 2009

Sunday, December 13, 2009

Clint gets it wrong.......

Directed by Clint Eastwood, with Morgan Freeman as Nelson Mandela and Matt Damon as Francois Pienaar, the movie purports to tell the story of how Mandela used the Springboks and the tournament as a mechanism to unite a divided nation.




The thesis of the film is that Mandela planned the campaign a year out from the World Cup to the extent that there are scenes of him in the film poring over the various qualifying groups, trying to work out who the Boks will face in the quarter-finals.





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Cape Town: A sporting spectacularThat much is poppycock. Those close to the Springbok camp at the time insist that Mandela's involvement was much more spontaneous, though no one doubts the sincerity of his approach and the close bond he eventually formed with Pienaar which continues to this day.



Mandela's first meeting with the South African squad came at a Bok training session in Cape Town before the opening game, which was when Hennie le Roux presented him with the Springbok cap Mandela would wear at the final.



Mandela's other iconic item of clothing, Pienaar's No 6 shirt, was almost an afterthought. It was the idea of Mandela's bodyguard who called the Springbok camp on the morning of the final against New Zealand to request a shirt. The Boks were given two jerseys per game, one to wear and one to swap, and Pienaar gave his spare to Mandela.



Far from a regular presence, Mandela actually only called Pienaar on a couple of occasions throughout the tournament, once before the semi-final with France, but the two men went on to become good friends with Mandela becoming a godfather to Pienaar's son.




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How are Swansea doing in the Championship?

Swansea football supporters with Police escort...Image by chrisjohnbeckett via Flickr
Swansea FC are doing well this year.......Until they came up against Nottingham Forest.......
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Thursday, December 10, 2009

Dwain the main man.......

Dwain Chambers, British athlete, at a march ag...Image via Wikipedia








It was the year when Dwain Chambers completed his tortured journey from “suicide bridge” to the brink of redemption. “It was like hanging on to a gust of wind,” is how he described trying to beat Usain Bolt in the 100 metres final at the World Championships. “Then I saw the clock and started laughing.”




There has been little to laugh about in recent times for Chambers, a man whose doping past means he is routinely termed a disgrace, pariah and cheat.



However, he is nearing the end of a remarkable year in which, handicapped by a ban from all leading meetings, he secured a gold medal, shattered a European record and came sixth in the fastest race of all time. Now, after recuperating from an injury effectively caused by Bolt, he says he is “grateful and humble”, and wants more. “I’m in love with my sport again,” he said.



Chambers, 31, has put any thoughts of retirement on hold and is aiming for gold medals at the World Indoor and European Championships next year. Like the Olympics, he is banned from the Commonwealth Games, but there will be no more legal challenges, just an acceptance of his lot and an empathy with other fallen heroes.



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He has watched the media furore surrounding Tiger Woods’s domestic issues with interest. While not equating their problems, he knows what it is like when the tide turns and opprobrium ensues.



“We are all human beings and what defines us as humans is how we pick ourselves up from our mistakes,” he said. “It’s a personal affair that should be dealt with behind closed doors because it involves his family. He’s made a mistake and I hope he can resolve it.”



Meanwhile, Marion Jones is trying to come back from a jail term for lying to investigators over her drug use. The woman whose “drive for five” at the Sydney Olympics was, literally, fuel-injected, wants a basketball career in the Women’s NBA, mirroring Chambers’s ill-fated attempt to gain a rugby league contract with Castleford Tigers last year. “If the basketball federation think she’s been honest enough and are prepared to give her a second chance then all I can do is wish her the best of luck,” he said.



“I hope she can re-establish herself. And I hope she sends out the message that the road we both went down was never the right one.”



Victor Conte, the Bay Area Laboratory Co-operative founder and president, who provided drugs for both, said he opened Chambers’s eyes when he first met him. “He came to me and was like, ‘So this is what Marion Jones does?’” Having revealed this year that he once contemplated suicide when he drove beneath an infamous bridge in Archway, North London, it is understandable that Chambers would back an outsider.



His journey towards acceptance has been tough, comprising a failed High Court attempt to get his Olympic ban overturned, being picked for Great Britain while knowing the selection panel was unanimously opposed to him, and having Lord Coe, Britain’s most influential athletics icon, say he would hold his nose when watching him run.



“I’ve learnt that in life, success and failure come hand in hand, so treat those impostors the same,” he said. “I don’t get as mad as I used to. I’m having to re-educate myself in the sport, but it’s more fun than it’s ever been. I feel a lot, lot happier now. I can walk into an environment with my team-mates and people are not pointing the finger.



“There is not that animosity now. Most people have chosen to let it go. I’ve had a lot of support from Charles van Commenee [the head coach of UK Athletics] and the team. They’re people I hold in high regard and they are not throwing punches.”



Chambers has had a good year. He broke the European record on the way to the indoor 60 metres title in Turin in March. He missed out on the sub-10sec run he craved but reached the final of the 100 metres at the World Championships. However, Euromeetings, an umbrella body of promoters, has maintained its stance against booking those convicted of serious drug offences, and the inaugural Diamond League is also off limits.



“There’s no point crying over spilt milk,” Chambers said. “There’s no point chasing wild dreams and I’m just focusing on myself and encouraging others.”



The others include the younger members of the Britain team as well as those at his academy, which is designed to find future Olympic stars. “More youngsters in the GB team are looking up to me, seeing my struggle and wondering how I did it,” he said. “I want to drum it into their heads that drugs aren’t an option and will only hurt them and their sport.”



The sport is on a high thanks to Bolt. Chambers trained with the triple world and Olympic champion in 2006 in Jamaica and admitted: “I knew he was going to be special but never in my life expected him to be this good [at the 100 metres]. He always talked about running the 100 but Mr [Glen] Mills, his coach, wouldn’t let him. He’s just shown what was brewing inside his system.”



It was the sight of Bolt disappearing in 9.58sec in the World Championships in Berlin that led to Chambers’s injury. “I tore my left calf in the last 40 metres of the final,” he said. “I was in the fastest race in history, clinging to his coat-tails, and that was the result on my body. I remember seeing him at 60 metres, thinking, ‘He’s gone’, and, in that moment, my concentration went. I tied up because I tried to run his race.”



After three months out, his calf has healed and he has started training again. Still condemned to running in low-profile races until the major championships, he says it has taken time to digest a dramatic year and get himself mentally right.



The tattoo on his back says “Deal Wid Da Matta” and references past problems, but the man, himself, is looking ahead. “The past is the past,” he said, “but the future’s bright.”



Back in the fast lane

6 Dwain Chambers’s place in 100 metres final at World Championships in August.

12 Men who ran faster than him this year.

0 Europeans who ran faster this year.

6.42 Seconds it took to become third-fastest 60 metres runner in history in March.

1,500 Pounds made in six months in 2008. Now he says: “I get different rewards — by getting the trust of the public and putting something back into the sport.”

49 Months since his drugs ban ended.

4 British sprinters to have dipped under 10sec — Chambers, Linford Christie, Jason Gardener and Mark Lewis-Francis.


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Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Invictus

Invictus

Tiger Woods and the overdose theory


Did Tiger Woods take something and then be involved in a curious car collision with himself? How did his car crash? What sort of state was he in?
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Tiger Woods and the President.....

President Barack Obama greets professional gol...Image via Wikipedia
Tiger Woods has not been seen for days. Is he all bunkered up ready for the onslaught that is bound to come.Following his car crash and his emotional crash will there be a financial crash? Tiger Woods is certainly in a pickle jar and his current actions don't seem to be helping........Here he is at better times advising the President.Obama......
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Where is Tiger Woods hiding out? Possibly in a jungle somewhere or in a favourite hotel or in a bunker? Certainly Not at home if the whispers are to be believed. I understand he's in conference with his accountant. Now, what can they be discussing?
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Rugby

Sport & Rugby
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BBC Sport - Football - Defender Sol Campbell keen on joining Manchester United


BBC Sport - Football - Defender Sol Campbell keen on joining Manchester United
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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Post Mortem - 'Thatcher has died ...'

Post Mortem - 'Thatcher has died ...'

Olympics 2012 -fullstory of the arrests

Want to get the Olympic village finished on time?
Got a problem with local skills?
Don't want to pay the full rate?

Get in the immigrants! Oh no you can't - Full story of the arrests below...............fullstory
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