Relief rather than elation greeted England’s decision to select Mathew Tait, Riki Flutey and Delon Armitage in the backline for Saturday’s Six Nations opener against Wales.

(*Flutey has since had to pull out with injury)

One try in three tests told its own story in the November internationals and the selectors had no real option other than to restore Flutey and Armitage and recall Tait.

The celebrations among England supporters, though, will be muted if only because it is difficult to see any of the above trio winning a place in, for example, the Ireland or Wales starting lineups.

Michael Vaughan in retirement does not shrink from the limelight. Or from controversy.

The former England captain commentates on BBC radio, writes a newspaper column and appears in a hair transplant advertisment. He also indulges in “artballing”, hitting paint-daubed balls at a blank canvas attached to a wall.

“I’ve a very active mind,” Vaughan explained after calling time on his cricket career last year.

LONDON (Reuters) – A second armed attack in the space of a year on a bus carrying a national sports team has highlighted the vulnerability of top-level athletes and the publicity such ambushes attract.

Two members of Togo’s soccer delegation died when gunmen attacked the team bus on Friday as it traveled to the African Nations Cup in Angola. The driver was killed in the assault.

Last March gunmen killed seven people in an attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team’s bus in Lahore. Six of the team were injured.

As a result Pakistan are now effectively a cricket team without a country and will play all their fixtures abroad for the foreseeable future.

LONDON, Jan 7 (Reuters) – A look ahead to some of the major sports events in 2010:

Jan. 10-31. African Cup of Nations soccer, Angola. Egypt are bidding to become the first country to secure a third successive title after again missing out on World Cup qualification.

Ivory Coast, with a potent strike force spearheaded by Didier Drogba, start as favourites for the biennial tournament which kicks off a momentous year for African soccer.

Feb. 12-28. Winter Olympics, Vancouver. American Alpine ski racer Lindsey Vonn, overall women’s World Cup winner for the past two seasons, is battling injuries before the Winter Games.

LONDON, Dec 30 (Reuters) – Amid the soaring triumphs and tawdry scandals underscoring the first decade of the new millennium, Usain Bolt reminded the world why sport captivates and exalts so many people.

A roar of disbelief greeted the tall Jamaican in Beijing’s Bird’s Nest stadium last year after he shattered the world 100 record and became the first person to run under 9.7 seconds.

The wonder was provoked not just by the time but by the manner in which the race was run and won. Bolt made a mockery of the previous world mark and the efforts of his hapless opponents, despite slowing down and glancing to left and right well before the finish.

He set another world record in the 200 final, this time bettering Michael Johnson’s 1996 mark which statisticians had predicted would last for 25 years, and added a third when the Jamaicans won the 4×100 relay.

As the decade draws to a close, we pick five sporting moments which have defined the last 10 years.

1. Cathy Freeman lit the Olympic flame at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a Games set in a country which embraces the outdoor life and punches well above its weight in most sports.

Aboriginal Freeman, who had suffered racial prejudice as a child, symbolised the optimism of a new start in a new century for a bustling immigrant nation. She went on to surmount suffocating pressure by winning the 400 metres gold, Australia’s only track gold.

MANCHESTER, England (Reuters) – Eight-times Beijing Olympic champion Michael Phelps finished the two-day Duel in the Pool contest on Saturday with just one individual win from four races.

Phelps swam throughout the meeting between the United States and a European selection in the textile shorts which will be mandatory from January 1 next years.

His opponents were uniformly dressed in the polyurethane bodysuits which will be banned after the swimming governing body FINA decided they artificially boosted performances. More than 250 world records have been set in the polyurethane suits.

The Americans easily won the team event against a side comprising competitors from Britain, Italy and Germany by 185-78. They also set each of the eight world short-course records broken at the Manchester Aquatics Center.

LONDON (Reuters) – Elite professional sport with its unrelenting demands tests the mind and spirit as much as the body.

When the difference between winning and losing can be a fraction of a second or the unexpected bounce of a ball, encouraging positive thoughts and banishing the fear of failure is a consistent theme in the lives of successful athletes.

England cricket captain Andrew Strauss is a recent convert to the power of positive thinking, praising the controversial self-help book “The Secret” after his spell in the international wilderness.

“The theory is what you think about happens,” said Strauss in his own book “Testing Times.” “If you think positive thoughts, then those thoughts will come about.”

Americans customarily regard British heavyweights with the contempt they otherwise reserve for English weather, coffee and jazz.They have good reason. Before David Haye upset the Russian giant Nikolai Valuev in Germany, only three Britons had held a generally recognised world title.The first was Bob Fitzsimmons in the 19th century, the second was the over-rated Frank Bruno and the third the under-rated Lennox Lewis.Lewis’s refusal to do any more than he needed to ensure victory irked the American boxing fraternity who like more flash and action from their fighters. However, the former Olympic champion eventually won their reluctant respect by defeating Evander Holyfield and demolishing a burnt-out Mike Tyson. He then demonstrated impeccable timing outside the ring as well as in by retiring in 2003 with his brains unscrambled and his fortune intact.Among the heavyweights, only Americans Gene Tunney and Rocky Marciano had previously retired while still world champion.Now there is Haye, who has unexpectedly thrown open the division at just the right time for the United States where the sport is in danger of dying from boredom.Before Saturday night, the four main heavyweight belts were held by Valuev and the Klitschko brothers from Ukraine. Neither WBC champion Vitali or younger brother Vladimir are as tedious as Valuev but neither do they hold a licence to thrill.One world champion from the old eastern bloc would just about have been tolerated in the United States. Three is two too many.Agents by the very nature of their trade must be treated with caution but Haye’s U.S. promoter Richard Schaefer could be excused his ebullient mood after Haye had triumphed in Nuremberg.Schaefer predicted Haye could earn $120 million by fighting one of the Klitschko brothers in the United States, provided he survives his mandatory WBA title defence against American John Ruiz.”This is the kind of event which is not a boxing event, it’s a global event,” said Schaefer. “If he comes and fights in the United States against one of the Klitschkos, I have no doubt that the total global receipts could be close to $120 million for one fight.”David’s win was perfectly executed. Valuev is an amazing attraction but Haye is the start of a new generation. We have been waiting for somebody like him, with talent and charisma, to enter the heavyweight division.”The sight of Valuev’s co-promoter Don King at ringside in Nuremburg, an anticipatory grin firmly in place as Haye celebrated, showed the wiliest operator in the sport realised the Briton’s box office potential. King, who switched his allegiance effortlessly from Joe Frazier to George Foreman after the latter had made no contest of their 1973 fight in Jamaica, said Haye “had put on a brilliant performance and executed it perfectly”.”The Americans will embrace David because of his skills inside the ring but equally important are his skills outside the ring,” Schaefer said. “He is charismatic, he is good-looking, he is well-spoken. He knows how to entertain and that is what we were looking for, not just in the U.S. but around the world.”The world has been waiting for a heavyweight champion who cannot just fight but who is charismatic and here he is and his name is David Haye.”PHOTO: Britain’s David Haye, the new WBA heavyweight boxing world champion, speaks during a news conference in London November 9, 2009. REUTERS/Andrew Winning

Pressure from the British public to win an elusive Olympic title on the streets of London three years hence may explain some atypical public emotion from world marathon record holder Paula Radcliffe.Radcliffe, unfailingly gracious and an athlete who refuses to indulge in self-pity or to rail against the caprices of fate, is statistically the best woman marathoner ever.However, illness forced her to withdraw from the 2004 Athens Games marathon and injury thwarted her bid in Beijing last year.Radcliffe will be 38 in 2012 and, although she has talked of running in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics, the injuries mount and time slips away.This month Radcliffe broke down in tears after finishing fourth in the New York marathon. She revealed afterwards that an injury she had described as a niggle had, in fact, been tendinitis of the left knee and had required a cortisone injection.A reference from a sympathetic reporter to the number of injuries she had suffered then prompted a further flood of tears.Before attempting a fourth New York title, Radcliffe reacted angrily to criticism of her decision to pull out days before her two scheduled international appearances this year at the Berlin world championships and the subsequent Birmingham world half-marathon championships.Radcliffe, it was suggested, was more interested in the bonuses, prize money and appearance fees available at big city marathons.”You are never going to please everybody and there is always going to be someone out there who hates you, or you really bug,” she retorted.”You have to accept that. That is something I always talked about, but never believed until I came through Athens.”"But you can’t win. You are never going to please everyone. It is another thing I learned through Athens. You can’t keep everybody happy. You just have to get on and do what you want.”Radcliffe also hinted before New York that she may try for a second child next year.”I don’t think I’ve made it a secret about the fact I want to fit in having another child before 2012 and there’s not a lot of time,” she said.Probable motherhood, the unrelenting demands of training for the ultimate distance event, age and injuries are all stressful enough in themselves. Radcliffe is also painfully aware that the ultimate confirmation of a truly great athlete remains an Olympic gold medal.”I don’t regard this injury as in anyway career-threatening. It just needs time to clear up. London is still there as a goal. Definitely,” she after New York.The Perils of Paula remains a story which will run and run.PHOTO: Paula Radcliffe of England crosses the finish line during the Women’s division of the 2009 New York City Marathon November 1, 2009. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton