Left field
The Reuters global sports blog
from Newsmaker:
Thomson Reuters Newsmaker with Sebastian Coe and Hugh Robertson
To mark the one year countdown to the London Olympics, Thomson Reuters held a Newsmaker event on July 21 with four-time Olympic medalist and chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, Sebastian Coe and Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP. Below are highlights from the evening.
Legacy of 2012 includes economic dividend: Robertson
Transport system ready for 2012 demands: Coe
Olympic ticket sell-out is coup for London: Coe
Stadium dispute threatens future Athletics bid: Robertson
Testing crucial during Olympic countdown: Coe
UK on top of Olympic security threat: Robertson
Coe welcomes "Blade Runner" Pistorius to London 2012
Thomson Reuters Newsmaker with Sebastian Coe and Hugh Robertson
from Newsmaker:
Tick, tick, tickets – defusing an Olympic PR bomb
-Adrian Warner is BBC London's Olympics Correspondent. The opinions expressed are his own.-
The morning after his surprise 800 metres defeat by Steve Ovett at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, Seb Coe was sitting in his bed in the Olympic village when former decathlete and close friend Daley Thompson stormed into the room. Thompson went straight to the curtains and opened them up.
I survived the Nuerburgring Nordschleife!
The Nordschleife. Just the word sends shivers down the spine of even the best motor racing driver. Sir Jackie Stewart nicknamed the old track in western Germany the “Green Hell” and although it is extremely dangerous, they all loved racing it really.
Talks about exhilarating. I was lucky enough to be driven round the fearsome circuit by a specialist driver in a Mercedes two-seat sportscar ahead of this weekend’s German Grand Prix at the adjacent Nuerburgring.
ICC name best test team of all time. Right or wrong?
The ICC has unveiled the best test team of all time as voted for by fans on the governing body’s website. The ICC offered a shortlist to choose from.
Here it is:
Virender Sehwag
Sunil Gavaskar
Donald Bradman
Sachin Tendulkar
Brian Lara
Kapil Dev
Adam Gilchrist (wk)
Shane Warne
Wasim Akram
Curtly Ambrose
Glenn McGrath
Is it a bit 1980s focused? No Englishmen either but maybe that is not a big shock. Sehwag probably the biggest surprise.
Major drought continues but U.S. in good shape behind Clarke
If American golf is in crisis then it is a crisis every other nation would like a taste of as the sport’s most dominant country made a determined assault on the 140th British Open at Royal St George’s this week.
They came up short as Darren Clarke secured a third major triumph in 14 months for Northern Ireland but the final leaderboard was otherwise littered with the Stars and Stripes as Phil Mickelson and Dustin Johnson shared second and Americans filled five of the top seven places and 12 of the top 24.
Serving the kangaroo, by Manuel Quinziato
Cycling has changed a lot in the last 15 years. Once the team had just 12 riders and there was just one captain for the whole season. At almost every race all the team worked for the same guy, because the same guy could win every kind of race, from Paris Roubaix to the Tour de France. Think about Merckx, Moser, Hinault and Co.
Now the sport has changed radically — between 25 and 30 riders per team, super light bikes, while wheels and training methods have improved a lot. The average level of every rider has increased. And top riders have started to have fewer targets during the season.
from Newsmaker:
Send your questions for Seb Coe and Hugh Robertson
To mark the one year countdown to the London Olympics, Thomson Reuters will hold a Newsmaker on July 21 at 18:30 BST with four-time Olympic medalist and chairman of the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, Sebastian Coe and Minister for Sport and the Olympics, Hugh Robertson MP.
The event will begin with a speech by Coe, who won gold in the 1500m at the 1980 and 1984 Olympics, followed by a Q&A session with both guests, moderated by me, Global Sports Editor Paul Radford. The Newsmaker will be streamed live to the Reuters website and we'll provide rolling coverage of the event as it happens.
“What a Wimbledon” – Rusedski
This year’s Wimbledon Championships had a lot of interesting stories. On the men’s side it was all about the top 4 players in the world. On the ladies it was about Sharapova, the Williams sisters, and whether or not any of the young pretenders could win the Championships.
All of the top 4 cruised into the men’s quarter-finals. Only Rafael Nadal was a bit of a worry hurting his foot against Juan Del Potro in the first set. After the match he said he would have to take painkillers for the rest of the tournament and possibly miss the next 6 weeks after Wimbledon finished. This brought hope that possibly Andy Murray could beat Nadal if they both reached the semi-finals which they both did easily. Expectations were reaching fever pitch now with a real belief Murray could make the finals.
Djokovic and Kvitova lead European charge
Few things in sport can be sweeter than lifting the Wimbledon trophy, as Novak Djokovic and Petra Kvitova found out on Saturday and Sunday.
Djokovic even took a shining to the hallowed Wimbledon turf, describing his post-win snack as “well kept”, but in all seriousness the Serb is winning fans left right and centre and on Monday will be confirmed as world number one for the first time.
from Photographers Blog:
Wimbledon, William and a Mexican Wave
Rafael Nadal is hurt. A physio and a doctor have arrived on court to inspect his left foot. I scramble to position myself directly across the court from his chair to capture what could be a crucial moment in the match. It is towards the end of a tense first set. Temperatures have only cooled slightly from a sweltering 33 degrees C (91F).
In my haste to capture Nadal's injury I had left my original position with just a 300mm lens and Canon Mark 4 body, knowing I had to be agile as I joined a crush of photographers.
