Left field

Ryder Cup shows sportsmanship at its best

If golf is an island of civilisation in a world of sport awash with cheating then the Ryder Cup is the coconut-laden palm tree on top.

Golf’s core values are honesty, self-regulation, absolute and unquestioning observance of even the most archaic rules and its great gift to the world – etiquette.

The same approach pretty much applies from the most humble municipal park player to when Jim Furyk is putting for 11.5 million dollars – making a mockery of the excuses for excess in other sports that it is all down to “pressure.”

The Ryder Cup takes those golfing values and stirs in some even more uplifting ingredients.

When Colin Montgomerie and Corey Pavin sat side by side at a media conference at Celtic Manor on Monday there was an unquestioned and obvious respect for each other, for the competition, for those who had gone before and for the legacy each would leave.

Montgomerie explained that he had chosen not to use his “home captain’s prerogative” of setting the course up to suit the European players, preferring instead to create an “honest course that would reward the best team”.

Pavin refused to be drawn into discussing a particular role for Tiger Woods, insisting that when it comes to golf’s most emotional competition, every man is equal.

from Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010:

Sweden’s Queen of the Slopes revels in lack of attention

All the pre-Olympic attention in women’s Alpine Skiing has been on American Lindsey Vonn, her form, her posing on the cover of Sports Illustrated, her shin injury, her cheesetherapy, her husband/coach/spokesman Thomas and her ever so hip social networking ability (yes, she tweets her facebook updates). It’s almost as though seven-times world champion Anja Paerson wasn’t here…..

Which suits the 28-year-old Swede just fine. The true Queen of the Slopes, the most successful active women’s skier on the circuit, Paerson doesn’t mind the lack of attention.

Despite her elevated status in the sport, only two non-Swedish journalists bothered to turn up to her pre-Olympics press conference. That was even more surprising given that, as well as being a multiple medal contender, Paerson, who has been on the World Cup tour for 12 years, also happens to be one of the smartest, most articulate athlete on the circuit and is frequently outspoken on issues of concern to her and her fellow skiers.

I was fortunate enough to witness a lot of Paerson’s successes in the mid noughties –- some key wins in her two overall World Cup titles in 2004 and 2005, the two golds in the world championships at Bormio in 2005 and her Olympic gold in slalom a year later at the Turin Games. In among those many highlights (she is the only woman to have won gold in every world championship event) there have been times when she has looked and sounded bored or frustrated with skiing. There has been the feeling that she needed to be angry to perform well.

But speaking to her this week at the Olympic village in Whistler, Paerson struck me as being someone very content personally and professionally.

“I feel really great, the preparations have been good and I feel calm and in good harmony, I like the course, I like the slope, the snow is a little bit more like spring snow and I feel very comfortable with that,” she said this week.

The storylines have focused on Vonn and her closest challenger Maria Riesch of Germany but Paerson has hit some good form at just the right moment. She is currently third in the overall standings having since the start of this year finished on the podium in downhill, super-G and giant slalom and won in super-combined. If she were a teenager the ski press would be going wild about form like that.

from Olympics Notebook: Vancouver 2010:

Lindsey gets down with her digital Vonn-tourage

Lindsey Vonn has re-connected with her huge online following -- which I, for one, am determined to call her Digital Vonn-tourage -- and put a brief dalliance with old media behind her.

Vonn, the 25-year-old Alpine skiing world champion and Face of the Games, turned to a major U.S. TV network and a traditional IOC press conference to break the news on Wednesday that she had a badly bruised shin that might keep her out of the Olympics.

TV? A press conference? How old-fashioned, Lindsey. How very binary!

For a while it looked like she might be doing a Stephen Fry and bidding farewell to the Twittering game.  Remember, Vonn had originally said she would be ceasing her social media activities during the Games after getting confused about what IOC rules permitted.

The IOC stepped in to reassure her that she was perfectly fine to carry on as usual but her heart seemed to have gone out of it for a while there, with "Just landed in Vancouver yay!" about as interesting as it got for a week or so.

She apologised to her followers for not being more digitally forthcoming and on Thursday she was back in a much more social mood.

First up was Twitter, where she informed fans that she had taken painkillers prior to a training run that had to be cancelled because of the weather. Then in the afternoon she proved she is back in digital spirits with a lengthy Facebook post, complete with kisses and hugs at the end.

Dangers of joining the sporting Twitterati

New Zealand All Blacks coach Graham Henry played the part of the befuddled old fogey bemused by modern life and confused by new technology with a certain wry amusement towards the end of his team’s European tour late last year.

Neemia Tialata and Cory Janes revealed on Twitter they had been left out of the team to play England 24 hours before Henry formally announced the side.

“I had to find out what Twitter was,” Henry said. “I thought it was a new guy playing five-eighth for England.”

Tialata has 1,513 followers, who discovered their man had been supplanted by Owen Franks at tighthead prop a day before the media were informed. Serena Williams possesses 1,513,847, who were invited to help her with a recipe shortly before Xmas.

The disparity is a fair reflection of the respective standings of Tialata and Williams in the sporting community, although the more important difference between the pair is the gulf between team and individual sports.

Athletes in team sports are now carefully coached to say little and reveal less at the media conferences which are now a part of life in professional sport. They certainly would not dream of telling a reporter if they had been selected or not in advance of the official announcement.

All of which makes a string of indiscretions this year via Twitter the more gratifying for those forced to endure the string of platitudes masquerading as considered answers at compulsory media conferences.

Technology and the modern sports fan

“What are you doing?” This simple question is the basic premise of Twitter, the growing social media website that has transformed how many fans get their daily dose of sports news.

In addition to the newsfeeds provided by established brands (@ReutersSport is a good one!) there are feeds directly from the major sports offices (@MLB,@NFL, @NBA). Then there are the athletes themselves, providing everything from perspective on current events to personalized fan interaction.

It seems that athletes have been embracing all sorts of new communication technologies over the last few years.

During the Beijing Olympics, swimmer Dara Torres and NBA star Carmelo Anthony used Skype to talk with family back home.  Former MLB pitcher Curt Schilling and Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban have helped bring sports blogging into the mainstream. And in the next evolutionary wave, many stars have embraced Twitter as a way to bring themselves closer to friends, family and fans.

We are given a front row seat to league announcements and rumor mill fodder. Athletes and celebrities alike have been given another venue for their exhibitionist personalities and many are embracing it, even while teams and organizations search for a way to curb and regulate its use.

Charlie Villanueva caused a stir last season by Twittering during NBA games.

Chad Ocho Cinco’s comments about potential updates during upcoming NFL games were soon followed by an NFL announcement addressing the subject. Per the NFL’s Brian McCarthy (via Twitter), “NFL players may use Twitter. Teams have rules re: not tweeting during meetings. We prohibit use of PDAs/phones on sidelines on gameday.”

from Reuters Soccer Blog:

Twitter might not be harmless fun for players

The days when the details of transfer negotiations were closely guarded secrets could be coming to an end with the advent of the 'Twitter transfer'.

On Wednesday, U.S. national team striker Jozy Altidore all but announced a move to English Premier League Hull City on the micro-blogging site, keeping his fans updated while Hull remained silent.

Altidore, who is owned by Spanish club Villarreal, alerted followers to a potential move on Tuesday when he informed them he would be up early on Wednesday morning for a flight to England.

After details about his flight and weather on arrival he held back from announcing the deal but gave the game away by posting info of his first game.

"First match is against Chelsea subject to a work permit *wink* *wink* lol thanks for the support and love keep it coming," he wrote.

While Altidore's upbeat updates are unlikely to upset anyone, England striker Darren Bent apologised to Tottenham Hotspur chairman Daniel Levy last month about comments on Twitter relating to his move to Sunderland.

Crash suggests Armstrong has bigger problems

On Monday morning, I told one of my colleagues: “Today (on Tour of Castilla y Leon) should be cool. Decisive stage is Tuesday with the time trial.”

It looks like I was wrong.

Around 4.15pm, my telephone went mad, I received dozens of updates on Twitter. What almost never happened, had just happened badly: LA had crashed and broken his collarbone.

It is usual for a rider to suffer a broken collarbone at least once in his career. Earlier this month, it happened to David Millar.

But in 17 years, Armstrong had never been sidelined because of a crash-related injury. So, is it only bad luck or is it something else?

Having been out of competitive racing for over three years, Armstrong probably lost some of his know-how about riding in a peloton — where you often have to push and shove to be in front and stay out of trouble.