Weekly Sports Update 3: 26/07/11 Part 2

This week I’ve decided to focus on the Diamond League athletics in Monaco, an important meeting in the run-up to the World Championships next month. As well as looking at the meeting itself, I wanted to consider the effect that a spate of injuries to top competitors will have on the level of competition, and whether the profile of the World Championships will be affected by the absence of some of the great rivalries that make athletics so entertaining.

The countdown to the World Championships continued on Friday with an eventful Diamond League meeting in Monaco.

The sporting action was nearly overshadowed by a bizarre incident involving two French athletes. After the men’s 1500m race, France’s Mehdi Baala and Mahiedine Mekhissi-Benabbad came to blows and had to be separated by officials. Both men have since been provisionally suspended.

However, this incident should not be allowed to obscure what was a hugely entertaining evening of athletics. For British fans, there was plenty to cheer about, most notably another excellent performance from Mo Farah. Farah produced a great performance to beat a world-class field and win the 5000m, setting a new British record in the process. Based on recent evidence, Farah’s move to the USA seems to be paying dividends, and he must now be regarded as a strong gold medal contender in Daegu.

The performance of Tiffany Ofili-Porter in the 100m hurdles also provided encouragement. The former American had struggled to find her best form at previous meetings, but she too produced a record-breaking run to finish third behind Australia’s Sally Pearson and American Kellie Wells. Meanwhile, Phillips Idowu shrugged off his ongoing dispute with head of UK Athletics Charles van Commenee to win the triple jump with a leap of 17.36m.

However, Idowu’s victory also signified another prevalent trend ahead of the World Championships. This trend will be of concern to Diamond League organisers, as it has the potential to undermine the basis of the series itself. It can be described as the lack of those big rivalries, those titanic head-to-head battles, that can really ignite a competition. The Diamond League was supposed to provide more of these, but its record so far has been mixed. It’s not the organisers that are responsible, but rather that constant fear that lurks in the mind of every athlete: injury.

It’s because of injuries that we’ve been deprived of some of those great head-to-head contests. This can be seen most clearly in the sport’s highest-profile event, the men’s 100m. Here, an injury to Usain Bolt at the beginning of the season meant the two hardly raced each other, and now a hip injury to Tyson Gay means that they will not meet at the World Championships either. The 100m will still be a hugely exciting event, but there’s no doubt that this is a major blow.

And this isn’t the only event to be affected. The men’s triple jump has been one of the most entertaining events of this season, largely thanks to the absorbing battle between Phillips Idowu and Teddy Tamgho. Tamgho’s season-ending injury is, in one way, good news for British athletics fans, in that it makes a gold medal in Daegu more likely. However, it also deprives Idowu of the chance to prove himself on the world stage against his greatest rival. It also takes a lot of the edge off the competition. It’s hard not to imagine that, had Tamgho been there in Monaco, Idowu would have needed more than the 17.36m he produced to secure victory. Great rivalries force athletes to push themselves to the limit; in their absence things can be a bit too easy.

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Certainly, to claim that the World Championships will be seriously damaged by lack of competition would be to go much too far. For one thing, the absence of a great name can inspire other, lesser-known athletes to produce great performances. Look at the men’s 100m: the headlines will say it was another victory for Usain Bolt, but he was pushed all the way by his countryman Nesta Carter who finished just 0.02s behind him. It would be disrespectful to the athletes to suggest that an event is devalued by the absence of one headline-grabbing competitor. These days, the general skill level is so high that there are plenty of worthy replacements ready to step in if a big name has to pull out.

The problem is that, with the sport aiming to increase its public profile ahead of London 2012, athletics needs all the headlines it can grab. And, unfair as it may be, people simply aren’t as interested in people they haven’t heard of. A World Championships with no Bolt v Gay and no Idowu v Tamgho will be no less significant, and probably no less entertaining. We’ll just have to hope that the viewing public give the athletes a chance to prove that.

Weekly Sports Update 3: 26/07/11 Part 1

Weekly Sports Update 2: 19/07/11 Part 2

For this week I decided to split the video and article slightly differently, using the video bulletin to give a general overview and the article to develop a specific story in more detail. This week I’ve chosen the Women’s World Cup, and looked at what the tournament has done for the profile of women’s football, particularly in this country. As ever, please leave any comments or suggestions below.

So, the Women’s World Cup is over, and it could hardly have had a more fitting finale. Japan, not highly fancied coming into the tournament, have won many fans with their technical ability and dogged determination, and on Sunday night those attributes won them the greatest prize of all. They defeated the world’s number one-ranked team, the United States, for the first time in 26 meetings to become world champions.

Only the most committed of cynics could fail to be moved by such a story. And its poignancy is only enhanced when you find out that to motivate his players before the match, Japan’s coach Norio Sasaki had shown them footage of the areas devastated by March’s earthquake and tsunami – footage that reduced some of the players to tears. On the pitch, the match had all the drama we could have hoped for, with Japan twice having to come from behind to force a penalty shootout. And the obvious joy of the Japanese players afterwards, along with the Americans’ grace in defeat, provided an appropriate ending.

The competition certainly finished in style, then. But what about the World Cup as a whole, and particularly the ambitious claims about what it would do for the profile of women’s football? With the new Women’s Super League halfway through its first season, hopes were high in the British media that this would be a real breakthrough year for women’s football in this country. So has it lived up to expectations?

Let’s deal with the obvious issue first – no, England didn’t win the World Cup. In fact, they didn’t make it beyond the quarter-finals, losing to France to the obvious distress of players and coaches. However, in many ways that loss, and particularly the manner in which it occurred, may turn out to be good for the England women’s team. After all, being dumped out of a major tournament on penalties puts them firmly in line with English footballing tradition. England’s women may not be world champions, but long-suffering supporters of the men’s team will feel a certain comfort in experiencing the same sense of inevitable disappointment with which they are so familiar.

We all know, though, that it’s not just the team you follow that keeps you interested in a sport. It’s just as much about the individuals, and here too the World Cup has been vital. This has been the first tournament for which England have had real depth in their squad, so that for the first time there’s been genuine competition for places. This will have led those watching to engage with the players on a more personal level. Put simply, knowing that a player’s only on the pitch because they’re good enough to be there, and that a poor game could result in them being dropped, encourages you to invest emotionally in their success.

It also encourages armchair experts. And let’s face it, we all like to feel like experts. I’d hardly watched a game of women’s football before this tournament (largely because of the lack of television coverage, but we’ll get to that later), but that didn’t stop me sitting in front of my TV halfway through England’s first match shouting “Eni Aluko’s having a bad game, get Faye White on!” And now that I, and thousands of others, know the players’ names, we’ll be far more likely to listen out for news of them, and maybe follow the progress of their clubs. One of the most appealing things about sport is that it provides us with individual stories to follow. For women’s football, the hope must be that interest in those stories does not fade with the memory of events in Germany.

For the health of the sport internationally, too, this tournament has provided many encouraging signs. Attendances at matches were consistently above the 20 000 mark, with a remarkable 70 000 at the opening game and nearly 49 000 watching last night’s final. And from personal experience, it does seem that this competition has got more people interested in the game. Demands of “How are the girlies doing?”, frequently heard around my house during England’s campaign, may not be the most politically correct formulation of this interest, but that’s not really the point. The point is that a competitive England outfit alongside an exciting and well-organised tournament really can boost the profile of the sport.

So just how much of a boost has the World Cup given women’s football? That, of course, won’t really be known for some time. In this country, one important indicator will be the success or otherwise of the Women’s Super League. It will be fascinating to see whether the exposure that the national side have gained thanks to the World Cup translates into more people going out and watching women’s club football on a regular basis. The catalyst provided by the World Cup might help with this, but it certainly won’t be enough on its own to make the league successful. Neither will it be enough to ensure that more people will take a sustained interest in England’s fortunes now that the tournament is over. As I suggested above, in the past a big part of the problem has been the sporadic nature of television coverage, even of important international matches. The quantity of women’s football on our screens has increased markedly this year. It remains to be seen if this trend will be sustained.

Overall, though, the signs are encouraging. Even if the effect is short-lived, the World Cup has got more people watching, talking about and appreciating women’s football. It doesn’t seem too much to hope that for some this competition has marked the start (or the continuation) of a real love of the women’s game. But of course the real test is whether this tournament, and all the other progress the sport is making in this country, encourages more girls to go out and play football. Will the World Cup help inspire a new generation to take up the sport, and to keep it up until they too step out onto the international stage? That’s something we won’t know for many years to come.

Weekly Sports Update 2: 19/07/11 Part 1

Weekly Sports Update 1: 11/07/11 Part 2

Apologies for the extended absence – a few minor inconveniences called finals had to be dealt with. All done and back to blogging now though, and posts from now on will have an exciting new format (my limited technical skills permitting). Each week there’ll be a video bulletin covering the week’s biggest sports news, accompanied by an article dealing with some of the stories that don’t hit the headlines but still deserve to be addressed. If you’ve got any suggestions for content, just leave a comment below.

It’s been an eventful week in the world of sport. The British Grand Prix, women’s world cup, ODI and Test cricket and Diamond League athletics have been discussed in the video bulletin above. However, there’s plenty more to talk about, both in the public eye and behind the scenes.

In rugby, this weekend saw the conclusion of the Super Rugby season, with the final between the Queensland Reds and the Canterbury Crusaders in Brisbane on Saturday. It was a tense affair with plenty of errors from both sides, and it was impossible to separate the teams on the scoreboard until Will Genia’s solo try from 65 metres. The Reds held on for the last ten minutes to secure an 18-13 victory and their first Super Rugby title in the professional era.

Closer to home, this week saw further developments in the turmoil engulfing the RFU. Chairman Martyn Thomas stepped down on Sunday following a report by the RFU’s disciplinary officer Judge Jeff Blackett into former chief executive John Steele’s departure in June. Thomas will stay on as acting chief executive until a permanent replacement for Steele is found. The rest of the management board survived after a vote of no confidence was defeated. However, this spells more bad news for English rugby’s governing body, which, with the world cup in New Zealand just weeks away, finds several of its key management positions unfilled.

Meanwhile, there was some good news for anyone still mourning Andy Murray’s exit from Wimbledon. Murray was in Davis Cup action for Great Britain this week, and his two singles wins combined with victory in the doubles alongside brother Jamie were enough to ensure the British team of victory over Luxembourg. Murray broke down in tears after his straight sets win over Gilles Muller in front of a home crowd in Glasgow. James Ward also won his second singles match to seal a convincing 4-1 victory. Great Britain will now face Hungary on 16-18 September in a bid to secure promotion to Europe/Africa Group I.

Scotland played host to another major sporting event this week. The Scottish Open at Castle Stuart faced serious disruption and eventually had to be shortened to 54 holes after bad weather caused flooding and even landslides on the course. Play was eventually able to resume, however, and in the end it was world number one Luke Donald who came out on top, finishing four shots clear on nineteen under par. Donald will now aim to become the first English winner of the Open at Sandwich since 1992, and the first British champion since 1999. The competition should be intense, with US Open champion Rory McIlroy another prominent British challenger. Colin Montgomerie will miss out, though, after failing to secure the top-five finish he needed to secure a place at Sandwich.

Meanwhile, it’s been a week of drama in the Tour de France. There were mixed emotions for Team Sky, as their first ever stage win was followed by a crash involving star rider Bradley Wiggins. Three-time Olympic gold medallist Wiggins suffered a broken collarbone during the seventh stage, which was eventually won by Mark Cavendish. An accident marred the ninth stage after a crash involving a television vehicle sent two riders, Juan Antonia Flecha and Johnny Hoogerland flying across the road, with Hoogerland hitting a barbed wire fence. Tour organisers took the car off the race following this incident. The Tour continues, and it seems certain that the controversy is far from over.

It’s been an exciting week, then, in all sorts of ways. From football to cycling, F1 to rugby and tennis to golf, there’s been no shortage of stories. I’m aware that there’s plenty more I haven’t covered – the rowing World Cup event in Lucerne to give just one example. In a way, though, that’s a positive thing. After all, if the sporting events of a week could be covered in a single blog, the world of sport wouldn’t be a very interesting place, would it? 

Weekly Sports Update 1: 11/07/11 Part 1