Tour de France 2011

This Saturday, on the west coast of baguette-land, 208 riders will set off in the world's greatest cycling race.

This year's Tour de France will take over 3 weeks to finish and the gruelling schedule allows for only two rest days. In total the riders will have to cover nearly 3,500 km before they finish in Paris on 24 July. Last year the average speed of Alberto Contador, the winner of the 2010 Tour, was 39.5 km/hr.

All Irish eyes will be on Ireland's Nicolas Roche who rides, just as he did last year, as team leader for the French based AG2R La Mondiale team. 2010 saw Roche finish in 15th place having bagged a few top ten finishes along the way. If he hadn't been betrayed by his teammate John Gadret on Stage 15 last year he could have finished even higher. Here's hope Roche will perform just as well, if not better, this year.

When it comes to the yellow jersey and the overall winner for 2011, the ones to watch are of course Alberto Contador (Team Saxo Bank Sungard) and Andy Schleck (Team Leopard-Trek). The next rider in the betting is 25/1 so basically it's a two horse race. Schleck has a remarkably strong team behind him with three former wearers of the yellow jersey (Jens Voigt, Stuart O’Grady, Fabian Cancellara) and his brother Andy (former stage winner) to count on. However most people seem to fancy Contador to win again, though everyone hope there will be not repeat of Chain-gate this time around.

Surely Mark Cavendish (Team HTC – Highroad) will manage to win the sprinter's jersey this year. He's been the best sprinter in the world for two or three years but somehow fate has conspired for him to fall short of the mark. Plus Mark "Headbutt" Renshaw returns to his team as his main lead out man.

Predictions
Yellow Jersey (general classification): Alberto Contador
Green Jersey (points classification): Mark Cavendish
Polka-dot Jersey (king of the mountains): Alberto Contador
Team Classification: Team Leopard-Trek

Also watch out for...
Jurgen Van Den Broeck: Flying the flag for the Belgians and in with a shout for a top 5 finish in the general classification, he's a steely competitor.

Alessandro Petacchi and Thor Hushovd: Mark Cavendish's main rivals for the points jersey who can walk the walk and talk the talk. There'll be plenty of press conference hissy fits between these three if previous Tours are anything to go by.

Samuel Sanchez: The best descender of mountains in the peloton whose risk taking make the watching as exciting as it is terrifying.

Team Sky: If you're following the UK press or watching the Tour on British Eurosport you wont have to make too much of an effort to look out for them. Formed in 2009 with their fervent promise to "create the first British winner of the Tour de France, within five years", the UK team have their sights set on glory and will be heaping all manner of pressure on Bradley Wiggins to win the yellow jersey.

Lance Armstrong: Even though he's retired from the sport (again) he's sure to make some announcement or other. Armstrong and cycling is to Tiger Woods and golf: they dominate the sport whether they compete or not.

Links
The Tour de France (offical site)

Spare a Thought for Nicolas Roche

Tour de France: Alberto Contador vs Andy Schleck, to wait or not to wait?

Mark Renshaw headbutts Cyclist during 2010 Tour De France (Youtube)

Wimbledon

Roger Federer and Sachin Tendulkar shooting the breeze.

York's steely defence

York Council has built a fence through the football goals of a public park.

As is typical the BBC's reporting was authoritive:

"[The incident] has left local people who use the park to play football confused."

The Council itself admitted it had scored "an own goal".



Photos via Daily Mail

York council builds fence through goalposts (BBC)

Outrageous

The US Open. It's not for the faint hearted.

An open in every sense of the word (Irish Times)

Offaly board locks team out & waits for them to be knocked out of Championship

Joe Dooley's not happy

The Offaly hurling team were locked out of O'Connor Park last Saturday when they arrived for a training session. Naturally enough this caused something of storm - nobody likes being stood up.

Since then all hell has broken loose. Offaly manager Joe Dooley unleashed the chaos in a letter to the Irish Examiner (printed on Tuesday) which criticised the Offaly County Board and finally exposed the whitest of white elephants in Offaly GAA.

The letter begins as follows:

"As a result of the way we were received, from gates being locked all over the place, to players and mentors being asked to leave the field, to not being allowed walk across the field, to the threat of cars being removed from outside the ground, we had no choice but to call off training.

"This is not a satisfactory situation given we have our most important game in two weeks’ time."

"This type of treatment has been an ongoing issue all year and today it came to a head when all involved agreed we have had enough.

"This is the last thing anyone wanted or needed but it was collectively felt that we were left with no other choice. It is very clear to all involved that throughout this year and last that we are not wanted in O’Connor Park. Every reason seems to be used to keep us out of the pitch or off the pitch during training sessions."

The letter was signed by major figures in Offaly hurling: Joe Dooley (manager since 2007, player 1984-2000, Triple All Ireland winner, All Star), Tony Murphy (team secretary for 30 years), Brendan Kelly (selector since the early 1990s), Pat McLoughney (selector), Francis Forde (coach), Brian Carroll (team captain), Joe Bergin (vice-captain), and Shane Dooley (star player).

The spark for the latest row: the redeveloped O'Connor park (old stand, top right.... duh)

As with most disputes, it seems that money is at the heart of the furore. Five million euro was pumped into redeveloping O'Connor park with a new 7,000 all seater stand completed in 2006. Whispers are that an early Championship exit for Offaly might advance opportunities for O'Connor Park to stage more Championship matches (with large attendences) over the summer. Dublin and Galway will be meeting in O'Connor Park this weekend in a match which will certainly be a sell out.

Needless to say the uproar has caused a whole host of former Offaly players to go bananas. Daithi Regan slamed the county board on Wednesday (Irish Examiner):

"The feeling locally — and I’d feel very strongly about this — is that the Offaly County Board is interested in one thing and one thing only, and that is servicing the debt on O’Connor Park.

"The big thing for them this week isn’t that Offaly beat either Cork or Laois in the hurling qualifiers, it’s that they get 15 to 20,000 in O’Connor Park this Saturday for Galway and Dublin [Leinster senior hurling semi-final].

"They have no interest in Offaly hurling. I’m not saying that lightly, they have no interest whatsoever in the future of hurling in Offaly...

"For a county that between 1980 and 2000 won four All-Irelands, nine Leinsters, a National League — New York or London are better treated."

All Star and double All Ireland winner Michael Duignan made a passionate defence of the Offaly players in an interview on RTE:

"I'd like to know what is the the strategic plan in Offaly. What is the plan for the development of hurling and football over the next three, five, ten years. As far as I can see we want to get as many matches as we can into O'Connor Park and stop our teams trainning there... Once Offaly are out of the Championship there'll be seven or eight matches played in O'Connor Park to get as much revenue as possible in, and this sadens me.

"I was one of the people on the O'Connor Park finance committee that raised 1.2 million euro in the county for the development of O'Connor Park and I certainly didn't raise that money or put in the effort that I did so that our county teams could be locked out of the facility...

"You take an example: last Saturday morning James Rigney, who broke his arm playing for this county three months ago - he was out for eight, nine weeks - he came back to trainning and he broke his hand on the same arm the following night training. He was out running on the perimeter of the pitch in a pair of runners, outside the white line and he was put off the pitch last Saturday morning. Now if anyone can tell me in this day and age that that's acceptable I'm sorry it's not.

"And I think this is not a little spat. This is a serious issue for Offaly and for all Offaly hurling people who love the game.

"There's people down there [at O'Connor Park] who have a little bit of power and they think that they own the place, and that's not good enough. That facility is there for the players of Offaly and the people of Offaly. It's not there for one or two individuals."

The team itself put up a superb display against the current National League Champs, Dublin, only losing out in the dying moments after being reduced to 14 players. Considering the Dubs are many people's sneaky bet for the All Ireland this year it's scandalous think that the Offaly players are not given every opportunity build on this performance and make a good run at the qualifiers.

And in my opinion it's shameful that a team of amatuer players, with an average age of 23, who train on a par with professionals are made to feel unwanted and worthless.

Hard to see how any player could remain faithful to the Faithful after that.

Watch highlights of Offaly's narrow loss to Dublin

Links:
Furious Dooley’s letter of intent (Irish Examiner)
Regan blasts Offaly board over hurlers’ treatment (Irish Examiner)
Crisis for Offaly Over O'Connor Park - Michael Duignan interview (RTE Radio)

Text Updates for Horse Races

So You Think the hot favourite could not hang on to win at Ascot today

Were you excited for the big race today from Royal Ascot? Did you wonder if the highly fancied So You Think would live up to expectations? Were you at work all day and had to follow the race via BBC text updates?

Here's how it was reported:

BBC Sport's Frank Keogh on Twitter: "Just caught my first glimpse of NZ-bred So You Think in parade ring at Royal Ascot. Stood in admiration. Mighty-looking horse"
1545: So You Think goes off at 4-11 and gets away neatly.
1546: Jan Vermeer leads with six to go and going at a hell of a lick.
1546: So You Think is well set in third and ready to surge.
1546:Here he comes....
REWILDING WINS THE PRINCE OF WALES'S STAKES AT 17-2
1553:A breath-taking finish as Frankie Dettori brings Rewilding up alongside So You Think as the much-fancied but fading favourite desperately attempts to cling on to his lead, but his grip is prised loose within the last few metres. A tight finish produces a track-record time.

Unemployment (and live TV) beckons.

Live text updates - Royal Ascot day two (BBC)

The NFL can save the global economy

As entertaining as it is terrifying this piece by Yanis Varoufakis a professor of economics is worth a gander.

Memorable quotations include:

• "In short, I have a hunch that the world is spinning out of control."

• "All we need do is think of a way to organise the game of human life along the NFL’s lines, merely substituting the goal of maximising the audience’s excitement with that of minimising humanity’s chances of ending up like a dim, self-defeating virus."

Okay.

Beyond the Crisis: Markets, planning and a utopian vision (inspired by the American National Football League) (Irish Left Review)

Marshall falls on track at Canadian F1 GP

The kind of thing we'd do after one Duvel too many.

In a bizarre race Jensen Button visited the pits six times, crashed into (thus retiring) his team-mate Lewis Hamilton, and fought his way from last position to pass Sebastian Vettel on the last lap to win the race.

And they say Formula 1 is boring.

Stadium at Lansdowne Road to host 2013 Heineken Cup final

Aviva Stadium confirmed as venue for 2013 Heineken Cup Final (The Journal)

Usain Bolt is good enough to play for Man Utd

He also explains how he seduces girls with KFC and why he doesn't drive a second hand Micra.

Without doubt the coolest man in the world.

Original Ronaldo: The last hurrah

The final curtain fell on Ronaldo's professional career with his appearance for Brazil against Chile in a friendly game yesterday. He spent 15 mins on the pitch and received a standing ovation.

Although it's hard to watch the below video - which shows a rather portly Ronaldo jogging around the box and missing chances he used to put away in his sleep - it's good to remember that at his peak no player ever matched his combination of speed, power and skill.

Ireland 2 Italy 0

Friendly shmendly.

Premium Ireland beat Leaded Italy in Standard Liège

Trapattoni and Prandelli before the match

Ireland 2 - Italy 0

With two Italian managers and 20,000 of the 21,564 fans wearing blue and white you might be forgiven thinking this friendly was an all Italian affair.

With a plucky Irish team devoid of regular starters winning the game you might be forgiven thinking this friendly was an all Irish affair.

In fact it was neither. This was an all Liège affair, because it was bewildering, surprising and at times upsetting. And let me tell you these adjectives sum up Liège.

Bewildering: Liège. Why Liège? Not Dublin or Rome. Not London or Paris. Not even a capital city (sorry Wallonia, you ain't no country). Apparently there is a big Italian expat community in Liège, and in fairness this was evidenced by the turn out in the stadium which was packed with azzuri. So this morning I asked my Italian colleague why were there so many Italians in Liège. He replied, "Because of the mines". Eh, right...

Watson! Find me my pipe.

Surprising: Well Ireland won didn't they? Beat the 2006 World Champs fair a square. What's surprising about Liège? It's ugly. In fact it's fugly. In spite of being the capital of Wallonia and the third biggest city in Belgium, Liège is ugly. Additionally surprising considering the Frenchy-Belgians always turn themselves out so well. However the stadium remained true to Walloon loonyness and the (unsurpirsing) quirkiness of Belgium: all food and drink was banned in the stands. Hmmm.

Watson! Forget the pipe, bring the whisky; this problem needs decanting.

Upsetting: With all the Irish dotted around Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany scrambling for rental cars, trains and/or taxis to get to the game, Liège just decided to take advantage of our naivety and turned awkward. First there were the locals, who were about as helpful as the nonexistant sign posts. Then there was the Liège road system which resembled a 5 year old's scalectrix track after the five year old went all Las Palmas on the track. And finally there were the wonderful people from B-rail who decided to cancel the last train out of Liège, stranding all sorts of nice Irish-Brusselians.

Watson! Call a cab, we're giving up.

But aren't the bewildering, surprising and upsetting nights always the best?

Keith Andrews and Simon Cox fire Ireland to victory over Italy in Liège (The Guardian)

PS I should mention that it was the best of craic and as the fella says, "The lads played brilliant!"

Paul McShane, Captain of Ireland

For the night anyways.

He's the less effective version of Dirk Kuyt you hate to love, but you love him anyways.

McShane eyes full-time role as Irish skipper (Irish Independent)

Cereal killer on the loose

No capital letter. Part time blogger breathes sigh of relief.

Germany probes sprouts as killer bacteria source (Herald Sun)

Super Mario Updates (2)

 

A week has gone by since the last Mario World update so naturally there is more to add.

This week saw new developments in Mario's head gear department and a change in ammunition.

Check it out at Mario World.

Red vs Blue, Federer vs Nadal

If only they switched their shirts... never mind, continue with flimsy red-blue premise

"It was the matchup everyone craved but few predicted would happen, a record eighth time the same two men have faced off on the last day of a Grand Slam event." (LA Times)

Almost every computer game, comic book and fantasy series pits a red character against a blue. Inevitably these two come to lock horns in cosmic battles for supremacy. Oftentimes this seemingly never-ending confrontation follows along a standard pattern of the Red Oni vs the Blue Oni which tvtropes describes in the following way:

"The Red Oni is associated with passion, wildness, defiance and fire. A red oni character is often more brawny than brainy, enthusiastic, determined, and filled with a zest for life. He is also much more likely to break conventions and rules than his counterpart. Often an Idiot Hero or, in more mature pieces, a Boisterous Bruiser, (or at least having some qualities of one) and likely to be Hot Blooded. If a red oni is indeed noticeably intelligent, he will still be much more emotional than the blue oni, and/or with less sophisticated thoughts, feelings, or goals. When a villain, a red oni is often a Blood Knight. Whereas his blue counterpart puts a lot of focus onto higher goals, causes, or codes of behavior, the red is usually more concerned with people. Say something nasty about their country or cause, and they'll usually shrug or laugh it off. On the other hand, say or do something nasty to their closest friends, and you've just guaranteed yourself a world of pain. Likely candidate for The McCoy.

"The Blue Oni is an opposite in most ways — more intellectual, proud, traditional, cultured (sometimes more spiritual, although that's not guaranteed), and associated with water. Blue oni personalities are often respected by others, but also likely to puzzle or confound their peers because they are difficult to read and have a mysterious quality to them. Personality subtypes include The Stoic, The Spock, The Quiet One and the ever popular Aloof Big Brother. (Pride, aloofness, or social ineptness also means they frequently have trouble spitting it out, whatever "it" may be.) It's worth noting that while blue types appear tremendously calm and composed, sometimes this is just the surface, and scratching that facade may show that they are, if anything, wound far too tight beneath their calm and unemotional appearance. (This is particularly true of the villains). Villainous blue oni tend to be extremely ruthless, ready to do or sacrifice anything (and often anyone) to accomplish their goals. See Knight Templar and Well-Intentioned Extremist. Likely candidate for The Spock."

I put it to you now, what if the red and blue were to merge into one all powerful being? eg. would 26 slams over the last 8 years translate to a clean sweep of 32? xkcd has cleared things up for me no end with this handy comic strip, mwah hahaha!

Links:
Rafael Nadal defeats Roger Federer for his sixth French Open title (LA Times)
Red Oni, Blue Oni (TV Tropes)
Matrix Revisited (xkcd)

F1 car hits man, car ok

Now that was a foolish thing to do. Plus he's a marshall. An official marshall for the event, who is entrusted with making things safer.

He's even wearing a shirt marked "staff" and has a clipboard in his hand. A clipboard people.

Very foolish indeed.

Buemi not commenting after hitting man with F1 car (In Auto News)

"Eamon what have you ordered for dinner?"

C'mon guys the World Cup wasn't that boring...

The best horse race ever

The 2000 Eclipse Stakes from Sandown Park is still the best race I've ever seen, not least because of the pedigree of the field. Below is a selection of the career Group 1 successes of the horses.

Giant's Causeway

Futurity Stakes (Ireland) (1999)

Prix de la Salamandre (1999)

Gladness Stakes (2000)

St. James's Palace Stakes (2000)

Eclipse Stakes (2000)

Sussex Stakes(2000)

Juddmonte International Stakes (2000)

Irish Champion Stakes (2000)

Awards:

European Horse of the Year (2000)

Leading sire in North America (2009, 2010)

Kalanisi

Heron Stakes (1999)

Queen Anne Stakes (2000)

Champion Stakes (2000)

Breeders' Cup wins:

Breeders' Cup Turf (2000)

Awards:

American Champion Male Turf Horse (2000)

European Champion Older Horse (2000)

Sakhee

Dante Stakes (2000)

Sandown Classic Trial (2000)

International Stakes (2001)

Prix de l'Arc de Triomphe (2001)

Fantastic Light

Sandown Classic Trial (1999)

Great Voltigeur Stakes (1999)

Arc Trial (1999)

Dubai Sheema Classic (2000)

Man O' War Stakes (2000)

Hong Kong Cup (2000)

Tattersalls Gold Cup (2001)

Prince of Wales's Stakes (2001)

Irish Champion Stakes (2001)

Breeders' Cup Turf (2001)

Awards:

United States Champion Male Turf Horse (2001)

European Champion Older Horse (2001)

European Horse of the Year (2001)

Timeform Result of 2000 Eclipse Stakes

Federer vs Nadal again

Tomorrow will be the 19th time the two play against each other in a competitive final. In total Federer and Nadal have met 24 times with Nadal leading the head to head rivalry 16-8.

Win or lose, Federer knows that he'll still have women dropping at his feet as this video from earlier in the week shows...

Fiddlesticks

Collective sigh as all well meaning sprouts suddenly become deflated.

The forth-coming Ireland-Italy friendly in Belgium has lost its main attraction: super Mario Balotelli wont be playing...

Soccer Shorts (Irish Times)

Vincent Browne takes on Fifa

 

VB dedicated his Thursday night show to the continuing implosions of Fifa. He also delved into corruption in other sports.

Heavy stuff. Depressing stuff too.

Panel:
John Shuttleworth - Centre for Sports Studies at UCD
Sarah O'Conor - Federation of Irish Sports
Miguel Delaney - Sports Journalist
Aidan Healy - Soliciter specialising in sports law at Beechams

Click here for the full show (TV3)

Skip forward to 20min 30sec for some rather ingenious cheating methods at the Olympics.

Neutral Sports Journalism

French Open day 13 photos: men's semi-finals (BBC)

Messi's goals 2010/2011

All 53 of them.

Thierry Henry Card Trick

Look, look! He's using his hands!! (...let's not go there shall we.)

Am I the only one who's confused by all this...?

Nice cuddly toy though.

Crisis? What crisis?

Fifa seems to be saying that the performance from Messi and co last Saturday is proof that it is not in crisis.

Plus how could there be a crisis in Fifa when the organisation just conducted a full, open and fair presidential election process resulting in the re-election of 75 year old Sepp Blatter for a fourth term?

Context?

Inevitably: Blatter faces Fifa ethics inquiry

Pithiest reaction to latest FIFA corruption investigations

More context?

Who is Sepp Blatter?

Super Mario Updates

Check out the latest updates to the Mario World section of the blog.

Stress doctors highly recommend viewing the exploits of Mario Balotelli for 15 minutes of every day.

I do too (so long as you aren't his manager). After all he is Super Mario!

 

Brussels 20k: the sprouts in action

The five who mattered on Sunday. Seen here jogging to the start line.
(from L-R) Sprouts (blind), Green Sprouts (with expression), Train, Country and Energizer Sprouts (all smiley)

For more see Brussels 20k Variations on the Theme of Road Rage

Photos via David M