Wladimir Klitschko summarizes his fight with David Haye

Big man holding up pictures.

Bradley Wiggins out of the Tour

 

What a differnce a day makes. Yesterday Sky (the only UK based team in the Tour) won their first stage of the Tour de France.

But today Bradley Wiggins (Sky's team leader, who looked a shoe in for a top 5 finish overall) crashed and was forced to abandon the Tour with a collar bone injury.

Really unfortunate, hope he can recover and come back next year.

It's up to Cavendish again to fly the flag for the UK.

Good idea, bad idea

Read report after victory but before victory swim (BBC)

Read report after swim... (BBC)

Now there's a surprise

Nudge, nudge.

Tevez: I want to leave Manchester City (ESPN)

The Mountain Bridge

 

There was only one classified mountain on stage 3 of the Tour: a bridge.

And what a bridge.

A group of five riders broke away from the peloton in a bid to claim the solitary point on offer for the King of the Mountains jersey at the "summit" of the mountain... er bridge. (See video below)

At 66m the bridge (Côte du Pont de Saint-Nazaire) split the peloton in two but the crosswinds did not prevent the stragglers from rejoining the pack and finishing the stage with a bunch sprint.

Mark Cavendish is in the spotlight once again: he won the peloton's sprint for the intermediate green jersey spoils but came in contact with current yellow jersey wearer and main contender for the green, Thor Hushovd. (Click for video)

Later Cavendish was bumped and forced off his racing line in the build up to the finish. The stewards decided to punish both Cavendish and Thor Hushov for the argy-bargy by taking back the points they accumulated on the stage. No doubt there will be appeals galore tomorrow.

The stage was won by Tyler Ferrar who became the first American to win a Tour stage on 4 July.

In spite of puncturing his rear tyre at the halfway point, Nicolas Roche finished safely in the pack with the same time as all the top finishers.

Tour de France 2011: Cavendish punished as Farrar wins (BBC)

Loudest Tennis Points

Grunting reaches new levels.

Definitely a gap in the market for ear plugs at Wimbledon.

Nicolas Roche blogging, vlogging and occasionally cycling

Roche after the crash which forced him to retire from the Critérium du Dauphiné.
Not ideal preparation three weeks before the Tour de France!

Just as he did last year, Nicolas Roche is keeping a daily diary in the Irish Independent following the thrills and spills of the peloton. Check out the first entry.

Here's a snipet from the diary where he descibes his injury after his first race back.

It was my first race back after a crash in the Criterium du Dauphine had left me looking like something you'd see hanging in a butchers window. Battered and bruised, I had cuts running literally from my shin to my finger tips and they're only beginning to heal now. I needed an operation to repair a hole in my elbow and two stitches in my chin. Having banged my head off a concrete road bollard I was in a daze for almost three days afterwards and had to take five days off the bike because I could hardly walk.

He's also keeping a video diary which is basically a brief chat about the previous stage. First video below.

Allez Nico!

Links
YouTube Channel

Diary on Indo site

Diary on Nico's site

AG2R La Mondiale Facebook page

Spectator causes crash at the Tour (Stage 1 Results)

With 8km in what looked like a fairly tame opening stage of the Tour de France, a stupid spectator caused a crash which has exploded the race for the yellow jersey.

Of the contenders for the GC, Alberto Contador was worst affected by the incident. To his misfortune Contador was caught up in yet another crash some 3km from the finish line. In the end he lost 1 min 20 sec on the stage winner, Belgium's own Philippe Gilbert. (The Belgians are hooting their horns in celebration in Brussels. Gilbert's form has been unmatched this year so he's certainly in with a shout of winning.)

Ireland's Nicolas Roche was in a crash at the start of the stage, but managed to avoid the carnage thereafter, finishing with the leaders and crossing the line in 19th spot.

Here's the top 30.

Results Stage 1 - Passage du Gois → Mont des Alouettes (Tour de France official site)

Contador booed by public at Tour opening

That's the French in a gladiatorial amphitheatre for you...

Contador won the Tour de France last year but failed a doping test during the event. Bizzarely the hearing has been postponed again and again will not be held until August.

Should he be found guilty Contador faces a two year ban and the stripping of his 2010 victory. But he's still riding and is the hot favourite to win the Tour again. (It would be his 4th victory in 5 years.)

Confused? So is Stephen Roche who articulated as much in a Eurosport interview yesterday.

Tour de France: 1st Stage

Tour de France 2011: Alberto Contador angry at drugs appeal (BBC)

Utter lunacy: the Williams sisters' worst outfits

Venus warming up for match on her eponymous planet.


Serena in a Cameroon football kit... as you do.


At the US Open playing tennis. Not scuba diving.


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Oh for God's sake!

AND Venus has a fashion degree. Très haute couture no doubt.

Further Reading (if your eyes can stand it)
Venus Williams graduates with fashion design degree (Williamssisters.org)

The 10 craziest Williams sisters outfits (Oddetorium Blog)

Anyone for lattice? Venus and 'the worst outfit ever seen on a tennis court' (Daily Mail)

Spinal Tap love curling

"Curling... curling... lets all go bloody curling... on espn."

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.