"...I realize that I did make a good choice. It's been worth it.": As the NFL takes its annual trip to Wembley, the New York Times heads up to Oxford to check on someone who chose not to enter the draft just yet: Myron Rolle, the Florida State safety who has just begun the Rhodes Scholarship he was awarded at the end of last season.

posted by etagloh to football at 04:58 PM - 6 comments

"They don't know Luol Deng is Barack Obama's favourite basketball player. They don't even know that he is British.": A great piece from the summer basketball camp Deng has hosted for the past five years, reflecting on his ability to inspire young Britons while remaining a relative unknown to the sporting press of his adopted home country.

posted by etagloh to basketball at 11:47 PM - 1 comment

Steven Cohen quits punditry, citing death threats, after long-running spat with Scousers: A familiar face and voice for US-based EPL fans, he's also a Chelsea supporter with an unfortunate habit of blaming Liverpool fans for Hillsborough, apologising, and then doing it again. After repeating his charges on the 20th anniversary of the tragedy, a group of US-based Liverpool fans began an advertiser boycott; fearing a global backlash, a number of Sirius and FSC sponsors pulled their support; another apology wasn't enough to stop FSC from kicking Cohen into touch. On Friday, he walked away from his radio show, invoking the American tradition of free speech, citing antisemitism and death threats to his stepchildren, and blaming... pretty much everybody.

posted by etagloh to soccer at 02:19 AM - 18 comments

England regain the Ashes: After a momentous day that began with the Australians looking like they could make history and challenge a huge total, England made breakthroughs when they least expected them to turn the momentum their way. Australian commentators complained criticised the pitch, but Ponting must rue leaving out his spinner -- or being unable to take an early lead back in Cardiff. Now, how well did you do?

posted by etagloh to other at 02:17 PM - 14 comments

Women's boxing set for 2012 Olympics, golf and rugby sevens for 2016: The big losers of the IOC's executive board meeting: squash, once again stiffed because of its limited US presence and supposed unbroadcastability, and baseball and softball, having been axed for 2008. Golf is included, presumably, to get Tiger to the Olympics, though as Brian Cazeneuve suggests, it's hard to see the top players treating it with the same respect as the Majors... or bunking down in the athletes' village.

posted by etagloh to olympics at 10:55 AM - 18 comments

The end of the high-tech swimsuit (and the poolside wardrobe malfunction): After a year of wrangling over the specifications of swimsuits, the world governing body FINA has decided to call the whole thing off: from 2010, competitions under its jurisdiction will outlaw full-body suits and limit the materials used for their construction. This week's world championships will be the final hoorah for the bodysuit, after a decade of innovation (and embarrassment) and the records set in Rome are likely to go into the books with an asterisk.

posted by etagloh to other at 12:14 PM - 10 comments

Real bites again: A week shy of six years since parting company with David Beckham, and six months after Sir Alex told the press 'I wouldn't sell that mob a virus', Manchester Utd have accepted Real Madrid's £80m offer for Cristiano Ronaldo. Let the speculation about the club's finances and post-mortems on C-Ron's time at Old Trafford commence.

posted by etagloh to soccer at 07:58 AM - 14 comments

Rafa does a Keegan?: Sir Alex gets under the skin of yet another title contender, as Benitez lashes out against perceived favourable treatment of Fergie and Man Utd in terms of the fixture list, disciplinary action and criticism of referees. No comment on whether Rafa would love it if they beat 'em.

posted by etagloh to soccer at 04:47 PM - 7 comments

Raymond van Barneveld comes up with a 9-darter: in the PDC world championship. The crowd and commentators go wild. (Him, not so much.)

posted by etagloh to other at 12:03 AM - 13 comments

Smell The Glove: Brandon Marshall had a half-black, half-white glove stashed as part of a TD celebration / commemoration that recalled Tommie Smith and celebrated Barack Obama. Brandon Stokely ran over to him and made him put it away, fearing a 15-yard unsportsmanlike at the end of a close game. On the one hand, Brandon Marshall is no Tommie Smith. On the other hand, I can't shake off the nagging feeling (which owes more to Smith than Marshall) that it would have been a pretty cool gesture.

posted by etagloh to football at 02:26 AM - 8 comments

"You will never see a more dramatic conclusion to any motor race...: let alone a grand prix, and the result of it all is that, in the most harum scarum way possible - he doesn't make it easy for himself, does he? - Lewis Hamilton is the world champion." (Video here for the moment.)

posted by etagloh to auto racing at 08:25 PM - 12 comments

Pro Cycling At The Crossroads: Clean Up Or Clear Off.: A wide-ranging account of the sport's struggle to clean up its drug culture in advance of this weekend's DC-area race. The backstory is familiar to cycling fans, but it's an eye-opener to see the past decade of scandal laid out for a wider audience and juxtaposed with the approach of big-league American sports to doping.

posted by etagloh to other at 01:43 AM - 6 comments

The Age of Discovery is over.: What are eight Tour de France wins worth? Not much, it seems, in the current climate: Team Discovery is set to disband at the end of the year when its sponsorship deal ends, and directeur sportif Johan Bruyneel will retire from pro cycling.

posted by etagloh to other at 03:53 PM - 4 comments

"The future of this sport is one where we have to get back to basics,": As the Tour caravan disperses, the post-mortem begins. ESPN's Bonnie DeSimone wonders whether a riders' union would change the atmosphere. The ASO has floated the idea of opening the TdF field to national teams, though that's tied into its power struggle with the UCI and ProTour teams. But a common theme emerges after this Tour de chien: the sponsorship money that has built team dynasties now threatens the sport.

posted by etagloh to other at 02:32 AM - 7 comments

"This is high-calibre marketing - taking an inferior product and improving it through packaging.": Top quality trolling from Alexi Lalas, who responds to sniping from across the pond with tongue-in-cheek praise of the Premiership's capacity to sell Wigan-Charlton as a Super Sunday spectacular.

posted by etagloh to soccer at 04:01 AM - 9 comments

"No one has ever made the business of driving a formula one car look so easy.": Lewis Hamilton dominates the field in an otherwise chaotic Canadian Grand Prix, and will start in Indianapolis next week as the F1 championship leader. Can the inevitable Tiger Woods comparisons give the American audience something to care about?

posted by etagloh to auto racing at 11:11 PM - 23 comments

"Calling it March Madness slaps lipstick on a pig.": Robert Lipsyte takes on the NCAA's corporate carnival: "the Big Dance for sportswriters, the Bracket Racket for gamblers, a frat-rat party, a racist entertainment, and a subversion of higher education, perhaps democracy as well."

posted by etagloh to basketball at 12:23 PM - 16 comments

Australia complete their 5-0 Ashes whitewash, described over-by-over:: "Any Australians out there I pity you, because you will never experience the true euphoria of one who has hit rock bottom discovering that bottom is merely a door to another purer world. I am zen. I am cricket. I am the ball. I am love." A perfect description of how most England fans feel after seeing the Aussies take revenge for 2005 in ruthless, comprehensive fashion.

posted by etagloh to other at 01:01 AM - 7 comments

Meet Theo Walcott of Arsenal Reserves... and England: The 17-year-old striker has made it into the provisional squad for Germany, in spite of never making a first-team appearance for his club since signing from Southampton. Then again, no-one had heard of Pelé in 1958, either.

posted by etagloh to soccer at 12:48 AM - 36 comments

The Olympics We Missed: "It's a damn shame NBC has messed up the Winter Olympics, because there has been drama a-plenty, enough to satisfy even a nation of reality TV junkies."

posted by etagloh to other at 10:01 AM - 25 comments

The smallest trophy, the biggest prize: After a summer in which the beautiful game has been played with leather on willow, England regain the Ashes, although not without a few last-day wobbles. Oh, and another legend hangs 'em up.

posted by etagloh to other at 04:41 PM - 8 comments

Millions of people saw Justin Gatlin claim the title of 'world's fastest man' in the blue riband 100m at this week's world athletics championships in Helsinki. Americans also claimed gold in the men's shot put. What, you didn't know? You must be American, where coverage is primarily online via PPV streams, with a grand total of eight tape-delayed hours on PAX TV. It's one of the summer's highlights. But hey, what about those X Games and poker players on ESPN?

posted by etagloh to other at 08:15 PM - 42 comments

U-S-A, U-S-A! (no, really): With a well-deserved gold medal in the bag, the US women's socfootball team says goodbye to its mainstays. Nomar's side of the trophy cabinet will look even more bare, while Julie Foudy may have to work out whether doing nothing is all it's cracked up to be. While the 'Fab Five' have led the revolution in the women's game, especially in the US, how easy will it be -- in competitive terms, and in the all-important media spotlight -- for Mia Hamm to pass on the torch (sorry) to the new generation that learned the game wearing her name on their jerseys?

posted by etagloh to soccer at 04:19 PM - 8 comments

The Baldy bows out...: Perhaps the first football referee to become a star in his own right -- not just for his, um, distinctive appearance, but for his sheer professionalism and good judgement -- Pierluigi Collina referees his last international match today, the Czech Rep. vs. Greece semi-final. FIFA and UEFA age regulations necessitate his retirement; but Collina's rumoured to be considering a move to the Premiership when similar age-caps force him to retire from Serie A. Has any other official had as much personal affection from players, coaches and fans -- or as much of an impact on his/her sport?

posted by etagloh to soccer at 02:06 PM - 19 comments

'To play one innings of such magnitude is enough to put you high in the list of all-time greats but to produce two is one of the most remarkable achievements in sport.': Nearly ten years ago in Antigua, Brian Lara scored the highest ever innings in Test cricket, breaking a mark set 36 years previously. Yesterday, on the same ground, he reclaimed that record from Australia's Matthew Hayden, becoming the first batsman to score 400 in a Test, in a knock that lasted 732 minutes against a previously dominant England bowling attack. Since cricket doesn't get much of a mention here, I thought it was worthy of a post. But I'm also interested how people think single-game achievements such as Lara's compare to lifetime and single-season records such as those of Barry Bonds: is sporting greatness defined better by single performances or by the entirety of one's career?

posted by etagloh to other at 02:40 AM - 12 comments