Sporting Life: Another Week of Intrigue
If you are pregnant or if your wife or girlfriend or mother is pregnant you can be well advised not to have anything to do with weight-lifting. The news from Chile is that an Olympic weightlifter gave birth to a baby during a training session. However that was a big weight off her mind and body. Anyway our best wishes go to Elizabeth Poblete and her new family.
If you are pregnant or just over-weight and a trifle lazy you might enjoy catching up on the cricket game that is taking the breath away from so many couch potatoes. South Africa are playing England. If that is too boring you might want to check out the chess. The nineteen year old chess master, Magnus Carlsen, from Norway, is hitting the headlines again. Check out this number one player in the best ever TV spectacular sport for those that are in bed or pregnant.
If you are just fed up with life and would just like to watch fast and noisy cars speed around a circuit then you should get interested in the latest Formula One news. Heikki Kovalainen, from our northern parts, has his last chance to be a big star. He is now a Lotus man. Now Lotus were once a very big name in motor sports but the word from the track is that our Heikki has really blown his last gasket with this move.
That blonde-bomber of Virgin, a Mr Branson, is up to his tricks again. After making us teenagers pay for his records and all to make him rich he continues to leave the music business that made him and continues to think about space-age things. One of these space-age dreams is to be a winner (and make a profit) from Formula One racing. I think Mr Branson has been eating too many old apples.
If you are Michael Schumacher, the one that loves to bump into cars and win races, it is smiles all the time right now. Even if he does not get back into the driving seat he will have made a fair profit already in the last few weeks. That's the way to do it Mr Richard Branson.
You may be thinking that I am writing with a little anger if not angst today. You might be right. Last night my football club lost a game during a penalty shoot-out. My wonderful Norwich City lost 6-5. What made this worse was that a certain individual texted me about this before, during and after the game. Some people just love to tease me. The fact is I have never understood why well paid football players fail, so often, to score a goal from the penalty spot. Something is seriously wrong methinks. I belong to an old tradition that says hit that ball really hard and fast because then the goalkeeper has little or no chance to save it or even get to the ball. Some football players get far too much money for missing simple penalties.
Maybe the big money is a part of the big football problem. Ask Liverpool or Watford or Notts County or...if this is the start of a meltdown. But we have written this before recently so let us take all that as already said.
Drug taking is back in the media fashion. First horse racing is getting lots and lots of drug-taking stories. Personally I would prefer it if we fed a few elk lots and lots of old apples and then let them run around a track for awhile. What a fun sport that would be. It would be lots of fun betting on these drunken elks. Better than betting on dogs killing each other.
Let us hope that our favourite clean boy Tiger Woods is not really involved (after already eating far too many old apples) in the latest drug talk from a certain doctor. Dr Galea and even the most respectable sports management group in the Americanised world, IMG, seem to be running scared right now.
Steve Bowles
