Limerick is a gloomy at this time of the year but the sun has shone on us (the Australians) with a great result in the first test and the warmth and affection shown by the locals to the team from the antipodes. With unemployment rate of 25% plus it is interesting to hear that Limerick [Read more]
Commonwealth Games Underwhelms
October 22, 2010 by Leave a Comment
To say the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games underwhelmed would be an understatement. Many Australians would be surprised to find that the event was actually the largest games ever with 17 sports, 285 events and 72 competing nations. They were also the most expensive games of all time costing the capital more than $1.6 billion. But [Read more]
Myth and Reality in the Common Wealth
October 21, 2010 by 9 Comments
“… the Commonwealth Games are Australia’s gift to the weaker nations of the region…” Perry Crosswhite – Head of the Australian Commonwealth Games Association. It is tempting to write off a comment like this as just another entry to the Sir Les Patterson School of Australian diplomatic niceties, but it does seem pertinent to the [Read more]
THE LOVELINESS OF THE LONG DISTANCE RUNNER
October 12, 2010 by 4 Comments
By Alex Wadelton I ran onto the MCG devastated. The last ten months of training, wasted. Legs like concrete, pain coursing through my veins, and my goal of running a sub three-hour marathon gone. One lap on the mighty G, thousands of people of cheering and all I could think of was failure. With fifty [Read more]
The Title Fight
September 23, 2010 by 3 Comments
In 1962, the boxing heavyweight champion, Floyd Patterson, finally met with one of the toughest heavyweight contenders on the circuit, Sonny Liston. Liston was one of the most disparaged and reviled figures, not only in the fight game, but in American popular culture. His criminal rap sheet and background as an impoverished, sullen brawler was [Read more]
Rising to the Occasion
September 5, 2010 by 3 Comments
Coaches, fans and footballers always say that good players perform during finals. So far this year that has been true with the regular names bobbing up with great stats and obvious influence in the fight. I think there are players who run onto the field and know they are going to dominate, such is their [Read more]
Not yet Tied, But Testing
August 23, 2010 by 6 Comments
It started when Tony Abbott won the toss and decided to bat. The pitch had a bit of movement in it, but with careful application there were runs to be had. The opponent was disheveled having just changed captains following a bloody coup some two months before. The previous captain left reluctantly after an emotive [Read more]
Victorian Women’s Lacrosse
August 20, 2010 by 3 Comments
Lacrosse is a very small sport in Australia. There are two forms – men’s and women’s – and the rules are quite different, with the men’s game being much more physical. My exposure to the sport has been limited to the women’s game, through my children’s participation, so this article is confined to that form [Read more]
Beware an All Black
August 19, 2010 by 7 Comments
It is often said that a nation’s sporting teams are a reflection of the nation itself. While stereotyping nationality is fraught with obvious dangers, not least being ridiculously generalised, there seems to be a reasonable body of evidence to suggest that the way in which a team goes about their work does indeed reflect the [Read more]
Nightmare in Sleepy Hollow
August 17, 2010 by Leave a Comment
by Daniel O’Sullivan There is a particularly vivid nightmare that has been keeping Cats fans awake all season. The dream takes place in the summer months when the desperation for new football stories becomes so all-encompassing that Dane Swan’s latest tattoo disaster gets saturation coverage. After much conjecture and innuendo surrounding his future, Geelong’s favourite [Read more]
The Scourge of ICPS
July 29, 2010 by 4 Comments
Eric Ellis, Bangkok I NOW KNOW that I first developed symptoms during the 1994 World Cup, waiting for a plane at Chengdu airport in central China. What I didn’t know is that I was catching ICPS, International Couch Potato Syndrome, an exotic lurgy that has infected so many road warriors – usually blokes – in [Read more]
Well played that man
July 15, 2010 by 5 Comments
I hope that Almanac community can allow a little indulgence on my behalf as I share with you a story that I’m sure many of you have similarly experienced as parents. It might also go some way to explaining to the uninitiated why golf is the most addictive sport ever invented. I’ve got two kids, [Read more]
The Real Costs and Benefits of Mega Sports Events
July 10, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The pattern is the same the world over. A bid is announced for a major sporting event. Politicians and businessmen roll out figures and rationalisations as to why we’ll all benefit from investment of the public purse in the acquisition of said event. If the bid should prove successful, then heaven and earth is moved to ensure things run [Read more]
Sport Talk Points To Julia
June 29, 2010 by 7 Comments
We live in interesting times: Julia Gillard is the national leader. She was born in Wales, the home of Bread of Heaven, which is what we’re all looking for really. They say rugby is the game played in heaven. It is certainly the game of the Gryffs and Myfs, but the Gillards immigrated to Australia, [Read more]
Wimbledon 2010 Forum
June 25, 2010 by 6 Comments
70-68. That’s a basketball score right? Or a Saints v Sydney game? Vital statistics Match duration: 11 hours, five minutes Fifth set duration: Eight hours, 11 minutes Total number of games: 183 Fifth set number of games: 138 Total number of points: 980 Isner aces: 112 Mahut aces: 103 Combined aces: 215 Isner winners: 246 [Read more]
Changes
June 24, 2010 by Leave a Comment
Watching little of the World Cup ( it’s on at work so it hard to avoid ) has got me thinking about how a few changes would enhance the spectacle, not only of soccer, but many other sports as well. So I’ve put a couple of ideas down for your degustation outlining what I feel [Read more]
Tennis: The more things change…
June 3, 2010 by 11 Comments
by Andrew Gigacz It’s just over four months since Sam Stosur bowed out of the Australian Open. You might remember Stosur’s brave but ultimately unsuccessful effort against Serena Williams. But you could hardly be blamed for not being able to recall it. Why? Because as that exciting match was unfolding, the Seven Network, in their [Read more]
Killing the goose that laid the golden egg?
May 26, 2010 by 17 Comments
In light of the future expansion of sporting teams in Melbourne I was wondering if the “sports capital of the world” may be starting to spread itself a little thinly and start to test the capital’s reputation for turning up to anything including the opening of an envelope. Mondays night’s attendance of 55,000 to what [Read more]
LINK: Mascot Hall of Shame
May 26, 2010 by Leave a Comment
The Alamanac editors once knew of a St Kilda Ruckle who got into a fully fledged punch-on while still in uniform (although the head fell off during proceedings). But this pales when compared to some mascot misadventures overseas. The Independent has compiled a photo gallery of the Mascot’s Hall of Shame. http://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/the-best-and-worst-sporting-mascots-1977011.html?action=Popup&ino=1
LINK: The True Cost of Sporting Festivals
May 26, 2010 by 1 Comment
As governments around the world clamour to host the world’s great sporting events, do we ever stop to consider who really wins from these deals? The Guardian Sportblog takes a disturbing look at the social dislocation resulting from New Delhi’s hosting of the Commonwealth Games. http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog/2010/may/25/commonwealth-games-delhi
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