Rob Wood

Rob's Sports, Fitness & Science Blog

Excessive Prize Money to Tennis Players

January 16th, 2012 · Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis

The 2012 Australian Tennis Open starts today, and is set to offer the highest prize money in the history of Grand Slam tennis around the world. The total prize pool will be A$26 million, with the men’s and women’s champions taking home a record A$2.3 million (US$2.18 million) each. Does that sound excessive to you? It may be because I am not a great tennis fan, but I cannot see why we need to give them that much.  As it is a grand slam event, you don’t need to offer large amounts to entice players to come and play.  The winner of any tennis grand slam event will probably boost their off court earnings more than that anyway by being more marketable. Some of you probably will not agree with my next comment (and that’s OK). Another thing that bugs me is that the event organizers have decided that both the men’s and women’s champions will earn the same amount (in 2007 Wimbledon decided to do the same), despite more interest in the men’s side of the tournament, with longer more entertaining games, and consequently better revenue raising potential. I’ll still be watching the men’s final, and afterwards I hope they can give a little back of their millions to the grass roots of their sport.

Related Pages: Australian Open, Tennis

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How Low Can the Marathon Go?

September 26th, 2011 · Track & Field

The sub-2 hour marathon is a track and field barrier as talked about as the 4-minute mile. The world record in the marathon was broken this week, with Kenya’s Patrick Makau setting a new mark of 2:03:38, beating the old record of Haile Gebrselassie by 21 seconds. Even assuming improvements at the same rate, there has been a drop of  21 seconds in three years meaning it will take another 30 years to break the two hour mark. See the progression of marathon world best times, where you can see that reducing the record from 2:16 to 2:12 took seven years, 2:12 to 2:08 took 19 years, and from 2:08 to the current mark  took another 27 years. Actually using scientific analysis of the trend of actual performances, Professor Francois Peronnet at the University of Montreal has calculated that the first sub two-hour marathon will be run in the year 2028. We have had a poll online asking which world athletics benchmark will be broken next, the 100m in 9.5 seconds or a marathon in 2 hours? The marathon is currently leading the race, though 7 percent of respondents think neither will reach those marks. It may be true that many of us will not live to see those times beaten, though I think one day they will. These records tend to have significant and unexpected jumps in improvement, we just have to wait for the time a sporting freak chances upon the right training and nutrition, prepares for the event perfectly and runs under ideal conditions on a flat and fast course with good pacemakers. That wont happen very often.

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Is an AFL 10th Umpire needed?

September 18th, 2011 · AFL, Technology, Umpires & Referees

I have previously discussed whether soccer should have a video referee and after being at an AFL game last night I believe there is a good argument for using video or other technology to adjudicate close goal line decisions in AFL too. Not far from me I saw two incidents where it was a close call whether the ball actually crossed the goal line, and from my position the umpire did not seem to get it right. I have not had the opportunity to see a reply which was surely shown to the home viewers of the match. If the TV viewers can get to see a slow motion reply of such situations immediately after the fact, why can’t they refer close calls to an off field umpire who can watch the same video and then refer their decision back to the field umpires. Rugby union have had such a system for a while now, and international cricket and tennis matches are also using a referral system. It is time for the AFL to join the other major sports.

There are already nine umpires on the field in AFL matches: three field umpires, four boundary umpires and two goal umpires. There is an emergency umpire, who is the tenth. He is currently there as a possible replacement if needed, and also responsible for monitoring behind the play incidents. It would not be too much to ask this umpire to also be responsible to reviewing the video replays when they arise. I have a personal reason for these views – last night my team the Blues lost by 3 points and are out of the finals, if only a video referee system was in place the result may have been different.

Related Pages: About AFL, Technology in Sports

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World Cup Team Names

September 14th, 2011 · Major Events, Rugby Union

I was compiling a list of rugby union national team names and was surprised to find out that Ireland and Scotland don’t really have one, and that England’s name of the Red and Whites is also not commonly used. Here in the southern hemisphere the terms Wallabies and All Blacks are practically the official names of the national teams of Australia and New Zealand. However, have you ever heard of these teams that are in the current Rugby World Cup: Bati (Fiji), The Brave Blossoms (Japan), Welwitschias (Namibia), and the Oaks (Romainia)?

 

Related Pages:  Rugby Union,  Rugby National Team Names, Rugby World Cup

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Now Selling

September 12th, 2011 · Fitness Testing

I have made a big change in my business model for this website and have started selling products directly from this site. For years I have made a few bucks selling fitness and sports related products on a commission basis and with advertising placed around the site, but now I am actually importing products and selling online. It is more work for me but hopefully will prove to be much more lucrative. You can check out what I’m selling first, the Slim Guide Caliper, and stay tuned for more.

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More Fallen Heroes

September 8th, 2011 · Football (Soccer)

A Russian ice hockey team the ‘Lokomotiv Yaroslavl’ , one of Russia’s top teams was practically wiped out yesterday in an airplane accident. Thirty-five players and staff of the team and eight members of the crew died in an accident where their aircraft burst into flames after hitting the ground near the airport immediately after take-off. The team had been en route to the Belarusian capital Minsk to play against Dinamo Minsk in the opening game of the season’s Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).  This is not the first time a sporting team has endured such as disaster.

In my page on Fallen Heroes, I have listed some of the similar stories from the past. The most well-known similar accident was the Munich Air Disaster in 1958, in which a plane carrying the Manchester United football team along with a number of supporters and journalists crashed, 23 of the 44 people on board the aircraft died, including eight Manchester United players. More recently, in 1993,  the entire Zambia National Soccer team perished on a flight en route to Senegal for the 1994 USA World Cup Qualifiers. All 30 passengers and crew, including 18 players as well as the coaches and support staff, were lost in the accident. Another such disaster for a football team was in 1949  when a plane carrying almost the entire Torino A.C. football squad crashed into the hill of Superga near Turin killing all 31 aboard including 18 players.

I firstly feel sorrow for the families and friends of each of those killed in the accidents, but the effect on the sporting club is hard to comprehend. It must be so difficult to build up the team to be competitive again, though I can imagine that the support and drive to do so would be overwhelming. I wish them well.

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