Topend Sports

Rob's Blog

Entries Tagged as 'Sport'

Is Basketball the World’s Most Popular Sport?

March 10th, 2011 · Comments Off on Is Basketball the World’s Most Popular Sport? · Basketball, Football (Soccer), Sport

I have seen a lot of articles online trying to determine what are the most popular sports in the world, and almost without exception Soccer (World Football) is listed on top. I came up with the idea of looking at the page view stats on Wikipedia to see what sport pages are the most popular. Surprisingly, the highest ranked Sport page was in fact Basketball. This would partly be due to the high US based traffic to the English version Wikipedia site, but mostly it was because the stats for Soccer is split between Soccer and Association Football pages.

Football Flag Wavers

Fans at a soccer game

When all the stats are combined, soccer (football) regains it title of the most popular sport in the world! See more analysis of the World’s Most Popular Sports According to Wikipedia.

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Swimmers Blast Back From The Past

February 14th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Swimming

What is with all the Australian swimmers coming back from retirement? First, it was butterfly swimmer Geoff Huegill, who made a successful comeback to the Commonwealth Games, including shedding a huge amount of post-competitive weight, then announced he would continue until the 2012 London Olympics.

More recently, Ian Thorpe told us he has been secretly training for three months, losing a bit of weight too no doubt and is back on track for the Olympics too. Not to be left behind, ex-teammate Michael Klim has also announced he is coming back from retirement. Can’t these guys make up their mind? I always thought that retirement is just that, let yourself go and enjoy just being a spectator. Of course, the desire to be out there competing may still be there, but usually, the body has made the decision for you.

swimming exercise
Finish

Come on, move over and let the next batch of swimmers do their thing. They are not going to be satisfied with anything less than what they achieved in their previous career, and they are only setting themselves up for embarrassment. Well, at least that will be entertaining.

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The Beep Test Can Kill

January 30th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Fitness, Rugby Union, Sports Medicine

The beep fitness test should not be taken lightly. It is a maximal test, which means the participants are required to go as hard as they can for as long as they can (though they do not always do this).

This was highlighted recently when 27-year-old Welsh man Adam Rumming died while performing the bleep test as part of an army fitness test at the Sandhurst Academy where elite British Army officers are trained.

He is believed to have had an undiagnosed heart problem, which is often the case for sudden death during exercise in seemingly healthy young people.

If you are ever in charge of conducting fitness testing, particularly exhausting tests, you should exclude anyone with a fever or other risky medical condition, or even better get them to complete a PAR-Q (Physical Activity Readiness Questionnaire).

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My Gymnastics Clipart on Soap

September 22nd, 2010 · Comments Off on My Gymnastics Clipart on Soap · Gymnastics

My clipart has been used for websites, logos, t-shirts, posters, and many other purposes, but this is the first time that I know of it being used to illustrate soap!

I don’t know how it was done, you will have to visit a canuck in Oz and to find out how to do it for yourself.

To see the original clipart images, go to the gymnastics clipart page.

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Perth City2Surf 2010

September 6th, 2010 · Comments Off on Perth City2Surf 2010 · Fitness, Track & Field

Last weekend I joined a record number of 40,468 people in the Perth city to surf event, from the city centre to City Beach, a distance of 12 km. As a sign of my increasing age, I had opted to join the walkers of the 12 km event, pushing my 3 year old and 9 mth old in a stroller. It was still a  brisk walk to complete the course in 2 hrs 10 minutes, with plenty of people still behind us, and the sore feet to show for it.I would have just beaten the marathon runners!

I’m glad I was not in the half marathon event, as the lead out cyclist took the runners the wrong way, requiring the leaders to backtrack quite a bit. I cannot imagine they would be too happy about that.

As usual there were plenty of characters, people dressed up like the one pictured. It was a fairly warm day, so he would have been feeling the heat. As would have the two dressed in Storm Trooper outfits. All done to raise funds for a worthy charity.

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Bet on the Octopus – World Cup Predictions

July 12th, 2010 · Comments Off on Bet on the Octopus – World Cup Predictions · FIFA World Cup, Football (Soccer)

Paul the ‘Psychic’ Octopus, also known as the ‘Oracle of Oberhausen’ and ‘Pulpo Paul’, is a resident of the Oberhausen Sea Life aquarium. He became a celebrity after a 100% success rate at predicting the winners of eight World Cup matches – all of Germany’s games and the final between Spain and The Netherlands.

paul-the-octopus

I want to go out on an (octopus) limb and say that it was all due to chance. I know it may sound far-fetched and very unlikely, but maybe he was just lucky and was able to select the winning teams through chance. No psychic abilities, no hand of God, and no conspiracies – just luck. A lot of luck.

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World’s Longest Tennis Match

June 24th, 2010 · Comments Off on World’s Longest Tennis Match · Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis

If you have been focused on the Football World Cup, you may not have noticed that after three days of playing, the longest tennis match in history has just finished – what a marathon!

The tennis match was played between American John Isner and Frenchman Nicolas Mahut at the Wimbledon Championships, starting on June 22 and finishing on the 24th.  The match eventually took 11 hours and 5 minutes, spread over three days. The match was won by Isner 6-4, 3-6, 6-7 (7), 7-6 (3), 70-68.

The fifth set was the longest set in history as determined by both duration and number of games and the set itself would have broken the previous longest match record of 6 hours 33 minutes.

australia-sydney-cockatoo-island-tennis-pd

The US Open is the only of the Grand Slams to use a tie-breaker in the final set for singles matches, the other tournaments use an advantage set, meaning they keep playing until there is a winner by two games clear.

As you can see, this can mean a game can go on indefinitely. I hope the others don’t follow the US example and remove the advantage set, as we could miss out on such dramatic games as this.

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The World Cup Sends Me To Sleep

June 23rd, 2010 · Comments Off on The World Cup Sends Me To Sleep · FIFA World Cup, Football (Soccer)

With the World’s greatest sporting event currently well on the way in South Africa, it may be surprising that this is my first post about it. It would not be surprising if you knew that I support Australia, and up until today, they have not done anything to write home about.

After getting up at 2 am this morning to watch Australia play Serbia, I am much happier and very impressed with their performance. Although they won today, they just missed out on progressing to the knockout round.

world-cup-2010 Spain
Spain at the world-cup-2010

The team did us proud, playing great football and giving everything for their country. Missing out of the final 16 is no great disappointment, the Aussies have played above expectations.

I cannot say the same about the French team, and cannot imagine the public outcry at their team’s performance. There is always drama at the World Cup, and that is why we are captivated. A few more sleepless nights to come!

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We Just Want To See A Snow Leopard

February 28th, 2010 · 2 Comments · Olympic Games, Winter

Did you hear about Ghana’s first ever participant at the Winter Olympics, Kwame Nkrumah-Acheampong (nicknamed the ‘Snow Leopard’)? He competed in the men’s alpine skiing slalom event, finishing in 47th (2nd last) place. I did, but I did not hear about who won. It is another reminder of why I don’t get too excited about the Winter Olympics. The media think that it is more important to fill up their coverage time with human interest stories rather than the sporting results. As a sporting fan I watch sport to see the action, the competitiveness and the champions. At each Olympics the same thing seems to happen – the media outlets focus their telecast towards the common man, non sports fan, who are more interested in gossip and drama.

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Go to Bed Tomic

January 22nd, 2010 · Comments Off on Go to Bed Tomic · Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis

Young Australian rising star tennis player Bernard Tomic had a few complaints after his second-round match at the Australian Open against Marin Cilic finished at 2.10am local time. The 17-year-old Tomic was given a wildcard into the tournament and played well against the vastly more experienced 14th seed Croatian, pushing him to five sets over the course of three hours and 48 minutes. However, Tomic let himself down and embarrassed many Australians with his comments after the match.

He said that if he got the daily schedule as requested, that “I think I should have won” … “I can’t see after 1.00am, 2.00am for a 17-year-old to go out and play – It’s difficult.” Welcome to the big world. There are other players who have been playing at these times and winning tournaments.

If he wants to be a top 10 player, which he says he does, he will have to learn to handle playing at any time, and he will need to learn to be more gracious in defeat. No excuses.

Related Pages: Australian Open, Grand Slam Tennis, About Tennis

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