Rob's Blog

Entries Tagged as 'Sport'

Is an AFL 10th Umpire needed?

September 18th, 2011 · Comments Off on Is an AFL 10th Umpire needed? · 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 has 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 is also responsible for monitoring behind-the-play incidents. It would not be too much to ask this umpire to also be responsible for 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

Tags: AFL·Technology·umpires

World Cup Team Names

September 14th, 2011 · Comments Off on World Cup Team Names · Major Events, Rugby Union

I have just completed listing all of the 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 (Romania)?

Tags: nicknames·rugby·World Cup

More Fallen Heroes

September 8th, 2011 · Comments Off on More Fallen Heroes · 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.

On my page on Fallen Heroes, I have listed some 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.

piper-cub-plane-crash — plane crashes account for many fallen heroes

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.

Tags:

Starting Early

August 29th, 2011 · Comments Off on Starting Early · Track & Field, Umpires & Referees

Athletics fans were not able to watch their star Usain Bolt in the final of the World Athletics Championships 100m sprint. The Olympic gold medalist and world record holder was disqualified after false starting. In new rules which came into play in January 1 2010, a false start means automatic disqualification. Previous to that, after one false start a warning was given to all runners, then the next person to break was out. And before that, the long standing rule was that each runner was allowed to break early once. The false start rules needed to be changed as the athletes began to purposely break to put off other runners, and watching a 100m sprint final became a joke with ongoing restarts.

cathy freeman sportsworks at scienceworks

There are calls for the rules to be changed – but to what? Return to what did not work before? I have been to many track meets and had to sit around watching the sprinters (I was one myself) ply their gamesmanship. Bolt actually backed the rule introduction last year, so he can’t complain. Athletics meets will be better to watch under the current rules, and maybe we just have to put up with occasionally missing seeing a champion race. Rules don’t suddenly need revision just because a high-profile athlete has fallen foul. The rule makers need to be consistent, and the athletes need to play by the rules and accept them.

Tags: 100m·rules·sprinting·Usain Bolt

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.

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.

Tags: basketball·popular sport·soccer

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.

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.

Tags: retirement·swimming

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).

Tags: beep test

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 to find out how to do it for yourself.

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

Tags: gymnastics

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.

Tags: athletics·fun run

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.

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.

Tags: betting·FIFA World Cup·football·Germany·octopus·soccer