Rob's Blog

July 28th, 2007 · Golf, Golf Majors, Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis

Roger Federer is the current undisputed champion of tennis, and Tiger Woods is the undisputed champion of golf. Although they could never go head to head, comparing their stats and their impact on their respective sports and the world of sport, who do you think is the greatest? It is a debate that is difficult to win, but interesting to have nonetheless. Roger Federer has just won another grand slam title, making it 11 grand slam singles titles. Tiger Woods has equally dominated his sport, winning 13 Majors. Both have been labeled the greatest ever, but there can only be one! The greatest of the greatest?

Wimbledon

In terms of fitness, Federer would win hands down, but that is not what this is about. They have both dominated their respective sport in recent years. There are good arguments on both sides about who may have the edge. My answer? I would give it to Woods, but only just. In the history of golf, it seems more difficult to win tournament after tournament as he has. They are still very close and I think that we will have to wait until they have each completed their careers before a clear winner may emerge.

Related Pages: golf, Tiger Woods profile, tennis, Roger Federer profile

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July 25th, 2007 · Cycling, Tour de France

The Tour de France cycling event is becoming a joke. After last year’s debacle with the initial winner Floyd Landis being rubbed out due to drug taking (which is still ongoing), we thought that the event would be cleaned up.

This year’s event is not over yet, and there have been several doping incidents, the latest with the tour leader Michael Rasmussen being dropped by his team for lying to them and possibly covering up where he was when he missed drug tests last year.

ther recent events include pre-race favorite Kazakh Alexandre Vinokourov testing positive for a prohibited blood transfusion, and early on in the tour a German rider tested positive for testosterone resulting in some German TV channels stopping their coverage of the Tour.

Tour officials are trying hard to clean up the race, but the problem in cycling is too deeply rooted. The penalties need to get even tougher. How about banning transgressors for life? And they should not hold another event until the sport is squeaky clean.

Related Pages: Tour de France, cycling, Floyd Landis profile

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April 1st, 2007 · Cricket

There has been a bit of media about sledging in cricket lately. I don’t think a little bit is too bad, but when the sledging includes racist remarks, excessive bad language or personal remarks about the players wife/mother/children etc., it has gone too far. Here are a couple I found that are ‘family friendly’ – I think we should encourage this sort of thing.

you have more misses than henry the 8th!
you have more blocks than a lego set
you have more edges than a 50 cent piece
you have more leaves than a tree
he’s swinging like a rusty gate!
got more dots than the bible in braille!
bowl him a piano, see if he can play that
he couldn’t cut a slice of bread

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March 30th, 2007 · Sports Medicine, Swimming

Ian ThorpeAustralian swimmer Ian Thorpe is arguably one of the greatest swimmers the world has ever seen. In November last year, he announced his retirement from swimming after 10 years on the Australian team, citing that he has lost the desire. Today the news is that just prior to his announcement he may have tested positive for testosterone, and this has made people think that it may be related.

French newspaper L’Equipe has reported that he showed abnormally high readings for testosterone and luteinizing hormone in 2006, and international swimming body FINA has appealed for a fresh investigation into that test. This could be a big reality check for swimming fans who think that the sport is clean. Everyone is human, and even “squeaky clean” Ian Thorpe could possibly succumb to the pressures to perform. We are yet to hear all the details, but hopefully, such reports will keep both the drug testers and drug cheats on their toes and continue the cleaning up of drug use in sports.

Related Pages: Ian Thorpe, Swimming

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March 15th, 2007 · Grand Slam Tennis, Tennis

Tennis CourtIt was recently announced that women tennis players at Wimbledon next year will get the same prize money as the men. Why does it have to be so? There is inequality in sport everywhere, but this is not sexist.

Athletes in most Olympic sports and many other international sports do not get anywhere near as much as tennis players, and most likely work just as hard, but it is just the way it is. It comes down to market demands, if people are paying to watch them play, to buy products etc, then there will be money in sponsorship and gate fees that can be passed on to the players in the form of payments and prize money.

If women tennis players want to get paid more, they should entertain us more, increase the quality of their play, make reasons for people to come and watch, and give us value for money. I am not saying that they are all like this, but I see are too many fat, lazy, bitchy, rich kids which are not good for the image of females in sport. If you looked at most of the high-profile women’s sports, they don’t need a pay rise – they are getting paid too much already.

Related Pages: Wimbledon, Tennis

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March 12th, 2007 · Football (Soccer)

Last night I went with a couple of friends who are big soccer fans, to watch a very interesting movie about a match between Real Madrid and Villareal in the Spanish league. It wasn’t the usual match footage, the whole movie was following the French international football player Zinedine Zidane, often up very close and pixilated. It is a mix between a documentary and a sporting match.

The game was played on April 23, 2005, with 17 cameras tracking just Zidane in real-time. There is no commentary, just the noise of him spitting, shouting to his teammates and muttering the occasional complaint to the referee.

In the end, it is not a football game you are watching, but a voyeuristic view of a public figure. It is not his best game, but maybe his best view. You see a hardworking player, searching for opportunity. The final score was Real Madrid 2, Villareal 1. But who cares?

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March 6th, 2007 · Fitness

Do you have a dream of exercising naked? Maybe you should head to Holland, where the Fitworld gym in Heteren has opened its doors to have the first clothing-free workout. About a dozen middle-aged and elderly men braved the glare of nearly twice that number of journalists, photographers and at least five television crews. The participants said they “feel more free” and that “it just feels better to do it with your clothes off”. The event was dubbed Nudifit, or Naked Sunday. Some women had signed up, which may have explained the high number on onlookers, though none attended this first session.

Related Pages: finding a gym

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February 27th, 2007 · Cricket

Although it is a time to celebrate one-day cricket with the upcoming World Cup, Australia has had nothing to celebrate in the short version of the game lately. Maybe that is why they have decided to release a list of Australia’s greatest ODI team. The team was selected by a vote of Australia’s 163 ODI representatives since 1971.

The team they came up with is: Adam Gilchrist (wk), Mark Waugh, Ricky Ponting, Dean Jones, Steve Waugh (captain), Michael Bevan, Andrew Symonds, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Dennis Lillee, Glenn McGrath, Greg Chappell (12th man).

the MCG

With such a strong history in the game, it is no surprise that great players missed the cut, such as Allan Border, who led Australia to their first World Cup in 1987, and Michael Hussey, who currently averages 66.88 in his 61 matches. Two of the players listed, Lee and Symonds, are current players but will probably be missing in the upcoming World Cup due to injury, and will be sorely missed. The other players that are in the current squad are Gilchrist, Ponting and McGrath.

Related Pages: cricket, Cricket World Cup

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February 18th, 2007 · Football (Soccer)

Last night I was privileged to be at the Docklands Telstra Dome to witness the A-League Grand Final, held in front of 55,000 people – the biggest crowd to ever watch a domestic football match. And even better, my team the Melbourne Victory humiliated Adelaide, largely thanks to a remarkable goal-scoring effort by Archie Thompson.

Soccer Game

Such a crowd at a soccer match is rarely seen in Australia. If they can continue to have games and spectacles like that, then the crowds will continue to come. The crowd seemed pretty tame to me, though I later read that ten flares were let off in the stadium and 41 people evicted. Maybe that is pretty tame relative to what goes on in English football stadiums.

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February 1st, 2007 · Tennis

I can’t stand to watch a women’s tennis match when the players grunt every time they hit the ball. I have no problem with them occasionally making a grunt as they strive for a difficult ball or put in an extra effort, but not every time they hit the ball. There is no rule against a tennis player grunting, unless in doing so they are distracting the opposition player. If they were making a loud noise as the other player was trying to hit the ball, then in could be distracting.

They should consider bringing in a rule to limit it, as it is turning people off the game. Anyone who follows tennis will see that there are other players who are also following suit, and I am sure there is a bunch of young players out there following in their idols. Now that the women are earning as much as the men in some tournaments, they should be doing their best to satisfy the sponsors and entertain the crowd, not putting them off.

Related Pages: about tennis, Maria Sharapova profile

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