ON THE RAGGED EDGE

 What an absolute belter of a race at the Catalunya circuit in the latest round of the MotoGP championship. No rain this week, so it was played out in full at one sitting. A group of 6 top contenders broke away at the start and a bit of dicing ensued. However, before long they started to fall away, leaving Championship leader (and home favourite) Gibernau to fight it out with reigning champion Rossi. As in the previous round, it was Rossi’s nimbler Yamaha against the bigger horsepower of the Spaniard’s Honda. They went at it hammer and tongs on a high-speed layout that punished brakes and tyres, and with a fanatical Spanish crowd cheering on Gibernau. The lead changed hands several times, and there was never more than a fraction of a second between them. Towards the end they were literally losing their grip (the commentator said they were ‘running on the rims’) but still hammering down the straight at 210 mph and sliding through the fast corners with rear tyres smoking. Their shortage of rubber was graphically illustrated when Kenny Roberts (who was way down the field) exited the pits just in front of them, having just made a late tyre change himself, and after sensibly letting the first place duellers through, had no difficulty at all in keeping pace with them for the rest of the distance.  At the start of the penultimate lap Rossi dived through under braking, and just managed to hold off a desperate Gibernau for a breathtaking win that almost closed the gap at the top of the table. An ecstatic Rossi resumed his tendency for exuberant celebrations by stopping to greet the Italian fans on the back of the circuit, and donning a doctor’s uniform before checking his bike’s condition with a thermometer and stethoscope! When he eventually returned to parc fermee the camera gave a close-up of the winning bikes which showed the tyres literally in shreds, with small strips hanging off – these guys are either brilliant or crazy (probably a bit of both).

Their four-wheeled cousins produced another bizarre and ultimately disappointing spectacle in the Montreal GP. In a nutshell, MS started from 6^th on the grid and made an untroubled passage to the front without overtaking a single car on track. Once again it was pit stop strategy, and the ability to blast through a couple of super fast laps when in the clear that enabled him to coast to another comfortable win, without the need to get involved in anything so tiresome as having to fight against another driver. Ironically the only time any other car was near him was in mid-race when team mate Barichello displayed superior speed (due to fuel load differences) and actually sat on his tail for a few laps, but of course you could safely bet a month’s worth of Schumi’s salary that the Ferrari number 2 would not cause any trouble.

Then, just when neutrals were scraping together some crumbs of comfort from the fact that brother Ralf had piloted his Williams to a deserved second place, it was announced that post-race inspections had resulted in both of the Williams and Toyota cars (all of which had finished) being disqualified for a technical infringement. Apparently their brake cooling ducts contravened the regulations. Both teams claimed innocence and said that the minor discrepancies (which were not dimensional) had not given them any performance advantage. Of course not – that’s why they went to the trouble of designing and fitting the new ducts wasn’t it?!

The weekend’s rugby internationals resulted in the southern hemisphere whitewashing their 6 Nations visitors.

There was no directly comparative recent form to give any real hint at the likely outcome, but New Zealand’s defeat of England was perhaps not entirely surprising, although the World Champions’ failure to register more than a single penalty goal must have been a bitter disappointment. England have lost several key members of last year’s team, and simply did not play well. In contrast the Kiwis looked very strong on paper, with all their players having had a good Super 12 season, and took full advantage of a confident approach and a home crowd to hammer home a 36-3 reminder that at this level any weakness will be punished.

Having suffered embarrassingly heavy defeats to provincial sides, Scotland shocked everyone, not least the Aussie team, by holding them up until half time, and eventually limiting the damage to 35-15.

A familiar looking Irish side held their own for 40 minutes against a sprightly Springbok side that had a lot of new faces, but the surprisingly buoyant Boks gradually turned the screw and ran out 31-17 victors, to finally give their fans and the SARFU board something to smile about.

Wales showed a lack of discipline and concentration in a high scoring match to hand their Argentinean hosts a 50-44 win, that once again precipitated calls for Charvis’ head.

All four of the above encounters are repeated this coming Saturday, and I wouldn’t be too confident of a similar result in any of them!

No first-time winner this week on the European Tour, but the next best thing. England’s diminutive Miles Tunnicliff had his only other win in the 2002 Great North Open, when he was a Challenge Tour player. The confidence thus gained was put to good use and his earnings in the past 3 years have been an order of magnitude more than at any time previously in his career. Nevertheless he started the Diageo Championship at Gleneagles in doubtful mood, having only decided at the last minute to give it a go despite persistent problems from a wrist injury he suffered last month. He obviously made the right decision as he led wire-to-wire for a 5 shot winning margin, the largest on tour this season.

Over the pond, where most of the big names were gearing up for this week’s US Open, Sergio Garcia gave another boost to the Europeans in Ryder Cup year by winning the Buick Invitational in a playoff with Sabbatini and Harrington.

Michael Vaughan’s boys showed great determination in steering their way to victory in the final Test against New Zealand, although the plot proved somewhat different from the previous two matches. The visitors had a lead of 255 with 5 wickets in hand at the start of the 4^th day. England’s bowlers then turned in another splendid performance to dismiss the New Zealand tail end in short order, and leave the batsmen to chase 284 for victory. A steady stream of wickets kept the result in doubt until Thorpe put the anchors down and ground out a fine century. Ably assisted by another above-par knock from Giles, he hit the winning runs late into an extended evening session, and further strengthened England’s claim to an improved world ranking.

What next for England? Well, one thing’s for sure – it’s about as likely that they will go to Zimbabwe as it is that Mugabe will be elected the next ICC president. It has now been decided, and thankfully agreed by all parties, that Zimbabwe’s Test calendar will be suspended at least until the end of 2004, although with logic that defies most people’s understanding, they will still be asked to fulfil their one-day programme.

I see that Murali has gone off in a huff and finally decided to declare himself unavailable for the tour of Australia. He says it is for ‘personal reasons’ and not specific to the fact that it’s Australia, but his mum has said she didn’t want him to go because when he’s there people keep phoning him up to abuse him. He has also said he thinks that the hosts are insulting Sri Lanka by holding the 2 Tests at smaller, remote grounds (Darwin and Cairns), but I note that the full Aussie team is going to make this trek to the outback, so if it’s good enough for them, …….

The noose appears to be tightening around the necks of the athletics drug cheats. As a member of a democratic society that upholds ‘the innocent until proven guilty tenet’, I would not be judgemental at this stage, but the facts of the matter are that the US Anti Drug Agency has sent letters to 3 top American athletes accusing them of drug abuse. Unlike previous convictions that have resulted from positive tests, the evidence for the current allegations is circumstantial, but one has to assume that in a litigious place like the States, the USADA would not have dreamt of issuing the letters unless they had a doubly watertight case. The athletes in question include star sprinters Tim Montgomery and Chryste Gaines, and the promoters of the IAAF series events in Europe this summer are already muttering about invitations becoming scarce. Meanwhile Marion Jones remains under investigation, and the USADA is talking to her former husband, the now-banned CJ Hunter, about the laboratory that is at the centre of the scandal. The Olympic clock is counting down, and there must be several potential medal winners who are sweating!

Oh yes, and although it was too late at night for me to stay up and watch, I hear that Beckham’s men were pipped at the post by those pesky French, but fear not – we’ve already had our revenge. Richard Branson has just crossed the English Channel in an amphibious car, kitted out à la James Bond in a DJ (Branson, not the car), in a time of 100 minutes to beat the record of around 6 hours previously held by two Frenchmen!

But even the traditional rivalry across the Channel threatens to be overshadowed by tonight’s duel between Holland and Germany. Man United’s Dutch striker Ruud van Nistlerooij has been a paragon of restraint under intense provocation in the cauldron of the Premiership penalty box (remember the way he turned his cheek in the battle against Arsenal?). However, it seems that swapping his red shirt for an orange one brings about a werewolf-like change. He has been quoted as saying that the Dutch team will be fired up for the match because they will be remembering what happened in World War 2! Coming just after the first D-Day celebrations ever attended by a German head of state, that was crass to say the least. Some of the more printable responses from Germans included;

“The holes in your defence are bigger than the holes in your cheese,”

“You snatch all our deck chairs at holiday resorts”, and

ON THE LIGHTER SIDE

Ralf Schumacher re-ignites a recurring theme about Ferrari's dominance (although his timing proved unfortunate in the light of his team's disqualification from the Montreal GP for technical infringements!);
"It starts to become boring for all of us that we are unable to beat Ferrari. We have tried many years now, but they are doing something which all of us have not figured out yet." 

The excitement in Montreal was unintentionally encapsulated in one short remark by James Allen;
"There's a tremendous scrap going on for 14th place!"

Tony in Dublin sent a quote from Alain Hyardet, Montferrand's coach, blaming his team's lack of discipline for handing the Parker Pen Challenge Cup to Harlequins;
"You are not allowed to box - that's another sport!"

In the latest Honours List the roll of sporting awards included an MBE for cricket statistician Bill Frindall, who, in typical anorak fashion, immediately set off on a search for information on any of his fellow walking encyclopaedias who might have been similarly honoured in the past. He found that the only other one was WH Ferguson, an Australian granted the British Empire Medal many years ago, whom Frindall met when he was 14 years old and a fledgling scorer himself, and of whom he had this to say; 
"I share the same initials as him and I found out he died in Bath. My nearest hospital is in Bath but I hope I don't follow him in this trend as well." 

New Zealand's limpet-like opener Mark Richardson, who is not reckoned to be the fastest man between the wickets, has a light-hearted tradition of challenging the opponents' slowest player to a sprint on the outfield. Thus, during the recent series in England it was Ashley Giles' turn to don his spikes, and somewhat surprisingly he was a clear winner. I say this because one commentator reckons that, once he winds up to full speed with his upright, knee-pumping style, he goes careering along like an out-of-control wheelie bin. Anyway, it was all good fun, and Giles gave this self-deprecating verdict;
"I won by a head. But then again I have got a big head." 

During the golf from Gleneagles, there were plenty of wistful camera shots across the Scottish hills, prompting Steve Beddow to remark;
"This is my favourite course. When there's a lull in the action you don't have to say anything. You just look at the view."

In an interview for Golf Monthly Ian Poulter was asked what was the funniest thing that had ever happened to him in a pro-am event, and he recalled that one amateur had asked him what he did for a living.

No wonder the traditional strawberries and cream at Wimbledon are so expensive. The impact of this calorific treat on the legions of fans that have passed through the doors over the past century means that the designers of the revamp for the Centre Court have been forced to increase the width of the seats. The current 1922 vintage are 40 cm wide, but the new ones will be 44 cm. Someone has to pay for the reduction in capacity!

The Royal Navy recently held a Sea Day at Plymouth, aimed at giving VIPs and potential buyers a first hand experience of what the ships can do. Those aboard the frigates HMS Argyll and Kent found out that one thing they can do is to bump into each other. The incident was brushed off as causing no damage or reduction in fighting capability, but as an unnamed RN source said in one newspaper, it was a bit embarrassing when you're trying to showcase your wares to foreigners. This immediately brought a rebuttal from an official spokeswoman who said she was unaware of any foreigners being aboard. Looks like the latest batch of illegal immigrants is a couple of steps ahead of the Customs!

ON THE BOX  
(All live on Supersport; Abu Dhabi timings; GMT +4)

Rugby Internationals
Saturday 11:20 New Zealand - England 
13:45 Australia - Scotland
16:00 S. Africa - Wales
22:15 Argentina - Wales

Golf US Open from Shinnecock Hills, NY
Thursday to Sunday daily from 21:00

Football Euro 2004 from Portugal
Tuesday     19:30 Czech - Latvia
                  22:15 Germany - Holland
Wednesday 19:30 Greece - Spain 
                  22:30 Russia - Portugal
Thursday     19:30 England - Switzerland
                  22:15 Croatia - France
Friday         19:30 Bulgaria - Denmark
                  22:15 Italy - Sweden
Saturday     19:30 Latvia - Germany
                  22:15 Holland - Czech
Sunday       22:15 Spain - Portugal
                 22:15 Russia - Greece
Monday      22:15 Croatia - England
                 22:15 Switzerland - France
Tuesday     22:15 Italy - Bulgaria
                 22:15 Denmark - Sweden

Formula 1 GP from Indianapolis
Friday         23:00 Practice 2
Saturday      16:45 Practice 3
                   18:00 Practice 4
                   20:45 Qualifying
Sunday         20:30 Race

Tennis Wimbledon
Daily from Monday at 16:00 - 22:00

Athletics IAAF Prefontaine Classic from Eugene, Oregon
Saturday         23:30