Sporting Picks of 2012: Part 4; August 4th

"Super Saturday" At The London Olympics

The sporting highlight of this year was of course the Summer Olympics, held of course in London.  Having already posted on my five moments of the Olympics (as well as my five performances), I thought that I would concentrate here on the middle Saturday of the Olympics – a day that saw Britain win six gold medals.  To put that achievement into context, Britain won more medals on Saturday 4 August 2012 that they won in both the Barcelona and Atlanta Olympics.

Farah wins the first of his 5,000/10,000 double

While there were two further rowing gold’s (Copeland & Hosking in the Lightweight Double Sculls and the Men’s Foursomes) and a gold in the Velodrome (Woman’s Team Pursuit), the day belonged to the Athletes on the second day of the Athletics programme.

While Jessica Ennis had been the dominant Heptathlete since the Berlin World Championships in 2009, her loss in Daegu in 2011 had cast doubt over her chances of victory.  Ennis cast that doubt aside and dominated the Heptathlon, taking the lead in the opening discipline (100m hurdles).  In contrast, Mo Farah emerged during the Daegu World Championships as a contender for the longer distance races by winning the 5,000m.  Farah doubled up for the Olympics, going for both the 5,000m and the 10,000m.

Unlike Ennis, Farrah has excelled in a discipline where there is little history of British success, the last male British medal in the 10,000m was at the Montreal Olympics (in sharp contrast, Liz McColgan became the World Champion at 10,000m at the Tokyo World Championships in 1991 & maybe should have added the Olympic crown in Barcelona a year later).

 

While Ennis & Farrah were expected to be contenders, the Long jumper Greg Rutherford kind of flew under the radar as a medal contender (though not thought of as a contender for the title itself).  Yet his second jump of 8.21 metres was enough to take gold, though he did extend his jump to 8.31 metres.

The funny thing though is that if I had to pick one moment that encapsulated these games perfectly, it would not be Britain’s most successful hour on the Athletics track but the Mens 8 (above) at the rowing regatta.  The mens team were leading at the half way point of their race, but having put everything into the race fell behind as the German crew found that extra gear to take Gold.  The British crew finished with Bronze medals but conveyed both the sense of disappointment at loosing alongside an air of dignity that has been amiss from Football.

Sporting Picks of 2012, Part 3; July 21st

Tour De France: - Stage 20

Nibali followed by Froom & Wiggins during Stage 17

“Bradley Wiggins is poised to become the first Briton to win the Tour de France after victory in Saturday's time trial.  Only an accident, stopping Wiggins, 32, from finishing Sunday's final stage in Paris, will prevent him from winning.  He now leads Chris Froome by three minutes, 21 seconds after beating his Team Sky team-mate in the 53.5km race. 

"Today was a superb performance," said Wiggins. "I really wanted to get out there and finish with a bang. Fortunately I managed to do that."  He added: "It's the stuff of dreams to win the final time-trial and seal the Tour.”

In among the hype surrounding the BBC’s Sports Personality… programme little was made of the small cheat the BBC employed to award the “Team of The Year” award to the whole of the British Olympic team.  The award should have gone to the outstanding British sports team of the past couple of years – The BSkyB sponsored British Cycling team headed by David Brailsford.  Their most spectacular feat was turning Track cyclist (and Olympic champion at the Individual Pursuit at Athens 2004) Bradley Wiggins into a Tour de France winner.

That probably sounds unfair on Wiggins, he did become the first British sportsperson to win three Olympic medals at a single games since 1964 at those games.  It’s just that the transition from track to road racing had proved too much for others, notably Chris Boardman.  For Wiggins though, it would be a different story as he worked hard and made a breakthrough of sorts in 2009 by finishing fourth, equalling the record finish by a Brit.  2012 though was his best chance for glory at Le Tour, Contador was serving a ban, while Andy Schleck dropped out because of injury.

Wiggins still had to contend with the defending champion Cadel Evans, Andy’s brother Frank Schleck, Vincenzo Nibali and surprise package from the 2011 Vuelita de Espania, teammate Chris Froome.  However when he pitched up in Liege for the prologue time trial at the end of June, Wiggins was clear favourite.  Wiggins showed patience in waiting to take Yellow, when he did – on Stage 7 at La Planche des Belles Filles – it was on the first key mountain stage.  So why have I picked the penultimate stage?

In truth, Wiggins was a comfortable winner but did not really cement his win until the penultimate stage, where he more than doubled his lead over second placed Froome and firmly put third placed Nibali out of the frame.  Wiggins had successfully kept Nibali at bay on the 17th stage at Peyraguides buy finishing ahead of him and just behind team mate Froome. The individual time trial from Bonneval to Chartres saw Wiggins extend that lead over his nearest challengers and effectively win the tour by putting himself out of the reach of Nibali & Froome.

Of course, the story for Wiggins doesn’t end there.  After cementing his place in the pantheon of British sport, Wiggins rang the bell at the start of the opening ceremony of the London Olympics.  Wiggins also added to his Olympic haul by becoming the Olympic champion at the Time –trial, overcoming the disappointment of his team mate Mark Cavendish’s fruitless attempt to win the Road Race.

The Tour of 2012 could be seen as the high water mark of British Cycling.  Brailsford, Wiggins & co will be working towards ensuring that the successes of 2012 continues and is built upon in the same way that the successes of the track cycling team from Beijing in 2008 were built upon.   

Sporting Picks of 2012, Part 2: July 1st

14^th European Championship Final: Olympic Stadium, Kiev; Spain 4, Italy 0

“Spain made history in magical fashion as they outclassed Italy and claimed a successive European crown to add to their 2010 World Cup triumph.  Vicente del Bosque's side staged a compelling claim to be the greatest international side of all time as the Euro 2012 final was transformed into an exhibition with Italy - who performed creditably for long periods - passed brutally into submission.

Spain's virtuoso performance was a decisive answer to a growing band of critics who had forced coach Del Bosque and his players to defend themselves against allegations that they had been "boring" throughout Euro 2012 at the pre-match media conference.”

One of the pitfalls of doing lists like this is that in a vintage year like 2012, something has to fall short.  In this case the toughest decision surrounded how much Olympics to do and where everything else fitted in.  After deciding on the amount of Olympics, the final decision came down to writing about either Spain’s historic hat-trick of Football championships or South Africa’s series win in England that saw them unseat England as test Cricket’s best team.

Spain won out because they are undoubtedly the best football team on the planet just now, and because South Africa, whilst being the best Test Cricket side in the planet, I suspect are not the legendary sides that the West Indies were in 1976, or Australia were in 1995.  On the other hand, Spain are already compared to the West Germany sides of the mid 70’s and the France side of the turn of the century – this summer Spain surpassed them.

This summer Spain took their biggest advantage…  and took it to it’s logical conclusion.  Remember when Scottish football fans slated Craig Levein for playing 4-6 against the Czech Republic two years ago.  Well…  Spain essentially won Euro 2012 with that exact formation.  Whereas Levein’s version of 4-6 was intended more as a 4-4-2-0 (which morphed into 4-6 due to Scotland’s inability to keep possession), Spains version was more of a 4-2-4-0 or a 4-3-3-0 and did keep the intended shape.  Spanish journalists called the formation 4-2-3-1 with Fabregas as the “false 9”.  Poppy!  And indeed cock!  It was 4-6, simple as.

What this formation did do was enable Spain to retain possession and operate their Tiki-taka style.  In this respect, it worked.  Where the formation didn’t work so well (which is why Spain were called boring) is that Spain’s possession was not converted into goals.  Fabregas was always too much of a midfielder to be a proper “False 9”, so doesn’t have the forwards instinct for getting into goal scoring positions or for making runs that forwards would make.  Had Villa not been injured, Spain would have romped to victory.  Spain looked their most uncomfortable against Italy in their first game, Italy remember played 3-5-2 in that game.  For every other game, except their next game (against Ireland, who they thrashed 4-0), Spain dominated without really getting the goals their play deserved.  So what happened in the final?

Put simply, Spain looked like they switched Fabregas and Silva, with Silva playing through the middle and making the sort of runs that Fabregas should have been.  As a result, Silva fitted into the mould of the “false 9” better than Fabregas did.   This undoubtedly contributed to Spain’s flying start – which included their opening goal (scored by Silva).  Spain got the second just before half time from a counter attacking move that saw Jordi Alba steer the ball past Bufon.  When Italy’s third substitue Motta was forced off with an injury, it was essentially game over.

The big question now is how long this Spain side can go on and what happens next?  The previous sides to have won back to back championships have evolved differently.  France fell apart in South Korea, becoming the first World Champions to fall at the first hurdle since Brazil 36 years previously, before reaching the Quarter finals of Euro 2004.  In contrast, West Germany could have made it 3 in a row losing their European crown on penalties to Czechoslovakia.  However unlike France, who have still to put together a side that puts them into contention for a championship, West Germany built the foundations of a side that would see them become European Champions again in 1980 before reaching the next three World Cup Finals – winning in 1990.

While the odds will be stacked against Spain retaining the World Cup next year in Brazil, I suspect that the future of Spanish national team will be in good health for several years to come.

Sporting Picks of 2012, Part 1 - February 14th

Rangers Enter Administration

Craig Whyte Announces that Rangers have gone into administration

“Rangers Football Club has entered administration - meaning it has been docked 10 points, effectively ending its Scottish Premier League challenge.  The club appointed London firm Duff and Phelps as administrators at 14:50.  The move followed an unsuccessful legal bid by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) at the Court of Session in Edinburgh to appoint its own administrator.

HMRC lodged its petition over alleged non-payment of about £9m in PAYE and VAT following Craig Whyte's takeover.  Mr Whyte confirmed on Monday that the club had filed legal papers to appoint administrators. He insisted Rangers would "come out stronger" and "always be here".  It was initially thought that the club had 10 days to make a decision on whether to proceed, but the HMRC action on Tuesday changed the dynamic of the situation.”

This story was by far and away the biggest football story in this country, with repercussions that will be felt for the next few years.  For people outside of Scotland, it will be astonishing to think that the Rangers story kept Euro 2012, Wimbledon and the build up to the London Olympics off the back pages of almost all of the Scottish newspapers.

Rangers had been in financial trouble over the course of the last decade.  What had put them on to the road to liquidation has been an investigation by HMRC into the administration by Rangers of Employee Benefit Trusts (or EBT’s) that they had set up for their players towards the end of the 1990’s.

The impending tax case and the financial woes was the issues that saw the majority share holder David Murray decide to sell his stake.  By the spring of 2011 there looked to be two contenders for Murray’s share.  Dave King was a South African born businessman who had long had an interest in Rangers – he also had form in tax avoidance having been wanted by the South African authorities for such a charge.  The person who won was Craig Whyte, a Scottish businessman who had, to put it mildly, an extraordinarily chequered history. 

He had been disqualified as a company director for seven years, while most of the companies he had been involved with had gone into administration.  In short, Craig Whyte was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the ideal candidate to take over Rangers.  Had any of this been exposed by the Scottish media, in particular the red top tabloids, then Whyte would not have received the hero’s welcome that he got on the last day of the 2010/11 season when he had all but taken ownership of the Scottish Champions.  Yet while these stories had been circulating – mostly in Private Eye – at the time, they did not reach the mainstream Scottish Media until Mark Daly’s investigation was broadcast by BBC Scotland in October 2011 – five months after Whyte’s takeover.

Other little facts that failed to reach the mainstream media until it was too late was Whyte’s failure to pay either PAYE or NI to HMRC and the theory that Rangers were trading insolvent.  When Rangers filed the papers to go into administration, many people didn’t see what happened next when it came.  Essentially due to the ineptitude of the Scottish press to report the facts.

Rangers limped on to the end of the season.  The close season though was filled with the fall-out from Rangers administration and subsequent liquidation, with the question of where the newly constituted Rangers would play dominating the Scottish Sports media (keeping Euro 2012, Wimbledon & the build up to the Olympics off the back pages).  The SFA & SPL hierarchy wanted (for commercial reasons) New-co Rangers to begin life as an SPL member.  The supporters (initially of Aberdeen, Hearts & Hibernian) wanted Rangers to receive the treatment that they believed that, given the same set of circumstances befalling their clubs, their clubs would receive.  When those supporters began to talk of boycotts and non renewal of season tickets, the SPL clubs took notice and blocked New-co Rangers application to join the SPL.  One suspects that the corporate sponsors that were supposedly planning on pulling out of Scottish Football took note of the new found supporter-power and changed their plans.

Likewise, when the re-constituted Rangers submitted their application for entry to the SFL, despite the despicable pressure put on them by the SPL & SFA hierarchy (remember, for purely “commercial reasons”), the clubs voted to admit Newco Rangers to the bottom rung of the SFL.  Six months on, parts of the Scottish footballing landscape are still the same.  There are lots of differences thought, mostly in the contrasting reputations of the governing bodies, the Scottish sports media, Rangers themselves and the fans.

Rangers, now owned by Yorkshire businessman Charles Green, have started in the Third Division and are only now living up to the tag of favourites for the Third Division crown.  To the surprise of many tax experts HMRC lost the “big” tax case against Rangers, many of the same tax experts believe that HMRC will appeal this decision in the New Year.  Both the SPL & the SFL have kept with the Murdoch shilling by striking reduced Television deals with BSkyB (and with ESPN) – so much for talking up Scottish Football.  Meanwhile both the SPL & The SFL have unveiled their own vision for the future structure of league football in Scotland.  The SFL see a top league of 16, while the SPL see two leagues with invites for SPL2 to go out (hands up who thinks Newco Rangers will get an invite?).

The implosion of Rangers did not come out of the blue, so to speak.  The ramifications of the decisions made this summer will probably be still reverberating around the game when Rangers return to the SPL.

Introducing This Years Sporting Picks

So with 2012 almost at an end, it’s nearly time to say goodbye to a truly vintage sporting year.  Before we do though there is the (almost) annual sporting picks posts.

Last years picks included Barcelona’s European Cup triumph at Wembley, the high point of Novak Djokavic’s incredible year, the deciding stage of Le Tour De France, England’s demoralising defeat of India in the Trent Bridge test and at that point the lowest ebb of Scottish Football. 

This years picks has been difficult to choose, but I have somehow managed to pick five moments.  There is staggeringly only one from this years Olympics, however there was a separate moments of the Olympics post that i compiled at the time.   However there are two moments of sporting history related to victorious Olympians.  The last two moments are from Football, including the biggest football story of the year, one shamefully glossed over during the BBC’s “Sports Personality…” programme.

So before those posts are published, may I wish you a happy new year..