sport magazine 315
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In this week's Sport: Jessica Ennis-Hill returns with a new name, new goals but the same steely determination that made her Team GB's golden girl | London 2012's Legacy - one year on, we ask what the Games' most repeated buzz word really means | David Weir reflects on 12 months as a Paralympic legend | Our preview of the Anniversary Games | The Ashes - we look ahead to the third Test and ask the unthinkable: is it all too easy for England?TRANSCRIPT
Issue 315 | July 26 2013
W o m a n
o f
s t e e lNew name, new goals.
One year on from London 2012,
Jessica Ennis-Hill returns
s p o r t _ h d s h l d r s _ 0 5 0 7 - 1 2 0 1 3 - 0 7 - 0 2 T 1 6 : 5 9 : 2 0 + 0 1 : 0 0
06
Issue 315, July 26 2013
Radar
04 The ice men cometh (again) In EA’s NHL14. Absolutely worth
getting yourself into a fistfight for
06 Fast in the past Michael Johnson takes us back to
1996, when he took aim at the 200m
world record and fair obliterated it
08 Youth policy As we mark a year on from the
Olympics, we present four names
to keep an eye on come Rio 2016
o this coming weekFeatures
16 Jessica Ennis-Hill New name, new goals, but there
remains a steely determination
about Team GB’s golden girl
24 2012 Olympic Legacy One year on from London 2012, now
seems an appropriate time to focus
in on its most repeated buzzword
29 David Weir As he heads back to the Olympic
Stadium, the Weirwolf reflects on
12 months as a Paralympic legend
30 Anniversary Games Athletics isn’t enjoying the best of
summers, but that hasn’t stopped
us looking on the bright side
32 The Ashes After a one-sided second Test, we
ask the seemingly unthinkable: is it
all just a bit too easy for England?
Extra Time
46 Gadgets The HTC One – or, as Chris de Burgh
would call it, the Smartphone in Red
48 Kit To coincide with this weekend’s
Virgin Active London Triathlon,
we select the kit to get you going
54 Games Our pick of all the big releases in
August, led by Splinter Cell: Blacklist
16
Co
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his
pa
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Da
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, Ale
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Ha
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/G
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, Sc
ott
He
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an
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FP
/Ge
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Contents
29
32 30
| July 26 2013 | 03
Radarp06 – Flashback: when Michael Johnson destroyed his own 200m world record
p08– A year on from London, we pick our ones to watch for Rio 2016
04 | July 26 2013 |
e used to love the annual NHL
video games. With our grasp
of the rules as slippery as an
ice rink, the matches soon devolved
into low-friction chaos, the frenetic
end-to-end action punctuated only by
the ability to instigate a virtual fistfight
with your opponent. Alas, we’ve found
the newer editions ,with their focus on
‘realism’ and ‘authenticity’ much too
complicated for our tastes.
Luckily, the latest in the series,
NHL14, will include a retro, top-down
‘Anniversary Mode’ (pictured, above)
that echoes the 1994 edition. There
are updates to the modern part too
– including improved physics, which
should make the fighting even better.
Out September on Xbox360 and PS3
W
Radar
06 | July 26 2013 |
Gle
nn
Cra
tty
/H
ult
on
/Ge
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Im
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es
“I knew going into that season what the goal
was going to be. There’s no way to really
duplicate that situation of going into an
Olympic Games on home soil, with the
expectation and the pressure, so from a
mental standpoint it was just about trying
to plan for every contingency.
The 400m went exactly as I had planned it.
I didn’t really hold back. I missed the world
record by two tenths of a second. I knew the
200m was going to be the more difficult race,
but qualifying went really smoothly.
I wanted to get into that final as easy as
possible, conserve as much as I could. After
already having run four rounds of the 400m, I
wanted to just have as much left for that final
as possible. At the time Frankie Fredericks
and Ato Boldon [eventual silver and bronze-
medallists in the 200m] were running
tremendously, so I thought I would have to
break my world record to win. I knew I could
run faster, but you’ve got to do it on the day.
I’ve always been something of a private
person, so I can’t say that I really enjoyed all
of the fame – it took some getting used to.
I can understand why people would think I’d
be disappointed when Usain Bolt broke the
200m world record, but I don’t think about
that – I don’t identify myself as ‘Michael
Johnson, world record holder’, even with the
one I still have [400m]. I don’t think about the
years I’ve held it – I think about the nine years
I spent trying to break it, and it’s the same
with the 200m. That’s a memory I’ll always
have, and it’s never going to go away.”
Perform has partnered with Michael Johnson
Performance to offer performance training
services to elite athletes and schoolchildren.
Find out more at spireperform.com
August 1 1996
Michael Johnson lights up the Atlanta Games
The sprinter lived up to the hype
in his home games in 1996 by
winning gold in the 400m and
then the 200m, knocking three
tenths of a second off his own
world record in the process
<<FLASHBACK <<
Partner Playuper-addictive mobile game Stick
Cricket is back with a new mode
that lets you team up with friends
or strangers to try and build a partnership.
You can also play alongside classic players
and engage in turn-based challenges like
hitting five sixes in five overs or making 50
runs without getting out. Don’t hog the strike!
Stick Cricket Partnerships, free on iOS and Android
S
Radar
08 | July 26 2013 |
Ones to watch,oneyearlater
Drivingrange
ne year on from the Opening Ceremony of
London 2012, which of course promised
to ‘inspire a generation’, we’ve picked
out four young British athletes who have grown up
around the hype and hyperbole since the Games
was awarded to London in 2005. Some had their
first taste of the Olympic experience in London, and
if all goes well they could make their mark on the
medal table at the next Games in 2016. They’d best
get cracking, though: there’s only 1,106 days to go.
O
eet the golf cart of the future,
as imagined by Mercedes-Benz.
Based on suggestions from
fans at the Open, the German car
makers have designed this concept
buggy. A heads-up display on the
windscreen will show you course layout
and information, and there’s an iPad
docking station for access to weather
data or for communicating with the
clubhouse if you run out of drinks in the
internal fridge. The ‘fore’ button will
even send a warning message to other
carts in the vicinity. Oh, and there’s
somewhere to put your clubs too.
M
katarina
johnson-thompson
The heir to Jessica
Ennis-Hill, 20-year-old
Katarina Johnson-
Thompson has an equally
awkward name and bags
of talent. She finished
15th in the heptathlon at
the Olympics, but has
won gold at world youth,
world junior and
European U23 level.
One to watch for next
year’s Commonwealth
Games – and beyond.
sam oldham
Already an Olympic
medallist in the team
all-around event in
London, he took
silver in the horizontal
bar at this year’s
European Gymnastics
Championships in
Moscow as well. Still
just 20, Oldham will
be key as British
gymnastics looks to
build on a successful
2012 in Brazil.
All
pic
ture
s G
ett
y Im
ag
es
kyle edmund
The 18-year-old South
African-born tennis
player has won the
French and US Opens
at junior level. He has
perhaps understandably
struggled so far at
senior level – he went
out in the first round
at Wimbledon this year
– but by the time Rio
comes around Edmund
will hope to have
established himself
on the senior tour.
adam gemili
Already European U23
and world junior 100m
champion, the Dagenham
& Redbridge defender-
turned sprinter
impressed at London
2012, finishing third in
his semi final in 10.06s.
The 19-year-old is yet to
break the 10-second
barrier, but some places
have opened up at the
top of the sprinting
game recently...
10 | July 26 2013 |
Radar Opinion
Publisher
Simon Caney
@simoncaney
Sport magazinePart of UTV Media plc
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LAUNCH OFTHE YEAR
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So what were we all doing this Friday last year?
If memory serves, I was thinking about leaving the
office early because of the inevitable transport
problems in London. It was surely going to be chaos. I was
unsure how the next few weeks were going to pan out.
As it turned out, they panned out just fine. The London
Olympics and Paralympics were brilliant celebrations of
both sport and all that’s good about this country.
But 12 months on, where are we now? That word
‘legacy’ – what does it mean? On page 24 we look at what
has been done in the past year and what the future holds,
but it’s hard to see any tangible evidence just yet that we
are turning into a more active nation.
Wisely, Baroness Sue Campbell, chair of the Youth Sport
Trust, stresses that results will be seen over a generation
rather than a year. And, as it turns out, the Olympics will be
only a part of what inspires today’s children. This year has
given us its own batch of genuine sporting heroes: Andy
Murray, Chris Froome, Justin Rose, Jimmy Anderson and
George North, to name but a few. This is truly a golden era
for sport in the UK, and these are the people who will
inspire the next generation.
It’s hard to see how that won’t happen, but we won’t
really know for at least another 10 years whether ‘legacy’
means anything at all.
The reaction to Froome’s epic victory in the Tour de
France was strangely muted. Perhaps we were spoiled by
Sir Bradley last year, who is that rarity – the superstar
sportsman with personality to match. Maybe we’re just
becoming used to success on two wheels. But either way,
Froome’s win should be celebrated every bit as much as
Wiggins’. Now: head to head in the Tour next year, chaps?
Last week’s Open was one of the best I can remember.
A final-day leaderboard packed with star names, all of
whom had a chance at some stage or another – this is
what Majors should be about. In Phil Mickelson it produced
a fitting champion for Muirfield, which is a truly wonderful
course – the best of any of those that stage the Open.
While it is a superb test of golf, though, it must sort out
its membership policy: I suspect it will have done so the
next time the Claret Jug is contested at the home of
the Honourable Company of Edinburgh Golfers.
That legacy thingyHow will we know that stars such as Chris Froome are really influencing our children?
Je
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The long run: Froome’s
Tour de France win should
stand the test of time in
more ways than one
12 | July 26 2013 |
Radar Opinion
Flats on Friday
When sports teams lose, we are used to hearing players and coaches alike promise to take the positives
out of the situation. For me, this – along with
‘credit to the opposition’ – is just something that people
have become used to saying. I’m never sure it actually
means anything.
I’d actually prefer it if these guys had a bit of fun with
the interviewers. Song title competitions are often a
good bet, or the ‘keyword challenge’. I once had to get
‘snorkel’ into an interview, which was tough. I also
challenged Justin Harrison, former Australia and Bath
second row, to shoehorn in the phrase ‘cougar in a car’
during an appearance on Sky Sports. He managed it with
the sort of panache I never saw coming. It was sublime.
And anyway, what positives are ever really taken from
a hammering? I can see the lessons of a hard-fought
loss being valuable but, on the whole, a thrashing
generally means you’re not good enough – and that’s
a tough one to reverse.
I wonder what the Australian cricket team will be
taking from the second Test in terms of positive
learnings. Perhaps they will go down the route
trademarked by Norfolk Radio’s third favourite son, Alan
Partridge, who once so enigmatically said: “Right now I
need two positives: one to cancel out the negative, and
one just so I’ve got a positive.” This was a man with a
plan, and the Aussies would do well to keep it this simple.
The thing is, I’m just not sure there’s much they can do,
and I mean it when I say that’s a proper shame.
Some call one-sided matches dull, and a good
proportion of the time I’m inclined to agree with them.
Just as England getting ritually trounced by Australia
for years got a little tiresome, so it will if this apparent
turning of the tables continues. What we want – well,
what I want, anyway – is a proper contest. The first Test
was epic in its drama, but the visiting team that so many
experts predicted would turn up indeed appeared for
round two. From my desk-mounted iPad, it just doesn’t
seem that they have the quality to resist England,
seemingly unnecessary collapses notwithstanding.
So what on earth will they take from another humping,
should results follow form? They’ll get a decent tan,
I suppose, and that won’t happen too often during
UK tours; at least the company that produces that
sunblock/mime artist concealer will be happy.
I want England to win the series by way of a
whitewash, naturally, but I don’t actually want them to
get there too easily. Not to save Australian hearts
– please, this is sport, and suffering is part of the deal.
But I’ve played in rugby matches and blitzed the
opposition before and, while running riot is fun at the
time, it all feels a little less fulfilling once the bright
lights fade. So let’s hope that the England boys do a
proper job on the Aussies, but let’s also hope for a
ding-dong battle to make the victory as famous and
worthwhile as it deserves to be.
@davidflatman
I received a text from an old City-supporting friend last week. It read:
“Have you heard the Messi rumour?” I texted
him back: “City? United? Gay?”
“City. It’s on the Manchester Evening News
website.” In the time it to took to verify this –
approximately 0.032 seconds – and then reject it as
cheap hit-driving speculation of the cruellest kind,
a mixture of disappointment and frustration had
descended that was the yin to the yang when
Robinho signed on the last day of the summer
transfer window in 2008.
In recent weeks, City have been linked to Edinson
Cavani (his mum said we were going to sign him),
Isco (he wants to join up with Manuel Pellegrini
again), Zlatan Ibrahimović (sulking because PSG
were after Cavani), Falcao (£54m offer agreed in
May, apparently), Angel Di Maria (deal held up as
Real Madrid wait to sign Gareth Bale), Bale himself
(City prepared to offer £80m), Robert Lewandowski
(‘officially interested’, unofficially) and Titus Bramble
(keen to partner him with Vincent Kompany).
Now all of those, bar one – Tottenham can keep
Bale – are guaranteed to induce repetitive strain
injury as fans hit the internet and tweet and text
their mates with these ‘news’ turds. But you permit
yourself to dream. If a pair of weathered old
campaigners like me and Messi texter – who both
remember being told to get ready for Franz
Beckenbauer to take over at City before being
presented with Brian Horton – still get excited, can
you imagine what it is like for a nine-year-old boy?
I should know, I live with one.
Every day he files urgent hard schoolground
news (‘Max’s dad reckons…’) like a war reporter
broadcasting under fire from a foxhole outside
Baghdad, until each target moves to a different club
or the window closes. I wouldn’t seek to ban it, but I
would like every national newspaper and reputable
website to be forced to enter their speculation into
a league table format with points awarded for
correct information, exclusives and insane calls
that come true – and points deducted for wild
speculation that keeps young boys and old farts
awake at night. They would, of course, all have to
publish said table. Could be a relegation battle for
The Daily Star and Sunday People.
@billborrows
Da
vid
Ly
ttle
ton
Transfer bombshell league
It’s like this…Bill Borrows
Plank of the WeekMichael Clarke, a darkened room
“I know a lot of the crowd laughed when I said
[Australia could win the series]… but all of our
top order have made a 50 and we need someone
who can go on and make a big 100 – as England
have done.” Sometimes the words are just enough.
Swann songJames Pattinson is nothing if not plucky, but his 35
in Australia’s second innings on Sunday (ending
here, LBW to Graeme Swann) was his last action
of this Ashes tour. A stress fracture to his back
was caused, ironically, by bowling too much and
not getting enough rest between innings as his
teammates slumped to 128 all out from just
53 overs. The Aussies are bad enough as it is
without losing one of their best batsmen...
14 | July 26 2013 |
Ga
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Frozen in time
| 15
W o n d e r
W o m a n
16 | July 26 2013 |
JessIca Ennis-Hill
A year on from her
London heroics,
Jessica Ennis-Hill
returns with a new
name, new goals,
and even a cape
uperman might seem an unlikely
saviour for an Olympic champion,
but he helped Jessica Ennis-Hill
recover from her lowest ebb.
With her foot in a cast after the
career-threatening stress fracture
to her right ankle that wrecked her
2008 season, the heptathlete watched
episode after episode of Smallville – the
story of Clark Kent’s development from
provincial teen to global icon. “It definitely
kept my mind off being miserable and upset
about being injured,” she tells us in an
exclusive interview one year on from the
London 2012 Olympic Games.
“I don’t think I’m much like Clark Kent,”
says Ennis-Hill, laughing when we ask
whether she sees any similarities between
the girl from the Steel City and the Man of
Steel – beyond the red and blue Lycra, of
course. It’s not quite a school bus full of
kids, but she did bear unprecedented
pressure on her shoulders as the unofficial
face of London 2012. A heroic performance
in the heptathlon saw her set three personal
bests and surge across the line first in
the 800m to add the polish to the now
renowned Super Saturday – a perfect
performance from start to finish.
But, behind the scenes, it wasn’t nearly
as smooth as it looked. “I was really
nervous the whole year,” she reveals.
“Obviously when you do interviews you have
to keep a strong face, but the beginning of
the year didn’t go the way I wanted it to,
and I had a lot of trouble with the long jump
that I had to keep really positive with. I kept
saying that it was all fine, but I had terrible
sessions – right up until the holding camp
before we went into London.”
It’s certainly strange to hear her admit
to the unseen worries playing on her mind,
given her mask of composure. “Lots of
little things crept into my mind,” she admits,
with the honesty that made her one of the
most compelling stories of the Games. k
P H o T o G r a P H Y : J o H n d a V I S
r
Jessica Ennis-Hill
| July 26 2013 | 19Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
“I went to one of my first Diamond League
events in the hurdles, false-started and got
disqualified. So I was thinking: ‘Oh gosh, what
if I do that in London?’ It’s never a smooth
ride; there are all these different things
going on behind the scenes, and things are
playing on your mind.”
As well as the pressure she put on herself,
there was, of course, that immense national
expectation. Her face looked down from
billboards and buses across the country –
in her book she talks about not being able to
indulge in a visit to her local chippy because
of her own face judging her from a poster.
At times, she says, it was all too much.
“If I’d had a bad session, it would get on
top of me, and I’d come home worrying that
everything was kind of falling apart,” she
reflects. “People just expected me to win no
matter what, and I really knew how hard it
was going to be. I’m not gonna lie – it did
worry me quite a bit.”
You can almost sense the relief washing
over her in one of the iconic images of the
Games. The photo of Ennis-Hill crossing
the line in that 800m will surely be made into
a statue some day: eyes closed, head tilted
back, arms raised in celebration. However,
she admits that celebrating in that manner
was “totally out of character”. She sounds
genuinely horrified when we ask whether she
regrets not opting for a more outlandish
victory move, or a more marketable shape
such as the ‘Bolt’ or the cringeworthy ‘Mobot’.
“I would never do that,” she insists.
”Putting my arms in the air was pretty out
there for me, so I’m not about to do any
dances! I’m quite a reserved person anyway,
so normally I just get on with competing.
Inside I’m either really nervous, or happy
or angry, but on top you can’t tell. With the
Olympics, it just completely took over me.
It was the greatest thing I ever wanted to
achieve and I’d done it. It was relief that
came out of me more than anything.”
T h e r e T u r n If everything up to and including that famous
celebration marked part one of Ennis-Hill’s
career – the origin story, if you will – then
the sequel hasn’t gone quite as well as she
would have liked, at least on the track. A
nagging ankle injury is casting doubt on her
participation in this weekend’s Anniversary
Games, staged in London to mark a year
since the Opening Ceremony. There’s no
heptathlon, so if fit Ennis-Hill will be taking on
the world’s best hurdlers and long-jumpers.
A greater concern is the World Athletics
Championships in Moscow, which start in
a fortnight’s time. As things stand, the
27-year-old will go into them after a long
break from competition. With that in mind,
she has already admitting to having to
come to terms with the fact that this year
“will not be like previous years”.
She can’t wait, however, to get her feet
back in the blocks. “I’m looking forward to
kind of blowing off the cobwebs and getting
back into it,” she tells us. But she does admit
to having some nerves: “My last real big
competition was obviously the Olympics,
so I have a tough act to follow...”
One of her main rivals, Tatyana Chernova,
will be competing in front of a home crowd
in Moscow – a “complete reversal”, says
Ennis-Hill, of the situation in London, where
the Russian took bronze. Chernova did pip
Issue 268 | August 10 2012
How my Olympic dream came true
Jess Ennis
Ennis-Hill to gold at the worlds in 2011,
however, and will be one of the favourites –
particularly with the Brit’s training so badly
disrupted. “I’d love to go to the World
Championships and come back with the gold
medal, but I’m very aware it’s going to be
tough,” she says. “Chernova will definitely be
looking forward to competing there, and I’m
sure she’ll want to win gold at home.”
It was always going to be tough returning
to the grind of training after the Olympic high.
It was down to earth with a bump back in
September, at her first “horrendous”
post-Games session under the supervision
of long-time coach Toni Minichiello, but
Ennis-Hill allowed herself to bask in the
victory glow until the turn of the year. “You’re
still excited by what you’ve achieved,” she
says. “But as soon as it turns 2013, you have
to put that to one side and refocus.”
With her Olympic medal back in its box,
it took Ennis-Hill some time to build up her
motivation again after the Games.
“It’s definitely harder at the start, because
you start on a huge high and have to get back
into normality and do all the work,” she adds.
“But as the months went on and the new
year came round, that’s when I kind of got
my motivation back and got into it.”
A n e w h o p eThe big occasion has always been the real
motivator for Ennis-Hill. She would never
admit it, but there was a hint of playing to
the crowd about the way she forced her way
to the front in the 800m, despite a win not
being required to secure gold. “I love competing
in front of a big crowd and having that
adrenaline of everyone there watching,” is as
far as she will go on that front. “I did a lot of
hard running sessions for the 800m; I was
always killing myself on the track, so in the
competition I felt I had to give it everything.”
We ask whether Ennis-Hill thinks she will
find it difficult going from the cauldron of the
Olympic Stadium to Diamond League events
in places such as Estonia and Finland.
“London was the highlight of my career,”
she says. “It’s going to be hard to top, so I
just have to take each competition at a time
and see what I can do.”
Whatever she can or can’t do in Moscow
and beyond, Ennis-Hill will look back on 2013
with almost as much fondness as 2012.
Because, after a long engagement that
straddled the Games, she finally wed her
fiancé Andy in May – hence the new moniker.
Her husband is a construction site manager,
and she says being married to someone
outside athletics helps take her mind off the
pressures she faces: “We do talk about
athletics at home sometimes, but it’s nice
because we have something else to talk
about. It helps not to get too stressed and
wrapped up in the sporting world, and it
helps me try and put things into perspective
– so it’s definitely a good thing for me.”
Outside of that fortress of solitude,
Ennis-Hill hasn’t quite had to adopt a secret
alter-ego, but she admits she has to work k
“ i ’ m e i T h e r n e r v o u s ,
o r h A p p y o r A n g r y ,
b u T y o u c A n ’ T T e l l ”
Ennis-Hill graces Sport’s
cover from August 10
last year, after crowning
her heptathlon gold
by winning the 800m
Jessica Ennis-Hill
20 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
Credit
hard to keep her private and public personas
separate amidst the maelstrom of photo
shoots and television adverts.
“I’m still a very private person,” she insists,
before breaking out into her infectious laugh
when Sport asks her to elaborate. “I don’t go
out in a disguise! But I’ve always got a hoody
that I can wear when I’m taking the dog out
for a walk or things like that, so I can kind
of keep quiet and get on with my day. Things
take so long when people want to come and
speak to you all the time. You know, you
might be in a rush getting to training, and
people want pictures. But, of course, it’s
all lovely.”
What of her interactions with a still
well-wishing public? “It’s definitely different
now,” she says. “People recognise you more
now and want to wish you good luck. It’s still
strange when people come up to me and
start screaming, but it’s lovely that people
admire what you do. I get lots of strange
letters. There’s one guy who sends figurines
– he makes little cut-out wooden figures of
me on a little stand that he’s hand-painted
and he sends me those...”
She enjoys fierce local support from her
hometown of Sheffield – bewilderingly,
Sheffield United have even named one of
their stands after her. She feels that the city
has offered her an environment that has
helped her achieve success, and was adamant
in her refusal to move to the metropolis of
London when asked to so by the then head
of UK Athletics, Charles van Commenee.
“I think where you’re from and how you’ve
been brought up and the people around you
are a huge part of who you are,” she says.
“It’s a friendly city and people are very down
to earth. They support what you’re doing, but
they don’t kind of blow smoke up your arse.
They just let you get on with it.”
T h e q u e s T f o r p e a c eThe city’s Don Valley Stadium is where it all
started for a “scrawny” 11-year-old Ennis,
but it is soon to be demolished to cut council
costs. “It’s really disappointing that it’s going
to be knocked down,” she says. “That’s where
I started – and it’s been a big part of why I’ve
been able to be successful. Having such a big
stadium in my home city has been inspiring,
and it’s such a shame that all the kids in the
city aren’t going to have that.”
She laughs when we suggest that if they
build a new track it will almost certainly be
named after her, but the serious tone soon
returns. “I jut hope we can find funding to
put money into developing one of the other
tracks in Sheffield, so there is still a base for
myself and other athletes,” she says. “I think
we need that in our city.”
Despite the closure of her former training
base, Ennis-Hill says she does see some
signs that the Olympics have done as
promised and ‘inspired a generation’.
“When I’m training at the English Institute
for Sport, there are absolutely loads of kids
down there, and I do see a lot of enthusiasm
for athletics locally. I think it’s gonna perhaps
take a little bit longer to see the true legacy,
but where I train there are people excited
about athletics and wanting to get into it.”
Ennis-Hill refuses to be drawn into
specifics on her own future: “It’s so hard.
You don’t know what’s going to happen from
session to session or year to year, or how
your body or motivation levels hold up. Rio is
definitely a goal for me; that’s a long-term
thing that I’m working towards. I don’t
know... I’ll be 30 in Rio and probably on the
downward spiral of my career, so I’m not
thinking after that point just yet.”
Ennis-Hill’s hurdles time in London would
have won her gold in the individual event in
Beijing, and she’s considering giving up the
“ n o w p e o p l e
w i l l e x p e c T
m e T o k e e p
w i n n i n g f o r
a l o n g T i m e ”
physically demanding heptathlon to focus
solely on hurdles in future. “I really love the
hurdles,” she says. “There are likely to be a
few more competitive hurdle races, so I can
see how I measure up against the other girls.”
Whatever she decides to do, Ennis-Hill
says she’s sure there will always be pressure.
“People will expect me to keep winning for a
long time, but if I achieve nothing else I would
still be the happiest girl in the world with
what I achieved last year and the few years
before,” she smiles. “In that respect, it’s a
nice position to be in. I’m still in the middle of
my career and hopefully I can achieve more.”
Although she jokingly answers “kryptonite”
when we ask what her weakness is, finally
buying into our tortured superhero analogy,
it’s hard to see a reason why Ennis-Hill
shouldn’t keep achieving in the long term.
In London, she proved beyond doubt that she
can cope with that pressure and handle the
unique expectation placed upon her.
She might not be saving the world, but one
year on the quiet girl from Sheffield turned
heroine of the Games returns, ready to take
it on again.
Amit Katwala @amitkatwala
Jessica Ennis is Vitality Ambassador for PruHealth
and PruProtect, helping to motivate people to live a
healthy lifestyle and rewarding them for doing so.
www.pruhealth.co.uk, www.pruprotect.co.uk
Sponsored by
Sponsored by
2012 Olympic Legacy
24 | July 26 2013 |
Built to last?
One year on from London’s finest hour,
there’s one question being asked: was
it worth it? It’s a simple query, but one
without a straightforward answer. There
is no doubt that London 2012 was a roaring success
in the most obvious and immediate ways – huge
crowds created some of the best atmospheres the
Olympics has ever seen, and the home nation (that’s
us) rose to the occasion better than anyone could
have imagined possible.
But there is no escaping the ‘L’ word. What exactly
did Lord Coe envisage when he promised that the
Olympic Games would leave a significant and lasting
legacy for sport in Britain? His pledge to “inspire
a generation” captured the imagination of the
International Olympic Committee members who
awarded the 2012 Games to London in Singapore.
But was it a pledge with any firm foundations behind
it, or simply an effective catchphrase?
“There is no question that young people found the
Games inspirational,” Baroness Sue Campbell tells
Sport in a warm yet matter-of-fact manner, which
harks back to her days as a PE teacher in the early
1970s. Now chair of the Youth Sport Trust, her
background imbues her with a wealth of experience
in sports leadership. She spent 10 years as chief
Just 12 months ago, the world waited to see how Britain would handle playing host to the greatest show on Earth. We smashed it. But how are we handling our post-Games responsibilities? Sport asks the experts
executive of the National Coaching Foundation, and
was chair of UK Sport from 2003 until her retirement
earlier this year.
“Interestingly, it was marginally more the
Paralympics that inspired a lot of youngsters,” she
continues. “They saw individuals doing great things
and being great athletes, but against all sorts of
challenges. It made them realise that, no matter what
challenges they faced, they could succeed. So there
has been a real inspirational moment – the challenge
now is turning that into sustained participation.”
Cause and effect
One man who has seen the after-effects of Super
Saturday and Thrilling Thursday from close quarters
is the man who coached Jessica Ennis-Hill to Olympic
heptathlon gold, Toni Minichiello. “Here in Sheffield
[where he coaches Ennis-Hill], the number of
youngsters getting involved in the sport has
quadrupled,” he says. “We’ve gone from about 200
people involved in kids’ academies here to 700,
plus a small waiting list. The Olympics was a
massive stimulus.
“But there are downsides, and whether there is
truly a legacy I have to question – a legacy being a
long-lasting, permanent feature of the Olympics.”
Minichiello’s view is unsurprising considering that,
since the Games, he has been made redundant by
British Athletics and has seen one of his main
coaching venues – and the place where he first
worked with a talented 13-year-old who would go on
to be an Olympic champion – condemned to closure.
Minichiello has described the closing of Don Valley
Stadium this September as a “hefty blow” to
Ennis-Hill’s hope of defending her Olympic title in 2016.
But when it comes to his own circumstances, he sees
far wider issues at work. “We do not have enough
coaches and we don’t have a professionalism of
coaches” he says. “There’s always an overreliance
on volunteers. I was employed for a while and
am now – strictly speaking – a volunteer too.
But there’s a limit to what volunteers can do.
“There should have been a move towards the
professionalisation of coaching so that people could
actually earn a living from it, or develop a career.
There should also have been more of an emphasis on
recruiting coaches before the Olympics, so that we
could cope with this. These are the same problems
we had after we won the Rugby World Cup in 2003
and the Ashes in 2005 – you just couldn’t cope with
the influx afterwards. So the lessons were there,
but they hadn’t been learned.”
Matt Prior
| 25
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From small acorns…
Baroness Campbell agrees with Minichiello’s view,
but with one exception: elite coaches.
“UK Sport has doubled its investment in elite
coaching for the Rio cycle, but that’s only a relatively
small group,” she says. “Look at coaching generally:
we’re investing only in the top of the tree, but the
whole trunk – which includes coaches from mums and
dads to national-level junior athletes – has no structure
at all. It requires real investment to change that.”
Investment in primary schools is the most
important factor, says Campbell, in ensuring the
inspired generation grows up to be an inspiring one:
“If you want to inspire a generation, you have to start
at the beginning of the generation. Changing people’s
behaviour is much harder than getting people to
behave in a certain way early on in life.
“In developed nations around the world, we are
battling against a more sedentary lifestyle – so it
has become incredibly hard to get people to adopt
physical activity as part of daily life. The only way you
tackle that is by changing the mindset of kids that
physical activity is not something that’s nice to do,
but something you need to do. Just like thinking about
developing your numeracy and literacy, the business
of developing your physical literacy is key.”
She is not alone in prioritising primary school
sport, which is why there was such an outcry when
education secretary Michael Gove dismantled the
School Sports Partnerships (SSPs) in 2010 –
the national PE scheme that had been backed by
£162m of funding.
“Some would argue they [the SSPs] were doing a
good job, and some would say otherwise, but at least
it had a level of permanency to it,” says Minichiello.
He’s concerned the new funding plan for school
sport, which was announced in March and pledged
£150m a year for the next two years, doesn’t go far
enough. “It’s all piecemeal stuff, not legacy in the
true sense that it’s got any permanency to it.
“Kids in schools should get a minimum of four
hours of physical activity per week from a teacher
who has been trained to deliver activities like sports,
dance and outdoor pursuits such as trekking. At the
moment, during a three-year period, primary school
teachers get just six hours of instruction on how to
deliver sport in schools.”
Remember your first PE lesson? That’s probably
because there wasn’t much memorable about it,
according to Campbell, who says a child’s first
experience of physical education has often been
delivered by teachers that are “lacking the
confidence and in some cases the competence to
deliver PE well”. The new funding could make a big
difference, she says, but only if used in the right way:
“We’ve got to put a lot of that money into training our
teachers, and it has to be a two-pronged attack
– focused on helping the teachers we’ve already got
to be more effective in PE, and on changing initial
teacher training so we’re getting better quality
primary PE teachers coming into schools.”
Keeping the winning habit
At the opposite end of the scale to school sport are
the likes of Mo Farah, Greg Rutherford and Ennis-Hill
– the gold-medal winners who are supported by
Britain’s high-performance sports agency, UK Sport.
“Our agenda is to ensure we develop a more
sustainable and successful performance system,
so that those of us who felt, saw and enjoyed the
success in London 2012 will have the chance to
see it again and again,” explains UK Sport chief
executive Liz Nicholl. “Making sure the pathways
between participation, talent and performance
are really strong is a big one for us, so that we
continue to have athletes with medal potential
coming through.”
Judging whether UK Sport has been successful is
more straightforward than assessing whether the
youth of today have been convinced to ditch their
PlayStations and iPads in favour of a kick-about in
the local park. Medal tables are a bit of a giveaway.
But Nicholl says it’s also UK Sport’s remit to keep
prodding and poking the nation into remembering
just how great sport can be by making use of their
main assets – the athletes themselves.
“We fund 1,400 Olympic and Paralympic athletes
and we’re expecting them to give up five days of
their time each year to inspire the next generation
through school and community sports, making that
connection so that our successful athletes are
inspiring young people to do sport,” she explains.
One thing London 2012 proved is that Britain’s
appetite for watching live sport remains insatiable.
Even so, UK Sport is doing its damnedest to satisfy
that appetite through its Gold Event Series. >
Baroness Sue Campbell
Chair of the Youth
Sport Trust
Toni Minichiello
Coach to Jessica
Ennis-Hill
Liz Nicholl
Chief Executive of
UK Sport
The experts
Talking about inspiring a generation: an
enraptured Olympic Stadium last summer
(above); Ellie Simmonds prepares for the
women’s 50m freestyle (below)
Matt Prior
26 | July 26 2013 |
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“We’re targeting bringing up to 70 major,
sport-specific events at world and European level to
Britain over the next six years” says Nicholl. “We’ve
won about 24 bids already, and have a number of
them still live. And they’re in various locations around
the nation – not just in London. It’s a platform to
inspire. Not only for those watching, but also the
athletes performing in front of a home crowd and
the volunteers, too.”
With high performance at the forefront of UK
Sport’s minds, then, what does Nicholl make of the
closure of the Don Valley Stadium and the plight of
athletes such as long jump Olympic champion Greg
Rutherford, who has struggled for sponsorship?
”It’s taking the landscape time to settle down
following a big commercial focus on London 2012,”
she says. “Before we get back to business as usual,
there will inevitably be some winners and some losers.
“It’s important that every athlete with the potential
to deliver medals is able to access the right facilities.
But there will inevitably be some closures and new
openings – and it’s that period in between a closing
and an opening that’s the most difficult time.”
Rutherford’s situation also has its basis in the
harsh reality of the commercial world, says Nicholl.
“Sponsors are always going to be looking at future
potential, and there may be some shifts in their
thinking about which athletes and sports to
support,” she explains. “And they’ll be making
those decisions for commercial reasons.”
Small changes, big differences
Sponsorship makes a huge difference at the other
end of the scale, though, and Minichiello believes
the Government could be doing more to encourage
sponsors into sport. “If there’s truly going to be
a legacy from this, there should be tax breaks for
people sponsoring sports teams with youngsters,”
he says. “So if you personally run a business and
want to support an under-14s football team by
buying them a kit or paying for their pitch hire or
floodlights, those things should be encouraged.
“I remember during the Games, one of the Olympic
sponsors wanted to make available to their staff the
opportunity to go on a coaching course – which the
company was going to pay for. But they were told it
was a gift in kind, meaning it would be taxable, so
they dropped the idea altogether. If a company wants
to send someone on a coaching course to then give
back to the community, that should be tax-exempt.
For any government truly interested in sport and
trying to change the health of a nation, those kinds
of things would be automatic.”
The man named UK Coach of the Year for
overseeing Ennis-Hill’s rise to the top chuckles when
asked whether the people with the power to act on
his suggestions have ever asked for his views on
how to secure a legacy from London 2012: “I’m the
son of immigrant workers up north – what do I know?
I get no kudos stood next to a minister, but if I’m
Jessica Ennis, then I do. What happens in sport is
that, politically, they’re obsessed with celebrity.
So they’ll ask the people who perform what should
happen – never the people behind them.”
Campbell recalls the phrase “you’re never a
prophet in your own land” when talking of Minichiello.
He is one of many people with the passion and ideas
that could make a difference to ensuring Lord Coe’s
promise to the IOC in Singapore proves to be more
than a platitude designed to win votes. She is
another one, as is Nicholl.
But 12 months after the Games is no time to draw
conclusions on whether the legacy has been a
success, says Campbell: “The test will be: is this
generation of young people a more physically active,
more sporty, healthier generation? If the answer to
that is no, then I will say we didn’t deliver on what we
promised. But no nation has taken an Olympic Games
and been able to create a boom in participation with it.
It’s a massively difficult thing to do. But then nobody
has tried to do it in a generational way, and that’s
where we have to start: with a new generation.”
Sarah Shephard @sarahsportmag
Toni Minichiello is 2012 UK Coach of the Year
and Powerade ambassador, helping promote
Powerade’s personalised Sports Bottle campaign.
Visit poweradegb.com
2012 Olympic Legacy
Number of 16 to 25-year-olds playing sport regularly – an increase of 63,000 in the past year
3.86m
‘There will be winners and losers,’ says Liz Nicholl.
Two of the latter: The Don Valley Stadium in Sheffield,
which will close in September (above left), and
Greg Rutherford (above), who has struggled for
sponsorship despite his gold-medal win in London
Sport England’s Active People survey. Findings are
for the year to April 2013
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“It’s always goIng to be tough to match 2012 – not only the medals, but the emotIons”
David Weir
| July 26 2013 | 29
before London 2012, David Weir had
won the London Marathon a record-
equalling six times, had six Paralympic
medals (two of them gold) hidden away
in his south London home, and had been
appointed an MBE. Yet he remained one of the
lesser-known lights of British sport.
No longer. Weir’s heroics at last summer’s
Paralympics, at which he won four gold
medals across distances starting at 800m
and ending at 26.2 miles, have rightly made
him a household name – and one that has
played a huge role in attracting a sell-out
crowd to the Olympic Stadium for Sunday’s
International Para Challenge at the
Anniversary Games.
That 10-day spell last August transformed
Weir the wheelchair racer into ‘The Weirwolf’,
with a theme tune and specially designed
helmet to match. But the plaudits and
trophies were forgotten as early as January
8 2013 – a date that still elicits a wince of
pain from Weir. “It was my first day back in
training after four months out,” he recalls.
“It was tough. When I have time out, the first
week back is always sort of alright and you
think: ‘Oh, this is okay.’ But then your body
starts to ache and you’re like: ‘What am I
doing?’ That first session back was just a
gentle six-mile push to go through the motions
really, but I remember my lungs burning a lot.
“I always go back at the wrong time of
year, too – when it’s freezing cold, dark and
horrible outside. It was the coldest winter I
have ever experienced – the wind was painful
– but it was what I had to do to get ready for
the London Marathon.”
everybody hurts, sometImesWeir’s attempt to surpass Tanni Grey-
Thompson’s record of six victories on The
Mall ended in disappointment this year, when
the 33-year-old finished fifth, two seconds
behind winner Kurt Fearnley.
“I was devastated for five or 10 minutes,”
says Weir, with typical understatement.
“But then I realised: I’d had four months off.
You’re not going to get away with that.
“I just didn’t have that final sprint in me.
But I sat there afterwards and thought:
‘Kurt would definitely swap that win for a gold
medal in London, and I got four of them that
are never going to be taken away from me.’
[Though Fearnley does have three Paralympic
golds, from 2004 and 2008.] I had a week off
afterwards to sulk for a bit, and then it drove
me on a bit more. You need to lose to win,
you know? A loss does you good, sometimes.”
Weir’s fifth place might have given his
motivation a boost, but it wasn’t enough to
get him on a plane to Lyon, where the 2013
IPC Athletics World Championships have been
taking place this week. “For me, it was too
much too soon,” he says of the competition
that saw him win three gold medals in 2011.
“It was too much pressure and too much
expectation. I could probably have gone and
just done the marathon at the end, but that’s
not me. If I’m there, I want to do what I did at
the Games. Not competing there just takes
the pressure off me a bit for a year, and
means I can concentrate on getting ready
for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.”
At the Olympic Stadium on Sunday, Weir is
racing in a one-mile exhibition race that gives
the crowd a chance to reprise their Weirwolf
calls of one year ago. With his mind not yet
made up over whether the Rio Paralympics in
2016 is a Games too far, it will also, we hope,
provide the man himself with a reminder of
the winning feeling that started when he
crossed the line for his first gold in London on
September 3 2012 – and stayed with him to
the end of the marathon six days later.
“It’s always going to be tough to match
London 2012 – not only the medals, but
the emotions and the experience of the
whole thing,” he reflects. “At the moment I
have a two-year plan – I’d like to do the
Commonwealths and race for England.
After that, we’ll see if I can get motivated for
another two years.”
Sarah Shephard @sarahsportmag
David Weir was
speaking on behalf of
the BMW Performance
Academy, a bespoke
development
programme for
England Rugby’s elite
young players. BMW is
helping to support
player development
through a mentoring
programme with
London 2012 athletes
back on
trackAhead of his return to the track he dominated at last year’s Paralympics, David Weir tells Sport about his life in the limelight and the pain of getting back into peak condition
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Anniversary Games
30 | July 26 2013 |
EntEr thE Bolt
There’s only one man who can save athletics now: with the sport reeling from a series of positive drugs tests, the imperious Usain Bolt returns to the scene of his 2012 Olympic triumphs for this weekend’s Anniversary Games
With the rotten aftertaste from Tyson
Gay and Asafa Powell’s positive
drugs tests lingering, Usain Bolt’s
return to the Olympic Stadium for this
weekend’s Anniversary Games could
not come at a better time. Despite the fact
the triple Olympic champ has been way
below par so far this season, he remains the
best entertainment the sport has to offer –
perhaps even better now for the fact that
he’s no longer the unbeatable behemoth of
the past few seasons.
Which brings us to Britain’s James Dasaolu
(right), who will find himself lining up against
Bolt on Friday night just a few weeks after
running the 100m in a breakthrough 9.91s in
Birmingham. That time saw the 25-year-old
become the second-fastest Brit in history
(behind Linford Christie’s 9.87s in 1993) and
one of the fastest men in the world this year;
three-hundredths of a second quicker than
Bolt himself has managed in 2013. A repeat
performance in the stadium where he was
left disappointed with his semi-final exit
at London 2012 would do nicely, with the
World Championships just weeks away.
The Diamond League event covers Friday
and Saturday, and features star names
including Mo Farah, who is fresh from running
a blistering 1,500m in Monaco. His time of
3:28.81 was quick enough to break Steve
Cram’s 28-year-old 1,500m British record
and earn the double Olympic champion
a European record – not too shabby for
a man who won gold at 5,000m and
10,000m last summer.
Sunday’s action sees the focus shift
to the Paralympians who lit up the
stadium so spectacularly last
summer. David Weir (who’s
interviewed on the previous page),
Jonnie Peacock, Hannah Cockroft and
Richard Whitehead will star in the one-off
IPC International Challenge event, for which
60,000 tickets were snapped up within
24 hours of going on sale.
The drugs cheats might have cast a
dirty great shadow over athletics, but this
weekend is an opportunity for the sport to
remind the world that the genuine athletes
are still out there. And that theirs is a show
well worth watching.
Don’t miss
Women’s 400m hurdles, Friday 8.04pm
British 400m hurdles champion Perri
Shakes-Drayton is up against Olympic
bronze-medallist Zuzana Hejnova.
Men’s 100m , Friday 9.48pm
Usain Bolt and James Dasaolu are joined
by Christophe Lemaitre, Nesta Carter,
Kim Collins and Dwain Chambers.
Women’s 100m hurdles, Saturday 2.11pm
If she’s fit, Jessica Ennis-Hill will take on
fellow Brit Tiffany Porter, as well as Sally
Pearson, Dawn Harper-Nelson and Kellie
Wells – a trio otherwise known as the
Olympic gold, silver and bronze-medallists.
Men’s 3,000m, Saturday 4.32pm
Mo Farah races a distance he’s more
familiar with on a track he planted more
than one kiss on 12 months ago.
Men’s 4x100m, Saturday 4.50pm
Bolt’s back in front of his adoring fans as
part of a Racers Track Club team that will
be tough to beat.
Men’s T43/44 100m, Sunday 5.01pm
Jonnie Peacock takes on a strong field
including Brazil’s Alan Oliveira, who
smashed the T43 200m world record at
the World Championships last weekend.
Men’s T54 mile, Sunday 5.14pm
The Weirwolf gets the honour of closing
the weekend’s action with what should
be another win on a track on which he’s
never been beaten.
it’s on
Friday BBC Two 7.30pm
saturday BBC one 1.30pm
sunday Channel 4 3pm
RACE TO SEE
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32 | July 26 2013 |
Ashes cloud
England and Australia have had two compelling Tests, but dark skies could yet threaten the success of this double-Ashes year
The nail-biting Ashes summers of 2005 and
2009 had more in common than just their
end result of a 2-1 win for England. Both
engrossed the public and saw the country’s
traditional summer sport post a cheeky shot across
the bows of its more popular winter counterpart,
football. Numerous fans who enjoy both could be
overheard bemoaning that August’s start of the
footy season had come too soon: we were all still
absorbed in the cricket.
The first two Tests of this series have been
mesmerising, eventful and hugely popular, but
something is rotten in the state of Ashes cricket.
As close as the first Test at Trent Bridge proved to
be, the gap in quality between the two teams looked
increasingly wide at Lord’s. If England take an
unassailable 3-0 lead in the series at Old Trafford
next week, the football season may find its start
perfectly coincides with the end of the summer
Ashes as a competitive series.
Of course, England cricket supporters who can
remember the 1990s (or, indeed, just as far back as
2007) can point out that Australian fans probably
weren’t wringing their hands in worry when their
side were putting an aggressively baggy green boot
on the England team’s throat. Aiming for 5-0
victories and leaving the opposition scratching
around for consolation wins in dead-rubber Tests
seemed a way of life. The difference is that the
defeated side usually had at least 18 months in which
to lick their wounds and rebuild. This summer’s
Ashes is set to finish on August 25, however, before
it all begins again down under on November 21, just
88 days later. If Australia fail to compete for the last
The Ashes
| 33
By players, for players
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three matches of this summer, the Tests in Australia
could prove less the second course in a feast of
Ashes cricket, more an unwanted gorge that excites
neither a jaded Australian public nor England fans
missing the spice of fierce competition.
Lord’s deflation“English cricket fans would prefer to see a
competitive Australian team than one just getting
steamrollered every game,” claims Sky Sports
pundit and England fast-bowling great Bob Willis.
“There was definitely a feeling of deflation when the
Australian first innings capitulated at Lord’s. It had
been fascinating watching England battle their way
back to a respectable total from 28/3 in the first
innings. Australia started reasonably well, but
when they were bowled out for 128, people thought:
’Oh dear, is this going to be the the theme for the
rest of the series?’ Unless Australia rejig their
team, I fear it is.
“There is definitely a gulf in class in the two
batting line-ups. Australia have one world-class
player in Michael Clarke, and one very good player in
Shane Watson. England probably have four world-
class batsmen and three very good ones. But I think
Australia could improve their side by shifting around
the batting order. I’d make Clarke bat at number
three, I’d move Watson down into the middle order,
to six, and I’d have either [David] Warner or [Phil]
Hughes opening the batting.”
While we can expect changes to the Australian
team before Old Trafford, not least because quick
bowler James Pattinson is now out injured for the
rest of the tour, Australian ESPN Cricinfo writer
Jarrod Kimber points out that Australia’s chopping
and changing hasn’t always worked. “They picked two
guys who weren’t even in the original squad for Trent
Bridge [Steve Smith and Ashton Agar] – and just
before that, they changed their coach and their
wicketkeeper. Before Lord’s, they made two changes,
bringing in Ryan Harris and Usman Khawaja.
So there’s been a lot of reshuffling already. They keep
searching for a ’magic formula’ – so it wouldn’t
surprise me if they do it again, but I doubt it will help.
“You only need to look at Ashton Agar. They were
looking for a 19-year-old saviour yet again. He plays
one Test and they say: ’Look how good he is! He’s
awesome!’ And actually he’s nowhere near good
enough as a bowler at the moment. He replaced
Nathan Lyon, who’d taken nine wickets in his last
Test [against India in March]. He needs to come
back into the side.”
England’s room for improvementA worry for those who want the next three Ashes
Tests to be competitive is that England have won
without even firing on all cylinders. As Willis points
out: “Alastair Cook, Kevin Pietersen, Jonathan Trott
and Matt Prior haven’t yet batted as well as they
can – so there’s four players there who have yet to
really get going for England. The bowling has been
excellent, but Stuart Broad is due a devastating spell
with the ball. So I can only see England getting better
in this series, rather than it levelling out.”
While England’s batting line-up has been overly
reliant on Ian Bell and is yet to show its full quality,
the best batsman on either side is also still to show
his class. Many speculate that it’s just a matter of
time before the Australian skipper lives up to his 50+
Test batting average, but Kimber is not so sure.
”Michael Clarke’s [often injured] back looks
dreadful. The way he batted against Stuart Broad at
Lord’s, there’s absolutely no doubt that his back is
not working properly. He couldn’t get out of the way
of the short ball – one hit him in the head [above]
and it wasn’t an extraordinary ball, just a normal
bouncer. He goes through peaks and troughs >
“English cricket fans would prefer to see a competitive Australian team than one just getting steamrollered every game”
The Ashes
34 | July 26 2013 |
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with his back, and he’s going to have to deal with
that for the rest of his career. I doubt he’ll play much
[Test cricket] beyond the Ashes in Australia, if at all.
It’s clearly giving him problems – I doubt we have any
of his mammoth innings coming up.”
If results don’t improve for Australia – and the
result is a 4-0 or 5-0 triumph for England this
summer – then Kimber admits the Ashes down
under could be a tricky sell.
“This is the problem,” he says. “If this was a really
exciting, competitive series, then the next series
would be awesome. But we’re at the complete
opposite end to that – and, to be fair to the
administrators [who arranged back-to-back Ashes],
no one knew it was going to be so lop-sided so soon.”
While he admits new coach Darren Lehmann will
benefit from having more time to mould a team of his
own choosing rather than being thrown in at the
deep end, Kimber sees the problems with Australia
as deeper rooted than that. “Based on the length of
contract he was given, Tim Lincoln should still be the
Australia coach,” he says. “And if you don’t know who
Tim Lincoln is, I don’t blame you: because he’s two
coaches back now. That shows me that Cricket
Australia have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.
“It wouldn’t surprise me if they try to reshape the
team for the series back in Australia and young
players like Joe Burns and Jordan Silk are picked –
but it’s not like there’s any batting prodigies out there.
There’s no Jonny Bairstows or Joe Roots. The young
players in Australia are a level just below them.”
All eyes on Old TraffordIt may look bleak for Australia, but England will
be wary not to rest on their laurels. After all,
momentum looked to have shifted decisively in
England’s favour after two Tests in the last Ashes
series, before England’s batsmen were alarmingly
bowled out of the game in losing the third Test on the
WACA in Perth. Willis admits that England – even now
– are capable of shooting themselves in the foot on
occasion, while Kimber points out that “England
haven’t actually batted particularly well in this series.
They had to struggle to get runs in both first innings.
Australia have good fast bowlers and someone like
Ryan Harris can run through a team. That’s what
they’re going to need. If Shane Watson just believes
in himself or if Michael Clarke’s back gets better,
an Australian win can happen.”
Willis is also optimistic, both for Australian
chances in home territory and for the continuing
popularity of Ashes cricket. “Australia will certainly
bowl and bat better in their own conditions,” he says.
“They could be a danger. Plus, of course, just 18
months after the Aussie series finishes, they’re back
here again in 2015. So three Ashes series, 15 Ashes
Test matches in two years – but I don’t think there
will be overkill. There may be some desertion from
Aussie cricket fans if they’re getting hammered at
home, but overall the traditions of the contest will
ensure crowds are good both home and away.”
Before we get there, however, we have Old
Trafford next Thursday – and while it’s likely to be
another dry, abrasive surface rather than the
springboard pitch of the WACA, 10 days of
recuperation away from Test cricket will aid
Australia’s dangerous fast bowlers. Whisper it
quietly, but there might be a few England cricket fans
who care about the health of the Test version of the
game hoping for a fully competitive match.
Another one-sided home victory and England will,
much as Steve Waugh’s side did in the 1990s, be
forced to look away from their oldest rival and to
India and South Africa in order to find a meaningful
challenge – and that really would be a crying shame.
No sniggering at the back, please – we’re being at
least semi-serious.
Alex Reid @otheralexreid
Only with Sky Sports can you watch 116 live Barclays
Premier League matches, the Ashes and Formula 1 in HD
and on mobile and tablet devices. Jarrod Kimber is working
on a documentary film about the death of Test cricket,
Death of a Gentleman. Visit deathofagentlemanfilm.com
“It’s not like there’s any batting prodigies out there for Australia. There’s no Jonny Bairstows or Joe Roots”
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36 | July 26 2013 |
How important are this year’s World Championships
for British swimming in the wake of last year’s
disappointment in London?
“They’re as important as any, really. The post-Olympic
year always sees a lot of changes and a lot of
retirements. You kind of move on within the squad,
so there’s a new group of swimmers coming through.
With Bill Furniss and Chris Spice taking over [new
head coach and national performance director,
respectively], they’ll be looking to build towards
the next Olympics in Rio.”
You probably came out best of all of Britain’s
contenders in the pool in London, with that silver
medal. How did that feel?
“It was a career-long goal. It’s something I’ve been
working towards for 10 years – that’s a hell of a long
time to be chasing one medal. But, you know, I love
this lifestyle, I love being a professional athlete. I think
my initial reaction was relief – I really hadn’t prepared
for any other results, and you dread to think what
my psychological state would have been if I hadn’t
got that medal.”
Do you feel any added pressure as a result of
winning that medal?
“I think I do, within myself. I want to be seen to lead
by example, and I’ll be the first to hold my hands up if
I don’t get the results I’m looking for.”
The 2014 Commonwealth Games are in Glasgow,
your hometown. Will you be in a unique position of
being under more scrutiny next year than last?
“Yes, I think it will be more next year. The Scots are
obviously a pretty small but very proud nation, and
it’s not often as athletes that we get a chance to
represent our home nation – so it’s a real special
occasion. It’s just a few miles from home for me – as
close to home as it gets – and after finishing second
at the last Commonwealth Games in Delhi I’m keen to
get on the podium again... and hope to go one better.”
Much like another Scottish sportsman, you moved
abroad at a young age for training. Was going to live
in Paris a difficult decision?
“It was a big decision – but for me it was just part
of the process of striving towards an Olympic medal.
In my mind it wasn’t a tough decision – I thought the
programme that was going to be in place over there
would give me the best opportunity to improve. It was
a no-brainer, really. It was quite good fun to start to
learn French – I wasn’t great, but I knew enough to
get by. It was just some real good life experience.
I wasn’t on any funding at the time, so I was relying
on my parents to fund it, which put them under a
hell of a lot of stress. But, you know, I kind of got
the results that I was looking for in the end, so it
proved worthwhile.”
What’s the biggest sacrifice you’ve had to make to
pursue your swimming career?
“I think over the years it’s relationships. You try
to maintain contact with friends, but no one really
understands the choices you have to make to be
successful as an athlete. I think you have to be
willing to make that sacrifice, and it’s obviously an
unfortunate one, but I would do it again if I could get
these results again. You have such a short shelf life
as an athlete – I’ve got maybe four years left, so
you really have to make the most of that. For the
rest of my career I’ve got a goal as big as London
every season, and that starts with the World
Championships.”
Amit Katwala @amitkatwala
Michael Jamieson is fronting the Speedo Swim Fit campaign
Silver lining
Michael Jamieson’s 200m breaststroke silver was the high point of British Swimming’s London Games. Now he wants to go one better at this week’s World Aquatics Championships
1HIL000014_Crabbies_Press_Ad.indd 2 09/07/2013 10:16
One of horse racing's most iconic social occasions
breaks from the stalls on Tuesday, as the five-day
Glorious Goodwood meeting returns for another
year. Pimm's and one-week-a-year linen suits will
dominate off the track, but there is some serious
sport to look forward to on it as well – and the pick of Ch
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HIGHLIGHTS
» Formula 1: Hungarian GP, Romain Grosjean » p42
» Swimming: FINA World Championships » p44
» Rugby League: London Broncos v Wigan Warriors » p44
» Football: Borussia Dortmund v Bayern Munich » p44
» Golf: Senior British Open » p45OUR PICK OF THE ACTION FROM THE SPORTING WEEK AHEAD
WEDNESDAY HORSE RACING | QIPCO SUSSEX STAKES | GOODWOOD | CHANNEL 4 3.05PM
40 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
Duel inthe sun
the bunch from an intriguing week's racing is
Wednesday's Sussex Stakes.
For the second time in three years, the Group 1
race over a mile is being billed as a 'Duel on the
Downs' between two top-class colts. The reality
didn't quite justify the hype back in 2011, when
the mighty Frankel ran all over the much-vaunted
Canford Cliffs, but this year's contest promises to be
a cracker between two three-year-olds who have
previous: Dawn Approach and Toronado.
The former has come out on top in both meetings
this season, in the 2000 Guineas and at Royal Ascot
(above) – but Toronado came within a short head of
reversing the form in that encounter, and jockey
Richard Hughes is convinced he would have done so
without the interference he suffered in a messy race.
If both turn up on top form once again next week,
we could be in for one of the clashes of the season.
On Saturday, meanwhile, the leading middle-
distance horses in Europe converge on Ascot for the
King George Stakes (Channel 4, 3.50pm). In the
absence of antepost favourite St Nicholas Abbey,
who suffered a career-ending injury on Tuesday,
French raider Cirrus des Aigles leads the market –
but he has something to prove after one poor run
this season, so the value may lie elsewhere. Step
forward the talented three-year-old Hillstar, who
trainer Sir Michael Stoute added to the field on
Monday at a cost of £75,000. Owner Sir Evelyn de
Rothschild doesn't sound like a man short of a few
bob, but Stoute doesn't mess about and his horse,
crucially, has winning form over course and distance.
42 | July 26 2013 |
7 Days
Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
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SUNDAY FORMULA 1 | HUngARiAn gRAnd PRix | HUngARORing, BUdAPEST | Sky SPORTS F1 1PM
Turning a corner?
A reputation is a hard thing to shake in sport
– just ask Lotus driver Romain Grosjean.
The Frenchman heads into the Hungarian
Grand Prix off the back of an impressive
podium finish in Germany, but for all of his
progress in recent weeks he is still trying to
lose his label as a reckless driver. That tag
was not unfairly handed to him, either, after
he caused a five-car pile-up in Belgium 12
months ago – it was the seventh time in
12 races that he had been involved in a
first-lap crash.
“It was so harsh that it was almost not
real,” he says when recounting the first-lap
incident and subsequent one-race ban
handed down by the FIA. “It was hard for
me [to accept] and not fun, but it’s about
the things you learn from it.”
Grosjean sought guidance from a sports
psychologist to tackle his first-lap nerves –
a move he insists has helped him both on and
off the track. “The weakness would be to
hide it, to hide yourself and not see anyone,”
he explains. “For me it’s being intelligent,
because you can improve yourself. If you look
at the data after qualifying or practice to
improve yourself [on the track] and you can
do the same by seeing someone, then why
not do it?”
While Grosjean has done his utmost to
improve himself, his new attitude is yet to be
Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix
could prove pivotal in Romain
Grosjean’s F1 future, but the
under-fire Frenchman says he
is learning from his mistakes
translated into improvements on the circuit.
So far this season he has scored just 41 points
– 20 fewer than at the same stage last year –
and while third last time out hints at a turning
tide, 2013 has been plagued with frustrations.
“I think the picture we are showing today
is not exactly the truth,” he says. “We started
the year and struggled a bit with something
that was not suiting me well. If you look at the
results, it’s simply not as good as we could
have been – but I think there’s plenty of
positives with what’s going on, and that’s
motivating us to keep working.”
Grosjean’s frustrations have been
compounded by comments from other
drivers about his erratic style, ranging from
Mark Webber labelling him as a “first-lap
nutcase” to Daniel Ricciardo branding him
“an idiot” after the two collided in the latter
stages of the Monaco Grand Prix.
So what does Grosjean himself make of
the criticisms heading his way?
“People like to speak, they like to find
things to criticise,” he says. “I wasn’t happy
with myself, but it wasn’t like it was turn one
where I’ve tried something. Criticism is part
of the game. One day you’re a zero, the next
day you’re a hero. It goes up and down, and I
really don’t read much about all those things.
I’m the first one to know what I did right and
what I did wrong, and that’s what counts
for me. If I can improve from there, then that’s
what’s important.”
Grosjean is currently on a probationary
contract with Lotus, which is reviewed every
three races by team principal Eric Boullier.
But while his relationships with other drivers
are strained to the point of breaking, he has
a comrade in Boullier.
“We speak very often, and it’s important
to have a very good relationship with your
manager, with the team and with everyone,”
Grosjean says.
While the rest of the field were calling
for his head last year, it was his compatriot
who defended him, offering support for
the 27-year-old. And while his showing a
fortnight ago is some vindication for
Boullier’s decision to stick by him, Grosjean
knows that he has to change to prove his
worth in F1.
“I want to go into the future with Lotus and
be world champion with them one day. And
we are building to it. I hope so – I dream.”
Simon Knights @SimonKnights
Suremen is an official partner of the Lotus
F1® Team. It has launched the new Lotus F1®
Team Special Edition deodorant range.
Visit suremen.co.uk
Over the top:
Grosjean’s car (left)
clips Lewis Hamilton’s
before launching over
the top of Fernando
Alonso’s (right, in mid
air) in Spa last year
44 | July 26 2013 |
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Saturday Rugby League | ChaLLenge Cup: London bRonCos v Wigan WaRRioRs | Leigh spoRts ViLLage | bbC tWo 5pm Sunday > sWimming | Fina WoRLd Championships | paLau sant JoRdi, baRCeLona | bRitish euRospoRt 9am
Saturday FootbaLL | dFL-supeRCup: boRussia doRtmund v bayeRn muniCh | WestFaLLenstadion, doRtmund | espn 7.30pm
Britain's first World
Championships in the post-
Rebecca Adlington era sees the
nation's swimmers attempt to draw
a thick line beneath what was a
thoroughly deflating Olympics.
Adlington's pair of bronze
medals in London was
accompanied by an impressive
silver for Michael Jamieson in
the 200m breaststroke (he's
interviewed back on page 36). But
the rest of the British team failed to
deliver, leaving them short of UK
Sport's target of between five and
seven medals.
It provoked a rethink all round,
with Adlington's coach Bill Furniss
called in to replace Dennis Pursley
as head coach at British Swimming,
his stated aim being to “convert
finalists into medallists”.
One of the differences he
implemented was to hold the
British trials for the World
Championships immediately ahead
of the athletes' final training
camps. In the past, trials had been
held months ahead, meaning that
those selected weren't always the
form horses come the main event.
In Barcelona, Furniss is promising
a team that is “focused around
Olympic events and current form...
I believe this tighter focus will give
us every chance to succeed”.
Jamieson aside, medal hopes
will rest with Hannah Miley (below),
who won gold at the Short Course
World Championships in Istanbul
last year, but could manage only
fifth in the 400m individual medley
in London, and Fran Halsall, who
reached four finals (from five
events) last summer, but could
come no closer to a medal than
two fifth-placed finishes.
Barcelona is where the journey
to Rio begins – and, in the case of
British Swimming, where London
2012 hopefully gets left
far behind.
Leaving London
European royaltyIt's a sign of the growing strength
of the Bundesliga that their
equivalent of the Community
Shield is a repeat of the
Champions League final,
while ours includes Wigan.
So, two months after Bayern
Munich's 2-1 win at Wembley,
they visit Borussia Dortmund's
yellow wall for what will be a first
competitive game in charge for
former Barcelona head coach Pep
Guardiola (right). Mario Gotze's
hamstring stopped him from
playing for Dortmund in that final,
and the same injury will likely
prevent him facing his former club
now that he's a Bayern employee.
Thiago Alcântara will be available
for the Bundesliga champions,
however – he looked set for a move
to Manchester United until Pep
swooped in to capture him.
Dortmund and Jurgen Klopp,
meanwhile, have rebuilt their
ransacked squad with the coveted
Armenian midfielder Henrikh
Mkhitaryan (also out injured for
the start of the season) and pacy
French forward Pierre-Emerick
Aubameyang. Games between
these two are always exciting,
cerebral affairs, and this should
be no exception.
Elsewhere, the Women's Euro
2013 draws to a close on Sunday
(BBC Two, 3pm). The semi finals
were yet to be played as we went
to press, so we can't tell you
much more than that.
Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand | 45
Mission impossible?The London Broncos go into the Tetley’s Challenge
Cup semi final against Wigan on Saturday looking
to create one of the biggest shocks since Sheffield
Eagles beat the same opponents in the 1998 final.
If form is anything to go by, then the Warriors
should make short work of the Super League's
bottom club. However, a number of key players,
including Sam Tomkins and Sean O’Loughlin,
missed their defeat at St Helens on Monday, and
there could be more casualties following that
bruising encounter. And the Broncos have a taste
for giant-killing already this season, having
dumped the Bradford Bulls out in the fourth
round (pictured).
So, do they have a chance of getting to Wembley?
“You’ve always got a chance,” says Martin Offiah,
the Hackney-born wing who played in four
Challenge Cup finals for Wigan and featured for the
Broncos in their sole appearance in the final in 1999.
“The only way you’re going to win this game is on
emotion – but it can happen. This is when you find
out about yourself. Have you been doing the right
pre-season training? Are you really fit? If you’re not,
you’re going to be found out; but if you are, you’ve
got a chance.”
In the other semi final, cup holders Warrington,
who have appeared in three of the last four finals,
play Hull FC on Sunday (BBC Two, 6pm).
The Challenge Cup final at Wembley is one of the great sporting events of the British summer
– and you can be at this year's final, on Saturday August 24, for half price! We have teamed up
with the RFL to offer up to 250 tickets in the upper tier, worth £41, for just £20.50 each.
To take advantage of this offer, simply visit rugbyleaguetickets.co.uk, select an
upper tier block containing £41 seats and enter the promotional code SPORTMAG.
Alternatively, call on 0844 856 1113.
Tickets limited to £41 seats in Wembley’s upper tier. Blocks with £41 seats must be
selected when purchasing. Offer ends 1pm on Monday July 29.
Friday > goLF | senioR bRitish open | RoyaL biRkdaLe | sky spoRts 1 11.30am
Monty targets old MajorAfter the thrills of the
final day of the Open
Championship at Muirfield
last Sunday, this weekend
sees the old-timers do
their thing at the Senior
British Open.
Royal Birkdale –
probably, after Muirfield,
the next best course on the
Open rota – is the venue,
and there will be plenty of
familiar (old) faces in the
event, which got under
way yesterday.
Colin Montgomerie
(left), who turned 50 last
month, makes his third
start as a senior. He has
played two Majors in the
US so far, finishing 32nd
and ninth, and will be
desperate to do what he
never could on the regular
tour – namely, land one of
the big ones.
The standard among
the over-50s gets better
every year, though, and
defending champion Fred
Couples will be the man to
beat. He finished a very
creditable 32nd at Muirfield
last weekend, closing with
a fine level-par 71. He has
form at Birkdale too, having
finished third there behind
Ian Baker-Finch in the 1991
Open. Fond memories, if he
can recall that far back.
Reader
offer
46 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
Panasonic KX-PRW120
Only one household object goes missing
more regularly than your keys – and that’s
the landline handset, so this home phone’s
optional ability to locate your keys is a little
perplexing. It also has Smartphone Connect,
so you can make calls from your mobile
via the landline or vice versa.
£100 | Mid-August from currys.co.uk
Beats by Dr Dre Neon Mixr
The famous headphones have been given
a colour makeover by the good doctor,
perhaps inspired by the lollipops he hands
out to children who visit his surgery on the
village green. They’re now available in a host
of highlighter shades, from pink to the green
featured here. Just what the doctor ordered.
£220 | beatsbydre.com
Lytro
The world’s first consumer ‘light-field’
camera arrives in the UK. Lytro’s special
sensor lets it capture the direction light came
from as well as its colour and intensity, which
means you can refocus pictures after you’ve
taken them, or change the perspective. The
effect is mind-boggling. Truly revolutionary.
£400 | From August at johnlewis.co.uk
EXtRa tiMEMaking the most of your time and money
P54
Splinter Cell:
Blacklist.
Make them
believe you’re
everywhere
On the red linethe HtC One is arguably the prettiest
phone to hit pockets in the past year, and it’s
now available in sensual ‘Glamour Red’. Chris de
Burgh will be beside himself with excitement.
On a a slightly more topical note, it runs HTC’s own
take on the Android operating system, and still
includes the same lovely machined aluminium
casing as its silver brethren, with the same
quad-core processor and full HD 4.7-inch screen.
Free from £31/month | Only at phones4u.co.uk
Gadgets
UPGRADE YOUR SOUNDbeats neon mixr £219.99
SSOO UU
EXCLUSIVE COLOUR
Subject to availability, while stocks last
we are entertainment
£219.99
@hmvtweets/hmv
ET
48 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
Speedo Tri Elite Full-
Sleeved Wetsuit
Built for speed, buoyancy and
thermal protection, the Tri Elite
is constructed from flexible and
light Y39 neoprene and has
stitch-free seams for comfort
and a hydrodynamic profile.
Its Vortex pockets expand
during the catch phase of your
stroke, pushing you forward.
£450 | store.speedo.co.uk
Giant Defy 5 (2013)
Giant’s boast that the Defy 5
“redefines the performance
possibilities of an entry-level
road bike” because it “climbs,
corners and sprints better than
bikes costing thousands more”
is a big one – but it stands up,
with its premium lightweight
aluminium frame and Shimano
2300 eight-speed shifting.
That frame should also give you
the longevity to enjoy a few
upgrades – and it’s guaranteed
not to be as flimsy as its carbon
counterparts you’ll see ridden
by your competition. And
should you not want to risk your
own trusted steed in the race
itself, triuk.com will be kind
enough to let you hire one.
£499 | triuk.com
Skechers GOrun 2
The next generation of serious
minimal running shoe, say
Skechers, designed for speed
with innovative performance
technologies to promote a
midfoot strike. Works as a great
transitional shoe to help foster
a barefoot running experience.
Also comes in grey/green,
black/grey and blue.
£71 | skechers.co.uk
Maxifuel Recovermax
If it’s good enough for the
Brownlee brothers – who
notched up another 1-2 last
week in Hamburg – it’s good
enough for you. Recovermax
is a carbohydrate and protein
sports-recovery drink that helps
muscles repair and recover after
intense exercise. Available in
orange or strawberry flavour.
£29.99, 750g | maxishop.com
TRi HaRD WiTH a vEnGEancEIt’s the Virgin Active London Triathlon this weekend. You’re almost certainly too late to enter if you haven’t already, but here’s all you need for next time
Bose SiE2 Sport
Headphones
Specifically engineered for
exercise as well as being sweat
and weather-resistant, the SIE2s
stay comfortably in place and
deliver tonally balanced audio
with crisp highs and deep low
notes – much like our breathing.
They also come with a Reebok
armband to hold your device.
£104.95 | bose.co.uk
Kit
Neither should anyone’s son. Or Grandad. No cousins or nephews. Not the boys from the rugby club or the lads from the pub. No boyfriends or husbands or father-in-laws. Not the chap from the chip shop or the noisy lads at the back of the bus. Not your best mate. Not a single stranger. No one whatsoever.
No one should face cancer alone.With your support, no one will.
Text DAD to 70550 and donate £5 today.
Texts cost £5 plus your network charge. We receive 94p of every £1 donated in this way. Obtain bill payer’s permission first.
Macmillan Cancer Support, registered charity in England and Wales (261017), Scotland (SC039907) and the Isle of Man (604). MAC14175_07_13
MAC14175_Golf_Ball_Sports_Magazine_232x300.indd 1 05/07/2013 12:26
ET Grooming
50 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
Travel light, hold firm
Fish Minis
The Fish Salon in Soho has transformed three of its best-selling styling
products into handy mini-sized versions, perfect for travel or trial. It’s
crammed the Fishfingers Shape Defining Wax, Fishshape Texturising
Cream and Stonefish Matt Texturising Clay into pocket-sized pots so
you can mould, sculpt, texturise, define and shape your hair in pretty
much any situation, whenever your fragile ego demands.
£2.99 each for 25ml | Boots stores nationwide
Shower, shampoo, shave
Wingman 3-in-1
Designed so that the maverick in you can carry his three essentials in one
bottle, Wingman’s formula cleanses like an invigorating shower gel and
shampoo as well as providing a moisturising aloe vera edge to deliver a
close shave. It comes in three flavours: Fuel (wood, spice and, er, aviation
fuel), Charge (grapefruit, lemon, mandarin and coconut) and Boom
(spearmint and peppermint). Now go embarrass yourself with Goose.
£3.49 each for 250ml | tesco.com
Invictus, Paco RabanneMeaning ‘unconquerable’ in Latin, Invictus is also
a Victorian poem by William Ernest Henley, who
contracted tuberculosis of the bone as a teenager
and had his leg amputated below the knee. He was
moved to write it during his recovery, ending with
the lines: “I am the master of my fate: I am the
captain of my soul.” PR is confident you too
can master your own fate with a composition of
marine accord, grapefruit zest and bay leaf, giving
way to a woody amber accord, guaiac wood and
patchouli. “Addictive yet ultra-masculine,” says PR.
£57 for 100ml | boots.com from Monday
naME on ThE TRoPhyNot yours – Paco Rabanne’s. Get your hands on his new eau de
toilette, however, and Paco will be your wingman any time
The new fragrance
iPad edition on Newsstand now
Pre
se
nte
r C
harl
ie W
eb
ste
r d
oe
sn
’t j
ust
talk
th
e
talk
on
Sky S
po
rts N
ew
s. S
he
walk
s t
he
walk
, to
o.
Or, in
th
is c
ase, tr
ies t
he
tri
– w
ith
th
is w
ee
ke
nd
’s
Vir
gin
Acti
ve
Lo
nd
on
Tri
ath
lon
.
“I’ve
neve
r b
ee
n a
tri
ath
lete
be
fore
, I’ve
alw
ays b
ee
n
a r
un
ne
r,” s
he
exp
lain
s. “B
ut
I’ve
had
so
me
bad
in
jury
pro
ble
ms w
ith
my h
ip o
ve
r th
e p
ast
ye
ar
[h
er
sacro
ilia
c
join
t d
islo
cate
s t
han
ks t
o h
yp
erm
ob
ilit
y t
hro
ug
h h
er
hip
s], so
I w
as f
orc
ed
to
take
up
sw
imm
ing
.
“B
ut
I co
uld
n’t
sw
im a
le
ng
th. S
o if
yo
u p
ut
me
in
a
sw
imm
ing
race, I’d
pro
bab
ly h
ave
a b
it o
f a p
ad
dy, th
en
do
do
gg
y p
ad
dle
. S
o I
le
arn
ed
to
sw
im p
rop
erl
y t
hre
e
or
fou
r m
on
ths a
go
.” N
ot
on
ly t
hat,
bu
t W
eb
ste
r als
o
on
ly r
ece
ntl
y r
od
e a
ro
ad
bik
e f
or
the
firs
t ti
me.
“B
ecau
se
of
my r
un
nin
g a
bilit
y, I
was a
ctu
ally g
oo
d
at
the
bik
e,”
sh
e s
ays. “B
ut
I sti
ll d
on
’t h
ave
a b
ike, so
if
an
yo
ne
wan
ts t
o h
elp
me, I’d
be
ve
ry g
rate
ful.”
We
bste
r is
, as y
ou
’ve
pro
bab
ly g
ue
sse
d, fi
erc
ely
co
mp
eti
tive. S
he
to
ok o
n t
he
VO
2 m
ax m
ach
ine
at
the
Gato
rad
e S
po
rts S
cie
nce
In
sti
tute
in
Lo
ug
hb
oro
ug
h
last
we
ek a
nd
“d
ied
”, b
ag
gin
g a
n e
lite
sco
re f
or
he
r an
ae
rob
ic t
hre
sh
old
, all in
th
e n
am
e o
f Lyn
x’s
co
mp
eti
tio
n t
o s
en
d o
ne
pe
rso
n in
to s
pace. Sport
exp
lain
s a
str
on
au
ts w
ho
wash
th
eir
hair
in
sp
ace
en
d
up
dri
nkin
g t
he
sam
e w
ate
r th
ey u
se
to
do
so
, via
a
wate
r-p
roce
ssin
g p
lan
t. W
hat
if t
hey u
se
d L
yn
x?
“M
ayb
e t
he
tin
y p
art
icle
s w
ou
ld a
ct
like
a lo
ve
po
tio
n,”
We
bste
r sp
ecu
late
s. M
ayb
e. B
ut
in h
er
case,
for
that
sam
e e
ffe
ct,
we
’re
no
t su
re t
he
co
nte
sta
nts
ne
ed
dri
nk a
nyth
ing
at
all.
Ch
arl
ie W
eb
ste
r p
resen
ted
th
e last
sta
ge o
f th
e L
yn
x
Sp
ace A
cad
em
y –
a c
om
peti
tio
n t
o s
en
d o
ne p
ers
on
to s
pace. F
ollo
w h
er
on
Tw
itte
r @
Ch
arl
ieC
W
52 | July 26 2013 |
Extra time Charlie Webster
Sp
ace c
ad
et
Christopher Bissell
| 53
54 | July 26 2013 | Download the free Sport iPad app from the Apple Newsstand
The Bureau: XCOM
Declassified
Set against the backdrop of
the Cold War, this third-person
tactical shooter takes place in an
alternate reality where you’ll find
yourself leading teams against
aliens that have invaded the US.
Outnumbered and outgunned,
you’ll need a steady trigger
finger and a good strategic
mind to emerge victorious.
Released August 23
Lost Planet 3
What used to be an ambitious
but underachieving shooter
series with giant robots has
become a much stronger
action game – with even more
giant robots. The cover-based
shooting is familiar, sure, but
the mech combat is improved.
It’s first-person, more involving,
and makes you feel like a
super-powered robo-god.
Released August 30
Splinter Cell: BlacklistDeveloped with a very clear goal in
mind: to merge the pure stealth of
the original Splinter Cell games with
the fast-paced action of the most
recent outing, Conviction. And it
promises to succeed.
The single-player campaign is
as varied as it is action-packed,
plus the gadgetry at your disposal
puts Bond’s toys to shame. You’re
rewarded with perks depending
on how you play the game – so if
you prefer stealth over running and
gunning, you’ll unlock gadgets that
make you the perfect silent killer; opt
for brute force and you’re rewarded
with more powerful weapons.
The much-loved Spies vs. Mercs
multiplayer mode returns, too, with
subtle tweaks to the core gameplay
that – combined with an all-new
four-versus-four Blacklist mode –
help make this the quintessential
Splinter Cell experience.
Released August 23
Saints Row IV
The series’ open-
world playground
is a bit like a
science fiction
version of Grand
Theft Auto, only
with cruder jokes
and weapons such as the alien
anal probe. In fact, its humour
is so low-brow it wallows in
the gutter. Case in point: this
latest instalment has been
refused classification in Australia
because of the aforementioned
weapon. But if you can get past
that, Saints Row IV is a goofy
romp in which fun – not story or
logic – is king. It looks like more
of an upgrade to Saints Row: The
Third rather than a proper sequel
in its own right, but any game in
which you can “administer the
biggest smackdown in the history
of mankind” gets our vote.
Released August 23
SAInTS AnD SInneRS
eT Games Save America (and, therefore, the world) from terrorist attacks or extraterrestrial invasion –
and help “take our independence back from the anal-probing overlords that oppress us”
The Wonderful 101
This eccentric Wii U exclusive
puts at your disposal a team of
superheroes who team up to
form enormous weapons with
which to fend off alien invaders.
Your aim is to find and recruit
helpless citizens to your army
of heroes. Fast, fun and a truly
memorable blast thanks to its
mix of unique gameplay and
quirky humour.
Released August 23
Disney Infinity
First impressions pitch this as
a terrifyingly efficient money-
spinner and little else, but while
there’s an onus on collecting
figures that can be synthesised
and used in the game – much
like Skylanders – don’t write it
off as one for the kids just yet.
Creative, playful and preserves
the soul of the characters and
places it brings to life.
Released August 20
In association with
PS3, Xbox, PC, Wii U PS3, Xbox, PC
PS3, Xbox, PC PS3, Xbox, PC Wii U PS3, Xbox, PC, Wii, 3DS
Best Dad in the World? You will be with the new Fiat 500L Trekking. Arm your kids with the perfect playground verbal ammunition when you scoop them and all their mates up. This 5-seater cruiser has a range of features including beefy 17" diamond-fi nished alloy wheels with bold arches, tinted windows, City Brake Control, plus Traction+ for when the great British summer goes south. Dad 1. The Rest 0. End of.
Fiat, the car brand with the lowest average CO2 emissions in Europe .̂ Fuel consumption figures for the Fiat 500L Trekking range in mpg (l/100km): Urban 33.6 (8.4) – 60.1 (4.7); Extra Urban 53.3 (5.3) – 74.3 (3.8); Combined 44.1 (6.4) – 67.3 (4.2). CO2 emissions 149 – 109 g/km. Fuel consumption and CO2 figures based on standard EU tests for comparative purposes and may not reflect real driving results.^Source: JATO Dynamics. Based on volume-weighted average CO2 emissions (g/km) of the best selling brands in Europe, full year 2012.
f i a t . c o . u k