Sporting issues …

In keeping with the widely-held in some quarters that the whole world has gone bonkers in recent times (Brexit, Trump etc.) these days there’s also plenty happening in the world of sport.

Here are some examples, selected exclusively from reports in the media today:

UK SPORT

Yesterday UK Sport heard appeals from seven sports for which it had provisionally decided to severely reduce or deny funding altogether for the next Olympic cycle to 2020 – specifically badminton, wheelchair rugby, archery, fencing, weightlifting, goal ball and table tennis.

And rejected the lot, cue consternation and outrage all round from the appellants.

It’s a difficult one. On the one hand (against a backdrop of budget pressures) do you get hard-nosed and award funding only to those sports via which you can reasonably predict medal wins?

Or, on the other, especially amongst sports who have done well medal-wise in the past and/or are have been significant developmental strides, do you keep heavily funding them in the hope or expectation of further progress?

And furthermore, what does refusal to fund further (for which some might substitute ‘properly’) say to youngster contemplating taking up sports – or indeed taking exercise generally – against a background in which every politician and public health commentator or pundit is screaming from the mountain tops about a growing existential  national crisis of obesity, bad eating habits, lack of activity and straightforward poor health for which (inescapably) ‘prevention’ is a far better way forward than just sitting back, letting it all happen, and then paying through the nose via the NHS to treat the inevitable consequences when they come along?

See here, Sean Ingle writing on the website of – THE GUARDIAN

HEAVYWEIGHT BOXING

If I describe that Steve Bunce as an ‘old school’ boxing journalist, commentator and broadcaster I intend it as a compliment.

In a world of blandness, he’s something of a throwback to the days when colourful characters, in and out of the professional ring, were the norm. As a result (in my book) he’s always worth reading or listening to.

Here’s a link to his latest piece, on the subject of a previous generation of ‘lost’ heavyweights, as appears upon the website of – THE INDEPENDENT

 

SIX NATIONS – THE FUTURE?

The first ‘minnow’ to produce a national rugby union team potentially capable of expanding the sport’s reach beyond the ‘old established’ nations was Romania in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Then – as if often the nature of these things – that specific pool of players aged and their circumstances faded and the new kid on the block became Italy, at that stage largely built around the play-making and place-kicking abilities of the Argentinian Diego Dominguez.

Sadly, by the times Italy joined the Six Nations in 2000, Dominguez and that particular ‘golden generation’ of Italian players were already on the wane. Since then Italy’s successes on the score-sheets (ignoring their occasion splendid efforts, brief periods of competitiveness in individual games and indeed the advent of world superstars such as Sergio Parisse) have been as rare as hen’s teeth.

Although they can point to the fact they have achieved victories at some point or another over every one of the Six Nations (England excepted) it is not much of a record to crow about in this, their eighteenth season in the tournament.

There’s a head of steam building about how World Rugby should take the game forward. One critical issue is that – inevitably – if the current widely-perceived opportunity to achieve a world explosion of interest is to be realised, a great deal more funding and development effort must be put into countries and continents where missionary work is already bringing dividends. The downside (as some might see it, though not me) is that – to do this – World Rugby must to all intents and purposes become a ‘turkey voting for Christmas’ because, of course, World Rugby is run by an all-powerful cabal of the ‘old countries’ (viz. the Six Nations plus New Zealand, Australia, Argentina, South Africa and Australia).

While World Rugby tries to work out that conundrum, the immediate issue in the Six Nations (does Italy justify its place in the tournament, especially when it is taking 20-point beatings in virtually every match?) is being played out in the media.

See here for links to two articles that appear this week on the website of the Daily Mail:

Sir Clive Woodward on Italy’s plight – THE RELEGATION PLAY-OFF ISSUE

Nik Simon on the growing strength of – GEORGIA

CRICKET

Just trying to keep up with what is happening in the world of cricket is an onerous quest in itself these days. There seems no clear view among cricketing authorities as to the best way forward across all its various elite forms and the average home television viewer might be forgiven for ‘giving up’, lying back and just watching whatever he or she is served up.

In the meantime, here’s a piece by Ali Martin on the outcome of the recent IPL auction, in which England cricketer Ben Stokes was a major winner, as appears on the website today of – THE GUARDIAN