Beth Mead wins Sports Personality of the Year 2022 December 21, 2022 Beth Mead has been named the BBC Sports Personality of the Year at a ceremony at Media City in Salford. The footballing star beat gymnast Jessica Gadirova, curling star Eve Muirhead, snooker’s Ronnie O’Sullivan, cricketer Ben Stokes and athlete Jake Wightman to the annual gong. Stokes came second with Muirhead third. Lioness Mead was part [...]
Antyukh the fifth Russian track and field athlete to have 2012 gold stripped December 21, 2022 Russian athlete Natalya Antyukh has been stripped of the gold medal she won at the London 2012 Olympic Games due to historical sampling data which came out of a Moscow testing facility. The 400m hurdler – who is now 41 – is already distanced from track and field due to a four-year ban which she [...]
Ed Warner: Richard Thompson must continue bold start at helm of English cricket November 10, 2022 No deckchair shuffling for Richard Thompson. English cricket’s new leader has pretty much cleared the deck of the governing body’s directors. His kind words about departing colleagues he has barely overlapped with suggests this is a diplomat with admirable stiletto-wielding skills. Now he must hire replacements capable of backing the reset that the sport so [...]
Ed Warner: English football of all levels penetrating hyper-commercial US sport November 3, 2022 Does anyone in England call the Premier League the EPL? I ask because I had a random encounter at Heathrow last week with one of a group of five Crystal Palace fans headed to Selhurst Park for their “first EPL game”. The Ted Lasso effect maybe? I only hope they made it to the Clifton [...]
Ed Warner: Marathon season revives questions about unequal fight against doping September 22, 2022 The track season is behind us and athletic thoughts now turn to autumn marathons. Berlin, renowned world record course, this Sunday. London and then Chicago within a fortnight. New York at the start of November. That’s four of the six marathon majors in seven weekends, and doubtless plenty of competition among race organisers to secure [...]
Medication dependency and mental health issues up 300 per cent, say clinic August 31, 2022 The number of elite athletes being referred for medication-related dependency and underlying mental health issues has increased by 300 per cent in 10 years, according to a leading clinic in the field. Mental health problems such as ADHD, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and burnout are becoming much more common in sportspeople, reports Paracelsus Recovery. “We [...]
England’s outgoing Commonwealth chief still sees future for Games August 24, 2022 Team England’s outgoing chief executive insists there is a future for the Commonwealth Games despite debate surrounding where a multi-sport tournament rooted in Britain’s former Empire sits in the 21st century. Paul Blanchard is preparing to leave his position at the head of the team who hosted this year’s competition in Birmingham games after seven [...]
Hudson-Smith’s golden Europeans an ode to himself and the human condition August 22, 2022 It has been a difficult path to get there but British 400m runner Matthew Hudson-Smith can now reflect with satisfaction on a stellar season. The 27-year-old backed up a bronze medal at the World Championships in July with a silver in Birmingham at the Commonwealth Games weeks later, before defending his European title in Munich [...]
McColgan leading the British long-distance athletics charge August 17, 2022 Ask the casual sports fan to name a McColgan and many might say Liz, the former Olympic, World and Commonwealth medalist. But now it’s her daughter, Eilish, who has taken the baton – and British women’s long distance running by storm. Before 2022, no woman in history had recorded more than two sub-31-minute 10,000m track [...]
Ed Warner: English cricket has picked the right man to solve its problems – at last August 11, 2022 It’s only taken the best part of 10 months and two attempts, but the England and Wales Cricket Board’s search for a new chair has at last come up with the outcome that the counties identified for it from the off. Richard Thompson, until now chair at Surrey, is clearly the best person for the [...]