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 [...]
European Championships: Six athletes to watch in Munich August 10, 2022 This has already been one of the most congested track and field seasons in recent history – and now it’s about to get even busier. On the back of an impressive World Championships and a superbly attended Commonwealth Games in Birmingham, the athletics circus is rolling into Munich for the European Championships, which officially start [...]
Toni Minichiello: Jess Ennis-Hill’s coach banned for sexually inappropriate behaviour August 9, 2022 The British athletics coach credited with guiding Jessica Ennis-Hill to the top of the sport, Toni Minichiello, has been banned for life after being found guilty of sexually inappropriate behaviour. Minichiello “dry humped” athletes, touched and made comments about their breasts and told one female athlete she could “suck my ****”, a UK Athletics investigation [...]
Olympic race walker King slams ‘toxic’ British Athletics August 9, 2022 Two-time Team GB Olympic race walker Dominic King has accused British Athletics of being “a toxic governing body” which “fails to learn from its previous errors”. Last year, in March of 2021, King broke the 50km race walk British record which had stood since 1990. Subsequently the 39-year-old from Essex has achieved the required qualifying [...]
Track and Field at Commonwealths shows British Athletics there’s no more excuses August 8, 2022 At the weekend 30,000 fans crammed into Birmingham’s Alexander Stadium for a Saturday evening session of athletics. On show were British superstars Keely Hodgkinson, Laura Muir and Zharnel Hughes. But the loudest cheer of the night was for Rosefelo Siosi from the Solomon Islands. The 25-year-old long-distance runner came last in the 5,000m – by [...]
Advantage or hindrance? Why home comforts can be a burden August 4, 2022 England’s Lionesses surfed a tidal wave of expectation to win the Women’s Euros – a wave that would have engulfed athletes with lesser mental resilience, however great their physical and technical qualities. Who knows whether they would have triumphed had the tournament been overseas? And who cares? It was on English soil with all the [...]
Great Britain and Northern Ireland in strong showing but no gold rush July 25, 2022 If the Great Britain and Northern Ireland performance at the 2022 World Athletics Championships was turned into a secondary school attendance report, the team would have received a C plus. On one hand, the seven medals the team captured in Oregon, United States were the most by a contingent of athletes since 2015 – when [...]
Wightman the latest in a long line of British 1,500m successes July 20, 2022 In the 1950s it was Roger Bannister in the 1,500m; in the 1980s it was Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram dominating the global landscape of middle-distance track and field athletics. And this week, in 2022, it’s Jake Wightman, the 28-year-old three-and-three-quarters lap runner who secured gold at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon. [...]
British Athletics on mission to buck trend of mediocre Championships July 14, 2022 Just once has the Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletics team left a World Championships with medals tallying into double figures – at Stuttgart in 1993 – and there’s little hope of a repeat at this year’s edition, which gets underway in Eugene, Oregon, tomorrow evening. Of course there is medal hope – notably in [...]
Fan spending FOUR days on bus to watch World Athletics Championships July 13, 2022 Dedicated fan bases are what sports are built upon; the desire to be there for your team or player and witness any history they make. But would you spend four days on a bus going coast-to-coast for a few days of sporting action? Because that’s just what Jan Figueroa is doing. The 24-year-old Puerto Rico-born [...]