Innholdsfortegnelse for August 2016 i Inside Sport

We do get excited every time the Games come around. It’s no surprise that Inside Sport has a great affinity for the Olympics, beyond mere subject matter. The magazine was only a little more than a year old when Sydney’s winning bid was announced in 1993. And in the way the 2000 Games loomed over the landscape in the years following, it entirely influenced how we thought and wrote about sport. We do get excited every time the Games come around. With the approach of Rio 2016, that meant it was time again to call our Mr Olympics, Travis Cranley. Travis is one of our sporting omnivores and has tackled subjects for the magazine as varied as show jumping to European handball. When we first corresponded about his assignment for…

IF THE Australian Olympic Committee’s projections come to fruition, the Australian Olympics team will return home with a bag full of gold medals. The AOC is predicting a gold rush in Rio after the Aussies captured just eight golds at the 2012 London Games. The AOC is banking on the Aussie squad bagging 13 golds, the same amount of golds the team collected as a whole at the 1956 Melbourne Games. After picking up 16 golds at the Sydney 2000 Games, the Aussies eclipsed that total by one with 17 golds at the Athens 2004 Games, followed by 14 golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. There’s little doubt Australian Olympians like to make a splash in the swimming pool and Aussie swimmers have accounted for 41 percent of Australia’s total…

American Michael Phelps already has 22 Olympic medals: 18 gold, two silver and two bronze. He has won twice as many gold medals than any other athlete in the history of the Summer or Winter Games. He returns, at age 31, to the Olympic stage for the fifth time, hoping to add to a medals record that may stand for 200 years. Jamaican Usain Bolt, aged 29, has already done what no man has done before. He has defended the sprint treble: winning gold at successive Games in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m relay on the track. He has done so in a manner which has been so singular as to be a revelation, fusing extrovert fun with astonishing achievement. Faster than any man has ever been, friendlier than any…

Occupation Track athlete Origin Trelawny Parish, Jamaica Born August 21, 1986 Height 1.95m Weight 94kg Status Twice Olympic champion and world record holder in 100m and 200m HEART This is perhaps Bolt’s most underrated trait. He might be the most nonchalant of history’s great athletes, a quality that was made known to the world in Beijing in 2008 when Bolt famously slowed down short of the 100m finish line. The playful manner obscures a sporting determination that gets him going for the big moments – even after a struggled-filled lead-up in 2015 as he trailed Justin Gatlin’s times, Bolt was able to dig down and win the 100m and 200m at the World Championships. His Rio campaign will now be challenged by a hamstring tear, which kept him out of…

Kylie Minogue Kylie Minogue will lead a star-studded array of performers over the weekend of the FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX. Since she first topped the UK charts with ‘I Should Be So Lucky’, Kylie Minogue has achieved massive commercial success and critical acclaim in the entertainment industry. She has released 13 studio albums, six live albums, eight concert DVDs, her Greatest Hits and The Ultimate Kylie double albums, and multiple video packages. This is in addition to 69 international singles. Her 2001 album ‘Fever’, featuring ‘Can’t Get You Out of My Head,’ went multi-platinum. Fans can look forward to a headline concert from the Aussie superstar at Padang Stage (Zone 4) on Fri, 16 Sept after the last track activity. Queen + Adam Lambert With one of the most…

TO SNACK or not to snack? You might have heard that snacking is important for recovery and gaining muscle after training, but if done incorrectly, it can also be a cause for weight gain. The secret is to snack smarter A healthy snack should have the right amount of energy to get you through until the next meal. Preparing snacks in advance is key, especially if you’re busy and need to eat at work, or before or after training. Muesli bars, fruit-and-nut balls, yoghurt, fresh fruit and nuts are all healthy snacks. Planning ahead also means you won’t find yourself snacking on a bag of potato crisps at the petrol station Choosing the right snack also depends on your health and fitness goals. If you’re exercising first thing in the…

With 14 minutes left on the clock and Queensland ahead 20-10, Blues five-eighth James Maloney pounces on a Maroons bat-back and out-runs Queensland centre Justin O’Neill over 90 metres to score under the posts. Five minutes later centre Michael Jennings appears to ground a Maloney stab-through into the Maroons’ in-goal for the equaliser. But on the closer inspection ... ... it looks like he actually impeded the attempt of incoming Tyson Frizell by not grounding properly. The Bunker has a decision and goes to the board: NO TRY. The Maroons’ rampaging winger Corey Oates is on the end of a magical backline movement eight minutes from full-time. He owes Thurston and Boyd beers for their sleek passing. New South Wales laments its tenth State of Origin series loss in 11…

Carnival Atmosphere Expect Brazil to turn it on for the Opening Ceremony (Aug 6), which will be held at the famed Maracana. We’ll be watching to see if Pele gets the honoured last leg of the torch relay, or if Brazilian president Dilma Rousseff (pictured above), currently facing impeachment proceedings, makes it to the ceremony at all. Brazilian film director Fernando Meirelles will helm this production, and if you think it’s weird that the maker of City Of God is associated with this, bear in mind that Danny “Trainspotting” Boyle was in charge in London. Meirelles promises a very Brazilian opening: “Having an Olympics in Rio without any mention of Carnival would be crazy. Carnival’s not a cliche. People live Carnival.” Caught In The Net Brazil can realistically hope to…

“I’ve never hidden the fact I think Michael Diamond needed some help from Shooting Australia.” Twenty years ago, Victorian Russell Mark enjoyed the finest moment of his sporting career, a gold medal at the Atlanta Olympic Games. But instead of celebrating his achievement, much of the media went for the jugular in the aftermath, with the likeable Aussie bloke fielding countless questions about whether shooting sports should be obliterated. These were, after all, the dark months following the Port Arthur massacre ... Twenty years on, as Mark faces another important first in his life, his debut as an Olympic Games commentator for Channel Seven, he’ll do so in the aftermath of another horrific firearms episode, with the spectre of the Orlando massacre well and truly imprinted on our minds. Having…

OFTEN it’s that final, unrehearsed, off-the-cuff question that garners the golden response from an interview subject … such as when Inside Sport hung out with Australia’s women’s rugby sevens squad at Narrabeen on Sydney’s northern beaches. Visiting the women-playing-rugby subject wasn’t necessarily part of this progressive publication’s plan this day, for fear of going over well-trodden ground and possibly belittling Australia’s newest Olympic medal hopes. (After all, a lot of us have moved on to the point where we’re not all that shocked when we hear of women playing rugby.) But on this occasion it was as if coach Tim Walsh was waiting to be asked about it. And why not: his squad is a pack of pioneers making history with each and every training session. “Women’s sevens is rebranding…

THIS time four years ago Australia climbed out of bed and watched in its pyjamas as world champ Sally Pearson stormed home to win the 100m women’s hurdles final in an Olympic-record 12.35sec. She became our first woman to win an Olympic athletics title since Cathy Freeman in 2000. Post-race, Pearson collapsed into a heap, screaming in disbelief after reading her official time and place on the results board. Makes you wonder if 2012 Sally would believe the build-up to the Olympics Pearson endured this time around … In June 2015 she broke 12 bones in her wrist after falling in a race. It took a full year for her to return to competition, a 13.25 run at a Diamond League meet at Birmingham which she famously labelled “disgusting”, before…

THE MCKEONS BECAME THE FIRST BROTHER AND SISTER DUO TO MAKE AN AUSTRALIAN OLYMPIC SWIM TEAM SINCE JOHN AND ILSA KONRADS BACK IN 1960. Neither Emma McKeon nor brother David is a morning person. It’s a tough fact of life if you choose to swim your way to an Olympics, a vocation that involves a lot of alarm clocks and black lines to follow. “I don’t like early mornings,” Emma says. “I’m a morning person now,” David says. The McKeon siblings may not like their sport’s early-rise ethic, but their suitability to swimming is otherwise beyond question. Just consider their heritage. They are part of a swimming dynasty: father Ron was a dual Olympian, while mother Susie competed at the 1982 Commonwealth Games. Her brother, Rob Woodhouse, won bronze at…

George Lyon used to be a mere footnote in the history of golf. The Canadian, an eight-time winner of his national amateur championship, has received almost as much press in recent times – 78 years after he died – as current supremos Jason Day, Jordan Spieth and Rory McIlroy. Golf’s return to the Olympic arena this month after a 112-year hiatus has turned the spotlight on the previously little-known fact that the stick-and-ball game already has history in the Citius Altius Fortius league. As such, Lyon, who took gold at the 1904 St Louis Games, has garnered overdue recognition in a sport that loves to peer back as much as it looks forward. Americans swept the women’s competition in 1900, with Margaret Abbott taking gold on the lone occasion females…

Grand Prix Season Singapore is almost upon us once again, as Singapore welcomes visitors to a non-stop celebration: blockbuster concerts, glitzy parties and a dazzling array of cultural and entertainment options – and not forgetting the Lion City’s world-renowned gastronomic delights. And then there is the race itself. This year marks the ninth running of the FORMULA 1 SINGAPORE AIRLINES SINGAPORE GRAND PRIX. The world’s first F1® night race proved a sensation when the inaugural Singapore F1® race was run in 2008, and today it remains a unique and much anticipated highlight on the F1® calendar. As a street circuit, Singapore presents drivers with a range of difficulties. For one thing, mastering the Marina Bay Street Circuit and keeping off the walls that line almost all of its 5km is…

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“I would have helped with Sabonis and we might have got through that game better.” If these have been the Olympics more distinguished by who won’t be going, it’s a situation the basketball competition knows only too well. The stars of the NBA are often faced with choosing precious offseason recovery time over the Games, and a key absence has often shaped the contest for hoops medals. And so it was for the Australian men’s team in 1996, when an injured Luc Longley wouldn’t take the court in Atlanta. Undeterred, a veteran Boomers side ended up playing for a bronze medal against Lithuania. Longley, who was doing television commentary on the game for Seven, was forced to watch from the sideline as his compatriots battled the Lithuanians and their legendary…

1 In the Copa America match between Uruguay and Mexico in Arizona, the Uruguayans were hailed before kick-off with ... the national anthem of Chile. Thankfully, for the safety of everyone involved, Luis Suarez wasn’t playing in this one. But if it was any kind of omen, Chile did go on to win the tournament. 2 Also at the Copa: after his Brazil team lost to Peru, Selecao manager Dunga was asked about his job status. His response was a post-match classic: “I only fear one thing: death.” Dunga was fired a few days later. 3 Meanwhile, at Euro 2016, in between dealing with hooligan crises, UEFA found out that the tournament mascot, named Super Victor, shares a name with a sex toy. Have to say that the officials handled…

Names of the games The 2012 Olympics in London served up a cornucopia of great sporting names, from Chinese trampolinist Dong Dong to Bulgarian hurdler Vania Stambolova, who indeed fell in her opening heat. We’ve searched out some of the most memorable for 2016 … 1 CAM F. AWESOME The American heavyweight boxer, formerly known as Leroy Thompson (pictured above in the blue), is not only a great name, he might well be the personality of Rio. At last year’s Pan American Games, he gave one of the all-time great post-match interviews, claiming he was “not the Taylor Swift of boxing” but also not ruling out he was “not not the Taylor Swift of boxing”. He had, it should be said, just lost a fight. 2 HANSLE PARCHMENT On paper,…

This is 2016, and this is where we stand as Rio readies to welcome the world to the first Olympic Games ever hosted in South America: • A mosquito threatens to muck the whole thing up. Or, to be more specific, the Aedes mosquito that carries the Zika disease virus, which has become a major medical crisis in Brazil since last year. Such is the fear of the contagion that Briton Greg Rutherford, the defending men’s long jump champion, is freezing his sperm before flying in. Any time you are reading about a British long jumper’s sperm in an Olympic preview, that’s bad publicity. The disease is transferred either by mosquito bites or having sex with a man. While there is no known cure, doctors advise women that staying well…

IF ATHLETES had the power to choose which team-mates to take into their first Games appearance, a pair of history-making Olympians would be a good start in anyone’s books. This is the fortunate situation 24-year-old Queenslander Ashleigh Gentle finds herself in as her Games debut approaches. On the women’s side, Australia will attack the 1.5km swim, 40km cycle and 10km run triathlon course at Fort Copacabana with Erin Densham and Emma Moffatt on board, with the consistent and world-class Gentle now well and truly in their league. At Rio, Densham and Moffatt will become the first Australian triathletes to compete at three Olympic Games. National Performance Director Bernard Savage says their experience will be increasingly handy for Gentle the closer the Games become. “There hasn’t been anything structured as far…

Spanning multiple athletic pursuits and over a century of history, the sporting rivalry between Australia and its former colonial master runs deep. Once defined by the Ashes and supplemented by fierce rugby Tests, the competition between these two sporting powerhouses has gained a new frontier in the past decade: track cycling. “I think the rivalry with the British has become much stronger since 2004,” muses Scott McGrory, a retired Olympic gold-medallist and now host of television show Full Cycle. “Both nations traditionally saw themselves as underdogs to the European cycling countries. But since Athens we’ve gone head-to-head so often that it was inevitable our friendship would evolve into something more competitive. Especially on the velodrome, if you could select who you would beat into second you would always choose the…

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AT THE FABLED OLD COURSE LINKS WE GAZED AT OLD BUILDINGS AND FAMOUS OLD FAIRWAYS, AND WALKED AMIDST ALL THOSE GREAT DOLLOPS OF HISTORY. OUR PARTY assembled on the morning of day one of the second Test in the Duke of York, a pub on the “high street” of St John’s Wood. After so many months of emails, WhatsApp chat, electronic money-zapping and itinerary tweaking, we felt almost out-of-body to be in this suburb of old white buildings and flash cars and dudes in pastel sports jackets with money squirting out their very pores. A short walk down the road and there we were: in Lord’s, with its venerable Members Stand from where venerable members mutter through mutton-chops about the massive media box which dominates the Nursery End as if…

“WHOEVER INVENTED THE SPRINGLOADED DISMOUNT IS A GENIUS.” The South Korean badminton squad is absolutely head over heels about the approaching Rio 2016 Olympics! Come up with your own funny caption for this pic to be in the running to win a $150 CANTERBURY GIFT VOUCHER to enjoy shopping at your nearest Canterbury store or online at Canterbury.com.au ... AND a pair of new DYNAFLYTE SHOES FROM ASICS worth $220. Bulletproof durability doesn’t have to weigh a ton. FlyteFoam Technology combines with superfibers for a featherlight shoe that’s strong enough to endure your longest runs. (Email your entries to iscomps@insidesport.com.au, or check out our website: www.insidesport.com.au. You can also post your entries the traditional way to Freeze Frame Comp, Inside Sport, PO Box 5555, St Leonards, NSW 1590.)…