Innholdsfortegnelse for February 2020 i Inside Sport

Chances are this issue has ended up in your hands in the days or weeks following your return to the rat race for another year; likely you’re fired up for another 12 months of highs and lows, tears, laughter, wins and losses. You know, much like the roller-coaster ride we know our favourite elite sportspeople are about to go through ... Being our February issue, technically this is our second edition for the year, but our first on-sale title for 2020. So we thought we would deliver to you a guide to the top 20 sporting events to look forward to. Once again it’s a packed calendar, with all the usual suspects – like State of Origin and the footy grand finals – joined this year by the Tokyo Olympics…

Nothing can break the bonds of friendship forged within the ranks of the Girlfriendz masters softball team. Certainly not a measly 3000-plus kilometres, anyway. With 2020 shaping up as a big year for the far-flung team, the players are clocking up the hours on the pitch, and that means some serious travel time. Forget resting on past performances. The 2019 Sportscover Clubbies winners are eyeing November’s Pan Pacific Masters Games on the Gold Coast, where just getting your name on the schedule can be a dog fight. This time more than 150 softball outfits will be vying for a piece of the action. “A lot of teams end up on waiting lists, it’s that popular,” says 45-year-old pitcher Kristin Garsheen. “We’ve just got to be on the ball and ready…

IT HAS been less than two years since Matthew Wade considered himself as surplus to Australia’s requirements. Having been dropped from the Australian setup, he was reconciling himself to be a domestic cricketer until retirement. The irony is that the weight of runs Wade accumulated in domestic cricket would be the factor to break back. In the Sheffield Shield and Big Bash League, he plundered runs with impunity, until he was back on the international stage. Not as a wicketkeeper, but as a specialist batter. It should be unsurprising that Wade has bounce-back ability when you consider that the 32-year-old is a cancer survivor. At the age of 16 a tumour was discovered, after a sporting accident led to Wade seeking medical attention for a groin injury. The diagnosis of…

BUILD it and they will come. The A-League’s first purpose-built stadium, with construction underway 25km from Melbourne’s CBD, will take two years to complete. To get there, Western United fans will flock over the West Gate Bridge, whose shape serves as the team’s logo, and travel from the newly developed Tarneit Train Station, which is in just its fourth year of operation. “That’s a real divider, the West Gate Bridge,” says Steve Horvat, who is a founder and director at Western United, a former Socceroo in his own right, and a renowned football dealmaker in this country. “Everywhere west of that is where we feel is going to be our footprint forever and a day. So we feel, with our first two seasons playing in Geelong and Ballarat, it is…

GREG CHAPPELL, an Australian cricketing icon, finally retired from the game last year after over 50 years as a player, captain, coach, commentator and selector. Chappell scored a century in his first and last Tests – 14 years apart. He was an integral part of the great Australian side of the mid-70s, along with elder brother Ian, Dennis Lillee, Jeff Thomson and Rod Marsh – taking over as captain from his brother after the 1975 Ashes. During World Series Cricket, Chappell scored more runs than anyone else, and into the late-1970s and early ’80s, Australia was a match for anyone with Chappell in its batting line up. When he wasn’t (business commitments meant he missed several tours, including Botham’s Ashes in 1981), Australia struggled for both runs and direction. Chappell…

GRASSROOTS HEROES Is there a sports-lover in your life who is always putting in the hard yards for their sport or local club, and who you think deserves some recognition for their devotion? The Sportscover Clubbies Awards wants to hail your unsung local heroes of grassroots sport with prizes worth more than $10,000! Whether it’s a coach, a club, a facility, an administrator or a loyal club stalwart, tell us about them! Nominations for the Sportscover Clubbies Awards close February 14, 2020 and voting opens on February 26 for two weeks. Winners will be notified in March, before a presentation luncheon in April. Keep up with all the latest Clubbies news at www.insidesport.com.au/clubbies MARATHON EFFORT Run for the good times at the 42nd Village Roadshow Theme Parks Gold Coast Marathon,…

Passage In India The Aussie one-day cricket side? They still do that? Sure ... just not in Australia anymore. The boys are in India, because the Indians said so, and people are kinda happy with Big Bash for all their cricketing needs after the New Year. But for the nuÿes, there are 50-over contests in Australia vs India (Jan 17) in Rajkot and another (Jan 19) in Bengaluru, which could be fun because these two batting orders will score a sick amount of runs. When the Aussies last toured in March 2019, Aaron Finch’s (pictured right) side rallied from 2-0 down to win the five-match series, including a record chase against India of 359. Does it mean anything? Well, no; the ICC’s new ODI league concept hasn’t started yet. But…

1 It only comes along every four years, but the Games of the XXXII Olympiad in Tokyo, set for July 24 to August 9, will undoubtedly be the headline act of a “gojira” year of sport. How will the Aussie team go up against the world’s best? More than 600,000 tourists will descend on Japan as the Olympics welcomes skateboarding, climbing, surfing and karate for the first time, with baseball and softball returning to the Games. On your way to Tokyo? Experience something different by staying at a capsule hotel. These things are pretty cool, but they aren’t for the claustrophobic … 2 Some Australians still brand it “soccer”, but the rest of the world calls it football. The undisputed king of all sports. It is played in every corner…

Manchester United’s logo is amongst the most iconic in all of sports. Everybody has seen it, millions of fans the world over have worn it close to their chest, and rivals have felt fear in all the success it symbolises, the recent downtrodden run aside. Few, however, would have noticed the silhouetted ship atop the devil, which is of course red in nearly every incarnation. But look again – the ship is there, and has always been. It has been there since at least 1948 when the club played in its second FA Cup Final. In sports branding, the devil is a detail ... Western United would be remiss to believe its imprint upon the world game can enter a stratosphere like Manchester United has, but you only get one…

If they were planning on attending a Grand Prix overseas, most motorsport fans would likely choose one of the classics like Monaco, Belgium’s Spa-Francorchamps or Japan’s legendary figure-of-eight-style track at Suzuka. Or perhaps one of the sport’s more recent fan-fuelled additions, such as Singapore, Mexico or the USA. Brazil, though, should be on the list … Even if Daniel Ricciardo doesn’t rate Sao Paulo’s Autodromo Jose Carlos Pace (or more commonly “Interlagos”), given the lack of thrills. “It’s a lot like my local track in Perth [Barbagallo],” Ricciardo says. “I wish it had more corners. It’s a bit short, so the lap is over very quickly. I would have loved an extension – I don’t know if they’ve got the room – but a few more corners would have made…

ICC Women’s T20 World Cup 1 Bigger than the Bash? Who says T20 should be strictly domestic leagues? Cricket’s shortest format (for now) goes in for international competition with the Women’s T20 World Cup, with ten countries playing 23 matches across six venues in Sydney, Perth, Canberra and Melbourne. The tournament begins on February 21 with Australia playing India at the Showground in Homebush. 2 This will be the seventh instalment of the Women’s T20, which dates back to 2009, and the first to be held in Australia. As with many things in women’s cricket, the Aussies have enjoyed great success in the event, winning on four occasions including the last one in 2018 in the Caribbean. England won the inaugural event on home soil, while the only other nation…

Tennis tragics, in our most febrile fantasies, could not have imagined the year Ash Barty put together in 2019. Neither could she. “It feels like a year that just hasn’t stopped,” said the gifted, diminutive 23-year-old. “At times it felt like a circus going around and around.” French Open champion. World No.1. A tennis-record purse as WTA Finals winner. Leading Australia into its first Fed Cup final for 26 years ... The delightfully unspoiled Queenslander unfurled a year of wonders. More than the trophies and records, Barty was a back-to-the-future, feel-good story for Australian sport; a champion who unites rather than polarises, much like her fellow beloved Queenslander Pat Rafter. Uncontroversial and unaffected, Barty personifies what we love about sport: grace in victory and defeat; sportsmanship before in-your-face fist-pumps; a…

Over the past three years the name Brianna Davey had become synonymous with the Carlton Football Club. The 24-year-old was one of the Blues’ marquee players for the inaugural season; she’d spent the past two seasons captaining the club and her efforts this year helped lift Carlton from cellar-dwellers to grand-finalists. THE CARLTON GIRLS, I STILL HAVE SOME OF MY BEST MATES IN THAT TEAM . I JUST FELT LIKE THEY WERE IN A BETTER POSITION THIS TIME AROUND. Almost needless to say it surprised many when, just days after winning her second club best and fairest award, Davey asked to be traded to arch-rivals Collingwood. It was a request that shocked the AFLW world and raised a plethora of questions. Why would Carlton’s captain want to leave just as…

“24 Hours of Lemons is a duration and attrition event for low-budget cars and teams. The teams consist of a minimum of four drivers – up to as many as the team wants. They share the driving and the costs of having a $1,000 car that’s been set up with the safety gear required to go racing on the major race tracks around Australia – and cheaply. “It’s a grassroots sports event; in fact, 24 Hours Of Lemons is the biggest event for cars and drivers in the world … and that’s just in America. And it’s the biggest event competitor numbers-wise in Australia as well. We have four to say, nine or ten drivers per car, and we have anywhere between 50-70 cars per event. So the amount of…