Innholdsfortegnelse for June 2015 i Inside Sport

IN ITS 24 years, Inside Sport has reported and commented on any number of sporting crises and scandals. Back in the 1990s we wrote extensively on matters of IOC corruption, doping, the Super League split in rugby league. Into the 2000s there has been FIFA corruption, salary cap breaches, doping et al ... What has been the doozy this decade? I’m not sure you can top this one yet in the entire life of this magazine. Just over two years ago, there were raised allegations by the highest law officers in the land that professional team sport at the highest level in Australia had become infiltrated on a large scale by organised crime, linking sport to a culture of doping and systematic match-fixing. This was alleged to be…

1 Which 5 English clubs have won the UEFA Champions League (or European Cup)? 2 Which horse race has been running the longest: the Melbourne Cup or the Kentucky Derby? 3 Since the introduction of the ATP rankings›for men’s tennis in 1973, how many Australians have been ranked number one? 4 In the vast majority of professional dart boards, what colour is the bullseye? 5 Who top scored for Australia in the Cricket World Cup final? 6 Which 2 NBA teams have more than one Aussie on their current roster? 7 At the 2015 US Masters, what score did Jordan Spieth become the first player ever to reach? 8 After weightlifting and athletics, which sport has had the most doping cases at the Olympic Games since 1968? 9 Who has…

Amultiple world champion at junior level, Amy Cure has stepped up to the big time of cycling by winning two world titles and breaking a world record. Now the 22-year-old tyro from Tasmania has set her sights on grabbing gold at next year’s Olympic Games. "IT'S EVERYONE'S DREAM TO GO OUT THERE AND WIN GOLD; YOU DON'T DREAM ABOUT A SECOND OR THIRD." WHAT’S HER STORY? Born and raised in rural Penguin, Cure got into cycling by chance. “I grew up on a farm and I always loved riding my BMX bike,” she says. After seeing cycling close up at a local sports day, she decided to try racing. Soon after Cure got the chance to compete at the state titles and she won a few events, putting her in…

TUNE into talkback, tool about on Twitter, delve into the darkest dungeons of those internet fan forums and the Accepted Wisdom, the meme, whatever, is this: Ricky Stuart can’t coach. Ricky Stuart is a rubbish coach. How does he keep getting gigs? Does he have photos of someone? Ha-ha, blah-de-blah-blah. As Taylor Swift tells us: haters gonna hate. Indeed such is the Accepted Group Think that if Stuart appeared on The Footy Show and declared that the Canberra Raiders’ playing strip is predominantly lime green, internet heroes would rail with one voice: Idiot! What the hell would he know? And they’d pile on in, furiously agreeing with one another, these keyboard war-mongers, these pelicans, these done-nothin’ numpties. And you could ignore it. And you usually do. But when the blokes…

ONE MINUTE POST-WORKOUT Kara: “As soon as I finish a workout I usually collapse for a second or two, but I always make the effort to get up off the floor straight away and move around to slowly get the lactic acid out and prevent my muscles locking up in tight, bad positions.” Rob: “Immediately after a workout I usually try and walk it off – getting my breathing and heart-rate down. If it’s really bad, I’ll go and sit down somewhere. I know a lot of people lay on their backs, but I try not to. That’s a mental thing personally – for me, lying down is like giving in.” FIVE MINUTES Kara: “Five minutes after my workout I’m cooling down and drinking my Progenex Recovery or More Muscle.…

WASHOUTS, in any sport, are invariably boring non-events. This one was a controversy. There had been many frustrated attempts to eliminate rain’s effect on our outdoor games over the last 150 years, but this was something else. Aussies who witnessed it still can’t believe it happened. It was the Fifth Test of the Ashes series, 1968. The Oval. On day five, the English had Australia on the ropes at 5-88. Then, over the lunch break, the skies dumped several centimetres of rain. Cricket has always been subject to the vagaries of weather and other environmental conditions. Unlike other sports, it even integrates these conditions into the game itself. The Australian team was right to hope it would benefit from good old Pommy precipitation and escape with a drawn match. The…

In 1961, the New York Yankees’ Roger Maris broke one of baseball’s most celebrated records, swatting 61 home runs to eclipse Babe Ruth’s legendary mark of 60 in 1927. Thing was, Maris set his record in the newly extended 162-game season, from the previous standard of 154. The idea was floated that Maris’ new record should be qualified with an asterisk, which led to the rise of one of baseball’s great urban legends – the Majors didn’t regularly publish an official record book until years later. However, the larger idea – these days, you’d call it a meme – stuck. For the rest of his life, Maris believed that people viewed his record as tainted. Somewhat fortunately, Maris, who died in 1985 at the age of 51, didn’t live long…

BOXED IN I remember 20 years ago everybody knew the name of the heavyweight boxing champion of the world. Now ask the average punter that same question and see what answer you get. I don’t know who it is without a Google search and that is boxing’s problem. It’s just slipped out the public’s eye. A Mike Tyson fight was talked about for months. Was the Mayweather/Pacquiao fight boxing’s Alamo? I think so. You now have a generation that knows more about MMA than boxing. Unless there is a Lazarus-type lift in the 11th round, boxing will just slip away. – Mitchell Hall, Asquith, NSW GONE WILD To Suzi Petkovski’s point about tennis WAGs going “wild” (The Outer, May) – what we need to see are the significant others seated…

“Everyone who threw a bottle should be banned for life ... But I think it highlights the supporters’ frustration over this year, and the last 18 months, about the refereeing standard which is appalling, as far as I’m concerned.” – Rugby league legend George Peponis, on the officiating controversy in the Bunnies-Bulldogs’ round five game. “A phenomenal athlete. Just a natural. Since the day I’ve met him, since every workout he’s been at, he’s going to give you everything he has. It doesn’t seem like there’s much of a learning curve for him.” – San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, on Jarryd Hayne. They are team-mates, after all. “I’m still the world’s best golfer... I just have to worry about myself and try to play the best that I can.…

NRL And now for something we haven’t said in a while: we embark on a State of Origin series in which NSW – yes – is the reigning winner. Yep, Laurie Daley’s outfit (pictured) finally got it right the ninth time around, and while it wasn’t the prettiest football you ever did see, The Streak is officially at an end. We’ll see if it takes a bit of the edge off the mania either side of the Tweed, but before State of Origin I (May 27), there’s club action to complete. Round ten begins with Roosters vs Canterbury (May 15) at ANZ, while the split round before the state-on-state violence sneaks in Wayne Bennett’s return to the Hunter for Newcastle vs Brisbane (May 24). The rep season chop-up sends Souths…

ASON CULINA was a Socceroo stalwart through two World Cup campaigns, one of only two players to have been on the paddock for every minute of Australia’s games during Germany 2006 and South Africa 2010. But even with the benefit of a dedicated soccer coach for a father (Branko Culina), he was something of a late starter compared to other Australian stars from that “golden era”: for five years from the age of 18 he toiled in youth teams and reserves in Holland and Belgium, waiting for his break. When it finally came, he got to experience football at its very highest level at PSV Eindhoven under the stewardship of one Guus Hiddink – though perhaps without the recognition back home that might have come his way if he’d been…

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as good as it gets a keeper worth considering ho-hum in the bin THE SHORT LONG BOOK BY MARTIN FLANAGAN, VINTAGE, $17.99 In the realms of Australian sports writing, it’s hard to match the literary quality of Martin Flanagan’s works on Australian football. And his latest book, his fifth devoted to a footy-related subject, has a framework that best exhibits the intellectual range that The Age columnist brings to consideration of the nation’s own code. At the centre of it is Michael Long, an Essendon champion who earned lasting esteem in a well-publicised 1995 incident that forced the AFL to take a stand against on-field racism. Long’s life is certainly worthy of a great sports biography; what he and Flanagan have done here is more interesting, deconstructing the common form…

WINNER Footballers will surely dislike it, but salary information being made public is an idea whose time has come. After this latest round of NRL horse-trading and a salary cap controversy in the A-League, of all places, it’s hard to see how fans should view the various cap systems with anything other than a healthy dose of cynicism. The codes cling to their payroll rules as integral to their leagues’ survival, arguing that it promotes the kind of competitive balance among clubs that supporters would want. We’re told this, yet the actual mechanics of salary cap management are then pulled behind the curtain, kept out of view, and the fans have to take it on faith. Athletes’ Alliance chief Brendan Schwab has sounded the call for publishing salary information as…

AUSTRALIA’S LATEST WORLDBEATERS Jessica Fox is again the World Under-23s K1 slalom champion. The Olympic silver-medallist was already a multiple world champion, in both canoe and kayak slalom, for Under 23s and Open, but had had a scare when she only (only!) finished fifth in the C1 on the tricky course in Rio, Brazil. The next day, back in her favoured K1, she blitzed the course without fault, a full three seconds quicker than her closest rival. “I’m really happy with that run; I’m happy with the way I raced that race” Fox said. “The whole week has been quite stressful; there was pressure, there was expectation. The C1 was a really big blow for me; it was really devastating. But I was really proud of the way I raced…

The largest, standalone women’s sporting event on the planet begins in Canada in early June. And yes, the FIFA Women’s World Cup will be played on artificial turf, despite the efforts made by a group of top players to change FIFA’s mind about it (like that was ever going to happen …) Pitch discrimination hopefully won’t undermine the event, as these meetings of the female football elite have gone from strength to strength as a competitive spectacle – there was no better example than the last Cup, when Japan made its stunning underdog run. SAFE BET Surprising fact: the United States’ iconic 1999 World Cup victory, with a shirtless Brandi Chastain and all that, also happens to be its last. Despite their usual favourite status, the Americans have been foiled…

YOU CAN find the town of Narbonne in the south of France, 100km north of the Spanish border. Nestled in the Languedoc-Roussillon region, surrounded by wineries and close to the Mediterranean Sea, it is the quintessential southern French town. Small, quiet and picturesque, with its canals and tree-lined streets, Narbonne is a place where the pace of life is slow and the people are warm and friendly. Once ruled by the Romans, with an impressive cathedral rising out from its cityscape, it is postcard pretty on the eye. And a strange spot, perhaps, to find a group of ambitious Australians looking to tilt the axis of professional rugby. Racing Club de Narbonne Mediterranee, or RC Narbonne, is the heartbeat of the town. Founded in 1907, the club has won two…

CANTERBURY PRIZE PACK Our Freeze Frame Freebies caption comp winner will score for themselves this awesome bundle of goodies, which includes a Packaway gym bag, three sock packs, a Packaway jacket and a cap. That’s almost $160 of high-quality gear, so make sure you have your sense of humour ›inely tuned. "GO TO THE BAHAMAS THEY SAID ... IT WILL BE HOT AND SUNNY THEY SAID.” April’s Freeze Frame Freebies caption competition was won by Jonathon Zdraveski of Beres›ield, NSW. Email your entries for this month’s Freeze Frame comp on page 20 to iscomps@insidesport.com.au, or check out the website: www.insidesport.com.au. If, however, you are still “analogue”, and resist the march of technology, you can still post your entries the traditional way to Freeze Frame Comp, Inside Sport, PO Box 5555,…

WHAT WE WERE SAYING 12 YEARS AGO (June 2003) • In five intense years, Simon Black has amassed all the major AFL honours. As part of Brisbane’s blitzkrieg midfield, along with Nigel Lappin and fellow Brownlow winners Michael Voss and Jason Akermanis, Black is a key playmaker as Brisbane aims for a hat-trick of premierships... Black shares his Mount Isa birthplace with Pat Rafter and, like Rafter, wears modesty like impenetrable armour. His official status as the Best and Fairest? “Our captain [Voss], he’s the Rolls-Royce,” says Black, squirming in his seat. “Look, I can play the game all right, but I don’t think I’m generally the best.” Lionised by Suzi Petkovski • Since the salad days of World Cup crowns and consistent Test victories, West Indian swash has buckled…