A recent Associate press article revealed the efforts of lawmakers in the garden state of New Jersey USA to legally offer internet betting on sports. This has been tried before with the governor vetoing the idea at the last minute. Now the bill has to beat the odds on a federal lawsuit filed by the major professional sports leagues and the National Collegiate Athletic Association.
The NCAA has decided it will boycott New Jersey during five of its championship events stating it will look for other host venues for the competitions. Mark Lewis, NCAA Executive vice president of Championships and Alliances, commented via a press release, “Maintaining the integrity of sports and protecting student-athlete well-being are at the bedrock of the NCAA’s mission, and are reflected in our policies prohibiting the hosting of our championships in states that provide for single game sports wagering,” adding, “Consistent with our policies and beliefs, the law in New Jersey requires that we no longer host championships in the state.”
New Jersey is planning to issue licenses for online sports betting by January 9th 2013 but the possibility of this never happening is still very much true. The Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League as well as the NCAA have filed combined suit against New Jersey’s sports betting law.
The state Division of Gaming Enforcement director David Rebuck, said, “The Division of Gaming Enforcement will begin processing applications submitted by any interested party seeking licensure,” Rebuck continued, “We are confident that there will be no legal impediments; if the court finds differently, we will consider all of the options before us.” He said the division will proceed with the current plan. Officials in New Jersey calm as much as $380 billion a year is punted illegally on sporting events, stating in its court documents that such gambling has not and will not damage the integrity of the sports leagues opposing the activity.
New Jersey Defends Online Sports Betting Law in Court
The Lance Armstrong affair cost elite cycling a major sponsor on Friday, ratcheting up the pressure on the International Cycling Union as it prepares a response to the charges against the American.
Rabobank, which has sponsored a professional cycling team for the last 17 years, claimed the sport had been irrevocably damaged by a succession of doping cases, and the devastating report on Armstrong by the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) was the last straw.
USADA last week placed the Texan at the heart of what it said was the biggest doping programme in sports history. Corporate sponsors including Nike have cut ties with Armstrong, who also stepped down as chairman of Livestrong, the cancer charity he founded.
On Friday, Armstrong was to make his first public appearance since the publication of the USADA dossier, at a celebrity charity fundraiser for Livestrong in his home town of Austin, Texas.
Meanwhile, the UCI said on Friday that it would respond to USADA's report on Monday in Geneva.
The body has to decide whether to endorse or reject USADA's move to ban Armstrong for life and strip him of his Tour titles, a sanction that currently only has force in the United States.
Rejecting the dossier would likely see the case end up at the Court of Arbitration for Sport.
Although questions have been raised as to jurisdiction, USADA made it clear when it formally banned Armstrong in August that the agency believes that under the World Anti-Doping Code the UCI must support its findings.
Rabobank decided not to wait for the UCI.
"We are no longer convinced that the international professional world of cycling can make this a clean and fair sport," Rabobank board member Bert Bruggink said in a statement.
"We are not confident that this will change for the better in the foreseeable future," he said.
"What the USADA showed us is that international cycle racing is not only sick but also at the highest level within cycling, including a number of the relevant authorities, including checks on the use of doping," he added.
Rabobank has been the standard-bearer for Dutch cycling and enjoyed success but it has also been mired in doping scandals, including one involving Danish rider Michael Rasmussen when he was wearing the leader's yellow jersey on the 2007 Tour de France.
On Thursday, the team said it had suspended Spanish cyclist Carlos Barredo after it was announced that he was facing disciplinary action from the UCI for allegedly breaking blood-doping rules.
The UCI said it "understood the context" of Rabobank's decision but the withdrawal was a warning that the sport could see further financial backing fall away unless it tackles the doping issue.
Some warned, however, that it was unfair to punish current cyclists for the transgressions of the past.
British cyclist David Millar, who served a ban for drug offences but is now an outspoken opponent of doping, slammed Rabobank's decision, which leaves its cyclists without a team sponsor next season.
"Dear Rabobank, you were part of the problem. How dare you walk away from your young clean guys who are part of the solution. Sickening," he wrote on his Twitter account @millarmind.
The 1987 Tour de France winner Stephen Roche meanwhile suggested the days of widespread doping were past.
"Cycling has come along a lot since 1999 (when Armstrong won his first Tour). Maybe it got worse before getting better in the early 2000s but definitely in 2010, 2011, 2012... cycling has come on an awful lot," the Irishman said.
Maybe so, but the fall-out from the Armstrong affair has been felt the world over.
Cycling Australia (CA) announced that its vice-president, Stephen Hodge, had resigned after admitting doping as a professional rider.
His departure follows that of former Olympian Matt White, who was sacked this week from his job with CA after saying he doped during his career.
US rider Levi Leipheimer, who gave evidence against his former team-mate Armstrong, was also ditched by his current team, Omega Pharma-Quick Step.
Meanwhile, a report in Italy's Gazzetta dello Sport newspaper on Thursday claimed that a host of top riders and even whole teams were linked to the sports doctor who oversaw Armstrong's doping programme, stoking fears of fresh controversy.
The report, based on a probe by Italian investigators, implicated former Giro d'Italia winner Michele Scarponi, although he denied any wrong-doing.
Cycling: Rabobank quits sport after Armstrong affair
Cycling should try to put the Lance Armstrong doping case behind it, Spain's double Tour de France winner Alberto Contador, who returned from a two-year doping ban in August, said on Saturday.
The Saxo Bank-Tinkoff rider told Spanish TV that once the evidence in the Armstrong case had been sifted and the appropriate measures taken the sport should look to the future.
"A certain number of things are being said and in the end we have to look at what there is and what there is not, the different institutions and measures that need to be taken," Contador told Canal Plus.
"And then as far as the rest goes we have to focus only and exclusively on the present and future of this fine sport," added the 29-year-old, who won last month's Tour of Spain.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) is expected to give its reaction on Monday to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency's allegation that seven times Tour winner Armstrong was involved in the "most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme sport has ever seen".
Contador, a former team mate of the American's at Astana, was banned for two years after traces of clenbuterol were found in urine samples collected during the 2010 Tour, which he won before being stripped of the title.
Sport should move on after Armstrong case - Contador | Reuters
Andrea Hewitt may have missed out on winning in front of her home fans, but she again showed triathlon in this country is safe in her hands.
With Bevan Docherty set to join Kris Gemmell in leaving the sport and 24-year-old Ryan Sissons not quite in contention, New Zealand triathlon fans are short on potential world-beaters.
But they can at least still rely on Hewitt. Her seventh place at yesterday's Barfoot & Thompson world series grand final in Auckland ensured the 30-year-old finished on the overall podium for the second straight year.
After coming second last year Hewitt slipped back a place in 2012, but her consistency is a clear indicator she will get more chances to go one better in the years to come.
"It was a good way to top off another consistent year," Hewitt said. "I couldn't believe it at the end. I came into this race fourth-ranked and Erin (Densham) was leading the series, but with her DNF today I moved in front."
If Densham, who was suffering from the flu, had finished near Hewitt, the Australian would have pushed the Kiwi off the podium. But Hewitt's place on the dais could have already been secured had she not skipped three races in the eight-event season.
In the five races in which she did compete Hewitt's worst result was 11th, showing she hold the ability to race with the world's best on any given day.
That was true at the London Olympics, where Hewitt backed up her prospects as New Zealand's best medal hope before fading on the run to finish a disappointing sixth.
Read More: Triathlon: Hewitt the soul of the sport - Sport - NZ Herald News
Former world champion Michael Schumacher has insisted his poor season is his own fault -- and has nothing to do with the Mercedes car -- with the 43-year-old set to retire at the end of the season.
Earlier this month, Mercedes boss Dieter Zetsche blamed Schmacher's disappointing return to Formula One on the German team's underperforming car.
Schumacher, 43, returned to Formula One in 2010 with Mercedes after a four-year hiatus, but the seven-times world champion has failed again to make an impact on the world drivers' championships, where he is currently 14th.
'As racing drivers, we are independent of the cars,' Schumacher said in an interview with Sunday's edition of German daily Die Welt.
'The fact things didn't go as well for me as planned is my fault, not that of the team.
'What is important though is to be able to look in the mirror and be able to say that I gave all I had. And I can do that.
'I can leave Formula One with my head held high.'
Having won the last of his world titles in 2004, Schumacher said he is looking forward to his freedom.
'Above all, I am looking forward to spending time with my family,' said Schumacher with his last race set to be the Brazilian Grand Prix on November 25 in Sao Paulo.
'How often has my wife gone off to a riding tournament, which I couldn't go to, because I was off to a race? That has bothered me more and more recently,' he said.
'There is only so much time a sportsman can perform at the highest level.
'This time I have already extended my stay longer than most.'
Regardless of his performances over the past three seasons, Schumacher will still walk away from Formula One as the sport's most successful driver.
'My mission is over, so I can go back to the happy period of my life which I enjoyed during my first retirement.'
Poor season is my fault - Schumacher - News - BigPond Sport
World Anti-Doping Agency chief John Fahey said on Tuesday that "everybody doped" in cycling during the Lance Armstrong era and the sport's administrators at the time should take some responsibility.
The US rider's epic fall concluded Monday with the loss of seven Tour de France titles, leaving the sport grasping for a way to move past a drug-tainted past.
The International Cycling Union (UCI) supported the findings of the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA), which branded Armstrong the central figure in a sophisticated, systematic doping scheme.
Fahey said those in charge at the time must bear some responsibility.
"There was a period of time in which the culture of cycling was that everybody doped. There is no doubt about that. The administrators have to take some responsibility for that," the Australian told ABC radio.
"Is that period gone? That's something which I think the jury is out on and I think UCI are meeting this Friday to consider a number of aspects, including what their response must be, going forward."
Pressed on whether he meant everyone - literally - in that era used drugs, Fahey replied: "The evidence that was given by those riders who are teammates of Lance Armstrong, one after the other, they said the same thing -- that you could not compete unless you were doping."
In all, 26 people - including 11 former team-mates - told USADA that Armstrong and his team used and trafficked in banned drugs and also used blood transfusions, and that Armstrong pressured others to do so.
In a separate interview with Australia's Fox Sports, Fahey said cycling would only regain credibility when the senior officials on watch during the "debacle" were removed.
"Looking back, clearly the doping was widespread," he said.
"If that doping was widespread, then the question is legitimately put: 'Who was stopping it? Who was working against it? Why wasn't it stopped?'
"I think it's relevant to ask those questions."
Fahey added that anyone involved during the Armstrong years could not justify their place in the sport's hierarchy at the UCI.
"It's not a question of simply saying we'll rule off the line and go on," he said.
"They clearly have to take the blinkers off, look at the past, examine the people who are there, ask themselves the questions: 'Are those same people still in the sport and can they proceed forward with those people remaining?'
"I don't think there's any credibility if they don't do that and I think they need to get confidence back into the sport, so that its millions of supporters around the world will watch and support the sport going forward."
UCI president Pat McQuaid, who has held the position since 2006, on Monday warned against blaming the sport's authorities for the doping scandal.
His predecessor Hein Verbruggen was at the helm during Armstrong's reign.
Britain’s biggest sporting goods retailer Sports Direct reported an 18 percent rise in recent sales as customers caught London Olympics fever and kitted out children for a return to school.
The group, which owns Sports Direct-com and Lillywhites stores as well as brands such as Slazenger, Lonsdale and Dunlop, said on Wednesday group total sales in the nine weeks to September 30 had risen to 402.7 million pounds ($642 million), up from 341.3 million pounds a year ago.
Gross profit in the period rose 21.7 percent to 167.4 million pounds, with the firm adding that trading since September had remained strong.
Sports retail sales grew 16.8 percent to 344.7 million.
Retailers across Britain are generally struggling as consumers’ disposable incomes are squeezed by rising prices, muted wages growth and government austerity measures.
Sports Direct has, however, coped well, benefiting from the woes of its rivals, its value offer, a growing internet presence, highly motivated staff due to a lucrative bonus scheme and European expansion.
In October the firm bought 20 stores and nearly all the stock of rival JJB Sports after it fell into administration and closed the bulk of its stores, axing 2,200 jobs in the process.
The group is targeting for 2012-13 underlying earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) of 270 million pounds, before a charge for bonus share schemes.
Shares in the firm, controlled by billionaire Newcastle United soccer club owner Mike Ashley, closed at 404 pence on Tuesday, up 74 percent on a year ago, valuing the business at around 2.5 billion pounds.
Sports Direct cashes in on Olympic fever - Latest sport news
As any parent of a cheerleader knows, those “rah rah” days of simply jumping around on the sidelines and smiling are long gone. Today, cheerleading has morphed into a competitive activity full of Olympics-worthy tumbling stunts, and many have asked whether it should be considered a sport alongside football, basketball, and baseball. This week, the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) weighed in with their verdict: A resounding yes.
But this isn’t just about legitimizing cheerleaders as athletes. According to the AAP, as cheerleading has become more acrobatic and more challenging, injuries among the participants have become more common and more severe. Since 2007, cheerleading has led to 26,000 injuries each year, and the activity also accounts for two-thirds of all catastrophic injuries (those causing permanent damage or disability) that have occurred in high school female athletes over the past 25 years, according to the AAP.
As a result, the AAP now recommends that cheerleading be designated as a sport so that participants can be granted benefits such as qualified coaches, better access to medical care, and injury surveillance. All cheerleaders should have a pre-season physical, and be trained in techniques to help avoid injuries during stunts. In addition, pyramid and partner stunts—which are associated with most serious cheerleading injuries—should only be performed on a spring/foam floor or grass/turf, and should not be more than two people high. Coaches, parents, and athletes should have access to a written emergency plan in case something goes wrong. And cheerleaders—like all athletes—who have suffered a head injury should not be allowed to return to practice or competition before being evaluated by a medical professional.
Whether states will adopt the AAP’s regulations will still have to be seen. But regardless of how you feel about cheerleading as a legitimate sport, you have to agree—helping protect kids against serious injury is definitely something to cheer for.
Is Cheerleading a Sport? Pediatricians Say Yes! | Parade-com
66 - Piri Weepu has played 66 tests for the All Blacks but it wasn't enough to convince Auckland coach Wayne Pivac to include him in the side to face Canterbury in Saturday night's ITM Cup final. Weepu was released by the All Blacks to play the final but Ponsonby's Wayne Ngaluafe, a former New Zealand Under-19 representative who hasn't played all year due to a knee injury, will start on the bench instead.
13 - The All Whites will play not only their 13th international of the year but also their 13th match against China when the two sides meet in Shanghai on November 14. The principal sponsor for the match is telecommunications giants Huawei, who were accused of spying by the US Government.
800 - New Zealand cricket coach Mike Hesson is hoping Muttiah Muralitharan, who claimed a world record 800 test wickets, will teach his side a few things about spin bowling on their upcoming tour of Sri Lanka. Former fast bowler Chaminda Vaas has also been approached about helping out.
348.23 - The speed Auckland businessman Eddie Freeman is hoping to beat at the Ohakea Air Base this weekend to break the New Zealand land speed record.
10 - Ten players have banked more than US$2 million on this year's PGA Tour without winning a tournament. World No 1 Rory McIlroy tops the earnings with US$8.04 million - he's also on top of the European money list with 2.8 million. Oh, and McIlroy is also rumoured to have signed a US$305 million 10-year deal to be the new face of Nike. Might be his shout.
2 - The number of weeks Wallabies flanker Scott Higginbotham was banned for after kneeing and headbutting All Blacks captain Richie McCaw in Saturday's drawn Bledisloe Cup test. The lenient sentence caused considerable angst on this side of the Tasman, but some justice was delivered when Higginbotham missed out on a place on Australia's end-of-year tour.
1 - Breakers forward Mika Vukona won the ANBL's Player of the Week award for the first time in his long career after his colossal efforts (15 rebounds, 15 points, three assists, three steals and one verbal spray for his teammates) to help his side to a narrow 73-71 win over the Townsville Crocodiles last weekend.
20 - The Silver Ferns were embarrassed 48-68 by Australia in Sydney last Sunday, the first time they had been beaten by 20 goals since defeat to the same side in 2000. The Ferns hardly rebounded in style when they scraped past England 57-46 in Wellington on Thursday night.
77 - All Blacks great Sir Wilson Whineray, who played 77 times for New Zealand (including 32 tests), died in Auckland on Monday but not before watching the world record for tier one nations set by the All Blacks of the 1960s, the side he captained, remain intact with New Zealand's 18-18 draw with Australia last weekend.
3 - San Francisco slugger Pablo Sandoval became just the fourth player to hit three home runs in a single World Series game joining luminaries Babe Ruth, who did it twice, Reggie Jackson and Albert Pujols. The Giants won the first game of the series with the Detroit Tigers 8-3.
The sporting week in numbers - Sport - NZ Herald News
High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email]ftsales-support@ft-com[/email] to buy additional rights. Sporting chance of a decent profit - FT-com
It’s always a delight to see a takeover bid for a company in which you hold shares and it is particularly rewarding when the prospect of a bid was one of the reasons for buying that particular share in the first place.
I first bought shares in online bookmaker Sportingbet in June last year at 49p, during some press speculation about a bid from Ladbrokes . Some brokers were already touting the shares as being worth 80-90p, though I considered that a bit far-fetched given the high proportion of unregulated business that Sportingbet had. Nevertheless, there did seem some value in the shares, and there was a solid dividend yield of 4 per cent. High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email [email]ftsales-support@ft-com[/email] to buy additional rights. Sporting chance of a decent profit - FT-com
I was quite wary because I have had some bad experiences with online gambling shares, particularly those involved in selling services into unregulated markets. Where the authorities either don’t license gambling, or haven’t sorted out tax arrangements with online gambling companies, there is always the danger of a nasty surprise.
The nastiest surprise of all took place in September 2006, when the Bush administration sneaked through a law restricting online gambling. It wasn’t a bill that had received much debate, as it was attached as an amendment to another piece of legislation. The US takes a dim view of online gambling – it had previously detained a British executive of Sportingbet long before I held any shares in it – and the new law hit all gaming shares hard. At the time, I owned Neteller, not a gambling firm per se, but one which facilitated gambling by providing an “electronic wallet” for gamblers while credit card companies would not. It was clobbered with all the others, an experience that taught me to be very careful with this industry.
Nevertheless, gambling is also an industry in which there is a lot of money to be made once the relationship with regulators is established. Sportingbet clearly felt the same way in May last year when it bought Centrebet, the largest business in the regulated Australian market, and subsequently sold its large, but unregulated business in Turkey. This gradual shift to regulated markets made it a more attractive target to the larger, less nimble industry giants, as well as putting earnings on a firmer footing.
Ladbrokes eventually shied away from a bid for the company last year, but the new-look Sportingbet was an easier buy for William Hill, especially after it teamed up with GVC Holdings, a specialist owner of unregulated gambling businesses, and the one that had already agreed to buy Sportingbet’s Turkish operations.
Though there were plenty of complexities in this bid, the fundamentals are fairly clear. I had been topping up my Sportingbet holdings on dips, giving an average buy-in price of 38p, and now I stand to get an agreed cash and shares bid of 61.1p. Add in another two pence or so of dividends received, and that is a 66 per cent profit in little over a year.
There is still some chance of a break-up bid, with some touting a price of 90p, but I’m not counting on that. At 53p, the market price for Sportingbet seems to be saying that there is probably a higher chance of the bid falling through than of a fresh bidder emerging.
However, one mystery remains. William Hill’s original confirmation of bid interest was made at around 3pm on September 19, but at 1.30pm the shares jumped in heavy volume, and then continued soaring to 51p, a full half-hour before the news emerged. Someone somewhere seemed to know what was going on. I suppose that of all industries, gambling is the one where you might expect such an occurrence.
IN TESTING economic times, State funding of sport has a habit of rising to the top of the list of budgets to be filleted, despite persuasive arguments that the return for investment, most notably in terms of tackling health issues and youth crime, can far outweigh the cost.
It’s an argument the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation has been making since it was set up in the 1990s by South African businessman Johann Rupert, the organisation now funding over 100 sports projects around the world, specifically aimed at disadvantaged children – like its first, the Mathare Youth Sports Association in one of the largest slums in Nairobi, and another which backs sports projects for Aborigines.
Among the “legends” of sport working with the foundation are Boris Becker, Cathy Freeman, Franz Beckenbauer, Jack Nicklaus, Martina Navratilova, Nadia Comaneci and none other than Mick McCarthy, who was one of those who cycled 526km from London to Champagne during the summer as part of a fundraiser for Laureus, proving his engine is still in fine fettle.
They, needless to say, all promote the foundation’s belief that sport can make a positive difference in people’s lives in any number of ways, and is therefore more than worth investing in, but actually quantifying those benefits has always been the tricky task for those trying to persuade the budget-setters it’s a false economy to cut funding. Laureus, though, has attempted to do just that with a report, Sport Scores, they released this week.
In it they studied the impact of sports-based crime prevention programmes in Germany, Italy and Britain and concluded that for every one euro invested there is an average return of €5.02 to society “by reducing costs to victims, police, prisons and courts”.
To those dubious about their ability to put such a precise figure on that “return”, Laureus said they drew on “validated research methodologies from outside sport, including economic impact assessment, health research and literature on youth crime”. (You can see the full report at their website, laureus.com).
The projects they studied were Fight for Peace and Sport and Thought in London, KICK Im Boxring in Berlin and Midnight Basketball in Milan, all of which, they argue, have had a significant impact on the reduction of youth crime in their areas. The Milan project, for example, provides late-night basketball for young people in a city centre park, thus “keeping them off the streets and out of trouble”.
“What we see from the projects are the positive benefits that sport can generate in relation to health, education, and employment,” said Edwin Moses, the eight-time Olympic gold medallist and chairman of the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation.
“When these projects work they work for us all – whether it’s a reduction in police time spent on dealing with criminal behaviour, less health care on those who are leading more healthy lives or less support for those no longer cared for by social services or the prison system. This report helps frame that bigger picture, by contributing to the growing body of evidence showcasing the social and economic returns of sport worldwide.”
Laureus have two projects running on this island, both in the North, PeacePlayers International and Urban Stars, the first encouraging cross-community involvement in basketball, the second “working to reduce gun and gang violence among Belfast youth” by involving them in sport.
It might still be a slog trying to persuade those with their hands on the purse strings that slashing sports funding is, indeed, false economy, but Laureus have, at least, given “putting a price on it” their best shot.
Hoping Celebrity Splash doesn’t bomb
So, which London 2012 sport so fired up television producers the world over it’s about to star in its own celebrity reality competition? Diving. Honestly.
While it simply will never be possible to top Peter Kay’s dive-bomb in that John Smith’s ad from a few years back, ABC in America are hoping their new Celebrity Splash reality show will prove almost as unmissable.
Connor Simpson at the Atlantic argued that they had “made a terrible, terrible mistake with their choice of which Olympic sport to turn into a reality competition”, suggesting gymnastics would have been a better option – and who wouldn’t want to see Donald Trump take on a pommel horse? – but diving it is, after it proved a particularly big London 2012 attraction for American viewers.
Celebrities, then, “will perform dives from dizzying heights, which increase in difficulty each week, including backflips, somersaults and other gymnastic feats”.
Set your recorders now.
Friends of the Earth have pop at Gunners
Arsenal’s trip to Norwich last weekend proved less than successful, a 1-0 defeat – the home side’s first win of the season – leaving them ninth in the table, a daunting enough 10 points adrift of leaders Chelsea.
Worse again, they ended up upsetting Norwich and Norfolk Friends of the Earth with their decision to fly to the game, rather than take the train.
“Usually we take the train but there was no train available,” explained Arsene Wenger, “so in the end we decided to fly.”
Friends of the Earth’s Jennifer Parkhouse, though, wasn’t impressed. “I cannot see any reason why they would have flown, other that it being a rather ostentatious display of the players’ and club’s wealth,” she told the London Metro. “It is absolutely absurd, they must have spent more time getting on and off the plane than in the air.”
They probably did too – the flight took 14 minutes.
Texas scout chooses the wrong trail
THE FINAL STRAW: AFTER PABLO Sandoval’s exploits for the San Francisco Giants this week, when he became only the fourth man in history to hit three home runs during a World Series game, there’s a Texas Rangers scout out there – well, if he’s still of this earth – who must feel like the man from Decca who turned down The Beatles.
CASEY Stoner has won his sixth successive Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix and Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo the MotoGP world championship.
In his farewell home MotoGP before retiring from the sport, Australian Stoner continued his domination of the Phillip Island event he has made his own since he first won on the track in 2007.
Yamaha rider Lorenzo finished second to secure the world title, with Briton Cal Crutchlow third.
The only other man who could beat Lorenzo for the world championship - Honda rider Dani Pedrosa - crashed out on lap two of the 27-lap race while leading.
Stoner's win prompted suggestions the 27-year-old may not take part in the final race of the season in Spain in a fortnight - perhaps tempted to walk away from the sport on a high he described as one of his career highlights.
But Stoner was adamant he would complete the season before officially farewelling MotoGP, rather than bring forward his retirement.
"I'm here to finish this season, not just finish my home Grand Prix," Stoner said.
"It's not like that for me. I wasn't just planning for this race alone (from his injury). I was planning to come back for as many races as I could before the end of the season.
"It's fantastic, and I can't ask for a better way to end my career in Australia.
"But at the same time, I'm not finishing here. I'm going to Valencia to see if I can get another good result."
Stoner also hosed down any thoughts he may consider a comeback - following five-time world champion Mick Doohan's suggestion the 27-year-old might be in line for a MotoGP return after taking a decent break from the sport.
"I've got no thoughts whatsoever at this time of ever even thinking of coming back," Stoner said.
"I'm very established where I'm going (into retirement). I'm not changing my mind every couple of minutes."
Stoner's remarkable win came after he started the race badly from pole, but inherited the lead on lap two when Honda teammate Dani Pedrosa crashed out of the race and world title contention.
He capped off a superb day for Australia in front of a record Phillip Island MotoGP crowd of more than 53,000.
Queenslander Anthony West finished second in the Moto2 world championship race, while Adelaide teenager Arthur Sissis was third in the Moto3 - his first Grand Prix podium finish.
The overall three-day crowd of more than 122,000 was a 25 per cent increase on last year - mostly due to the race being Stoner's Australian farewell.
Lorenzo has an unassailable lead in the points standings with just one more race remaining this season.
It is Lorenzo's second world title after he won in 2010.
Starting from pole, Honda rider Stoner was beaten off the start line by both Lorenzo and Pedrosa, with Pedrosa taking the lead from his fellow Spaniard late on the opening lap.
But Pedrosa slid out of control while taking a corner less than a minute later.
He returned his Repsol Honda to the pits, and retired from the race.
Stoner had been dominant all weekend at Phillip Island, having lapped a second quicker than his rivals for most of the practice and qualifying sessions.
Mark Cavendish has claimed the Lance Armstrong doping scandal has unfairly tainted cyclists who are riding clean.
The disgraced Texan was stripped of his seven Tour de France titles for taking banned substances.
The United States Anti-Doping Agency revealed Armstrong and his United States Postal Service team ran "the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen" and other teams and riders have become embroiled in the scandal since the publication of their reasoned decision document.
Cavendish told The Times: "If this negativity had come to cycling 10 years ago I would accept it, but the negativity is coming to cycling now because of what happened years ago and that's not right.
"It's not fair to paint everyone with the same brush. Look at what happened with Jimmy Savile - you can't accuse every TV presenter of what he's been accused of. It doesn't work like that.
"Since I turned pro I've not seen anything that suggests it's not clean. I'm riding clean and winning the biggest bike races in the world and I'm not actually that good.
"So if I'm winning clean then people can't be cheating. You might get the odd d******d, but they will get found out now."
Cavendish will race for Omega Pharma-QuickStep having recently announced he is leaving Team Sky after one season.
He claimed he was denied the chance to win more stages of this year's Tour de France by team tactics.
He added: "I didn't want to put the yellow jersey at risk. But I could not get my head round it when we got to stages, which would not have jeopardised it, and the sports director said, 'We don't want a sprint'.
"I'm a perfectionist. I was one of the most prolific winners of the year, but I was good enough to win 25 and I won 15."
Mark Cavendish: doping scandal has tainted us all - Other Sports - Sport - London Evening Standard
The Ferrari fleet in Formula 1 during the Grand Prix of India placed the coat of arms of the Italian Navy on its race cars. This was the racing team's attempt to assist in the release of two Italian sailors arrested in India for the killing of the local fishermen. The Indians felt the gesture was interference in the internal affairs of the country and demand "sport without politics."
The Navy emblem on the background of the Italian tricolor was placed on the nose cones of the cars of Felipe Massa and Fernando Alonso. According to the website ferrari-com, this way the team decided to pay tribute to "one of the most prominent organizations" in Italy, and expressed hope that Italy and India would find a solution to the problem with two Italian marines named Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone.
Sailors who served on the tanker "Enrica Lexie", on February 15th of this year, mistook the fishermen in motor boats in the Indian Ocean near the Indian state of Kerala for the pirates and opened fire. Later, the men testified that the fishermen behaved suspiciously and ignored warning shots at the approach to the Italian oil tanker. In the shooting two Indians were killed. The Italians have been released on bail on the condition that they cannot leave the territory of India, and expect the verdict of the Supreme Court. Italy argues that the incident occurred in international waters, so India has no right to jurisdiction. The Italians are likely to appeal the verdict in the international institutions. The Italian Foreign Minister Giulio Terzi welcomed the team's act. On Twitter he congratulated Ferrari on the initiative to carry the symbol of the Navy at the Grand Prix in India as this would show the sailors that the entire country is behind them. However, the Italian press called him the mastermind behind the event lobbied by politicians.
The reaction of the Indian Foreign Ministry was quite different. Indian Express newspaper quoted the representative of the office Syed Akbaruddin, who said on October 26th that the use of sports events to solve non-sports issues contradicted the spirit of sport. Indeed, the statement that Ferrari respected the Indian authorities did not fit in with the gross pressure on the authorities through such a popular sport as Formula 1 that has millions of viewers at the stadiums and TV screens.
The Government protest was supported by the National Forum of Fishermen of India (NFF). According to the Forum, Ferrari's decision to place the Navy flag on racing cars as a sign of solidarity with the Italian Marines was an insult to the Indian society and a disgrace to the country. The Forum was convinced that this was the initiative of the Italian government.
Head of Management of Formula 1 Bernie Ecclestone distanced himself from the "political" issue, saying that this was not a political organization. He explained that the International Automobile Federation (FIA) in Article 1 of its Charter prohibited any manifestation of political, racial or religious activities. He believes that the issue should be resolved by the National Association of Indian Motorsport and the Federation of Indian Motorsport (FMSCI). It is they who, in his opinion, were responsible for such actions. But the said authorities are likely to be either far from politics, or have received a good reward.
Currently Ferrari fleet belongs to Fiat. Chairman and President Luca di Montezemolo was quick to distance himself from the original plan and shifted the responsibility to the team's headquarters in Maranello. "The Naval tricolor on Ferrari cars at the Grand Prix of India is a tribute to our country," Corriere dello sport quoted him. The president denied the fact that it was placed there for political purposes. For this reason, the team is not going to remove it from their cars. However, this is unlikely to promote a positive decision with the Italian sailors.
Sport, just like art, is highly politicized these days. Sporting events have turned into a war between countries. County's prestige is at stake, and a great deal of money is involved when sports events transform into political ones. Insidentally, the Italians have mastered this art. Silvio Berlusconi created his own political party "People of Freedom" based on the supporters of "Milan." The slogan of the fans of this team - Forza Italia! - became the slogan of the party.
But perhaps the most important political function of sport is the use of major competitions for intimidation of the opponents, political expression and oppressing of political ambition. This is what the Italian authorities tried to do at the Grand Prix of Formula 1 in India.
Ferrari mixes sport and politics against India - English pravda.ru
It may be easy to fool referees, but kids tend to be a more streetwise bunch.
They will already have absorbed the big lesson from last weekend's sporting encounters. The kids now know for sure that not only are cheats winners, they get away with it.
The weekend's big rugby match between Canterbury and Auckland was decided by a piece of cheating.
That's not my word, that's the word of ex-Canterbury halfback Justin Marshall during his commentary on the NPC final.
Late in the first half Auckland had a clear three-man overlap when Telusa Veainu reached out with his fingertips and deliberately knocked the ball on.
Referee Glen Jackson should have awarded a penalty try, as he later conceded. The incident prompted the following exchange between Marshall and Ian Smith.
Marshall: "He's done the right thing by his team and he deserves to be in the bin though, because Auckland should feel aggrieved they didn't get seven."
Smith: "What else do you do though if you're a defender. It's 3 on 1. What else can you do?"
Marshall: "Exactly, but you've been compromised defensively. You've been let down by the system and the attack's too good. You can't cheat."
But you can cheat and that is exactly what Veainu decided to do. Apparently, kids, what else can you do? The trouble is Veainu got away with it.
There was no reward in points for Auckland who were leading 13-10 at the time and the loss of a wing for 10 minutes was very well covered by Canterbury.
But this was not the only allegation made of cheating during the match. Auckland coach Wayne Pivac said afterwards: "The work they do at the breakdown is very questionable and we talked to the referee about it before the game.
"It's just sealing the ball off, but they do it very, very well and you have to commend them for the way they play. They put pressure on the referee and they got the rewards tonight."
This is the same point I have made previously about Canterbury's Super Rugby team, the Crusaders. They are serial cheats at the breakdown and they put pressure on referees.
Indeed the Chiefs devised an entire gameplan before this year's semifinal in order to highlight the Crusaders' cheating to the referee. Like Pivac, they also briefed the referee beforehand.
Yet cheating is a strangely emotive word.
It seems to be the equivalent of accusing someone of lying in Parliament, something that occurs on an almost daily basis, but is best not brought up in polite society.
If you mentioned the "c" word in the drawing room of Downton Abbey you would be liable to be challenged to a duel. Strangely this sort of antiquated code still seems to prevail, only making it easier for cheats to prosper.
In the football match between Adelaide and the Wellington Phoenix at the weekend, a player called Jeronimo Neumann took a dive in order to persuade the referee to send off an opposition player.
Everyone knew it was a dive.
The studio panel, including former Aussie international Mark Bosnich, all agreed it was a dive. Andrew Durante, the Phoenix captain, said: "He's dived, he's a cheat." Oh dear, there's the "c" word again.
It certainly offended the sensibilities of Adelaide's coach John Kosmina who said the comment was unfortunate and "not a nice thing to say". Get over it. It's not a nice thing to be.
Fernando Torres was sent off at the weekend in the match between Chelsea and Manchester United for diving. It was a very similar incident to the one in Adelaide.
There was contact, but not enough to properly impede a player who was not going to reach the ball, and so he dived.
One referee sent the defender off, the other referee allegedly called the diver a Spanish tw.t and issued him with a red card.
The Phoenix rightly appealed against Ben Sigmund's sending off.
It was as ludicrous as the yellow card that Durante subsequently received for not hurling himself out of an attacker's way.
And the response of the A- League review committee was to do absolutely nothing.
It is hard to know which cliche to reach for at this point.
Are we looking at the Aussie arse of a huge ostrich burying its head in the sand or the dirty hands of a domestic sweeping all the filth under a big carpet.
Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert said: "Unfortunately the referee in our game with Adelaide did not deal with the situation competently and we are paying the penalty rather than the player who was guilty of simulation.
The game is being ruined by players who dive and do not get penalised for it."
I would rather not blame the referees who have a hard enough time without everyone trying to con them.
Jackson got his call wrong, but not as wrong as his assistant referee who unbelievably thought it was just a knock-on.
Jarred Gillett, the referee of the Phoenix game, was hoodwinked by a player intent on deception.
Blame the players, who do this stuff, the coaches who condone it, and the review committees which apparently sanction it.
What a terrible example to teach our kids. It is about time that cheating was called by its proper name.
And it is about time to ban cheating players in the same way that we ban violent ones.
Mark Reason: Cheating in sport teaches kids a bad... | Stuff.co.nz
The next hot sport is sweeping the nation, though you’re more likely to find it in retirement communities than at your local fitness center.
Dick Gellis and George Rice are trying to change that.
Gellis is the pickleball coordinator for the Longfellow Club in Wayland, a tennis club that started offering sessions of the relatively unknown racket-and-ball game for its members in January 2011.
Gellis had heard about the game from Rice, who as a Cape Cod-based pickleball “ambassador’’ is one of more than 600 representatives of the sport across the United States and Canada. Rice was introduced to the game in Florida, where he said it has become very popular among retired seniors.
All this raises several questions, including: What is pickleball? And, why haven’t you heard of it?
According to the website of the USA Pickleball Association, which officially took over the sport in 2005, pickleball is played on a badminton-size court with the net lowered to 34 inches at the center. It is played with a perforated plastic baseball (similar to a Wiffle ball) and wooden or composite paddles that resemble large table tennis paddles. The game was invented by a man in Washington state in 1965, and named after his dog Pickles.
At the Longfellow Club, it is played on modified tennis courts at least three times a week. Gellis said the club usually gets a strong showing of seniors and former tennis players for games with two-person teams, like doubles tennis. He said the club began offering the sport to promote “active aging.”
“Just because you’re 70 years old doesn’t mean you’re not active,” he said. “I’m a senior myself, so it just makes me feel so good to inspire other seniors to stay active.”
After hearing about pickleball from Gellis and other Longfellow Club members, Natick tennis player Ann Gottlieb finally gave the game a shot.
“I got hooked immediately,” she said. “It’s just so much fun.”
Gottlieb describes the sport as a cross between ping pong and tennis, though it’s scored like badminton. She said it doesn’t have the stress level of tennis, making it great for “all kinds of people, in terms of ability,” even those with physical ailments or injuries, or those inexperienced with ball sports.
“We’re all new players, since it just came here,” she said. “But a lot of us have gotten to be really good about it, and it’s fun to teach others how to play.”
And since pickleball tends to move faster than tennis, Gottlieb said, it is great aerobic exercise, too. Now, she said, it’s just a matter of getting her husband to play.
“He’s a workaholic but I’ll get him one day,” she said.
To market the sport and reach a wider audience, Gellis and Rice are in constant communication.
“As far as I’m concerned, I’ll help people play pickleball anywhere,” said Rice, who fell into his ambassador position by accident. After independently promoting the game in his Barnstable neighborhood, Rice said, he decided he should join the national organization, and marked the box that asked whether he would be willing to help spread the word.
“They called me up and now I’m an ambassador for pickleball for Massachusetts,” he said. “It’s a very friendly sport. People love to just get the chance to spend time together.”
And while retired folks may have more time to play pickleball, Rice and Gellis said, age is not a factor in one’s ability to play the game.
“You can play it when you’re 8 years old, and you can play it when you’re 88 years old,” Rice said, adding that some high schools, including North Attleborough, have started introducing pickleball as an indoor winter sport. He does acknowledge the narrow fan base, though.
“Teenagers may not think it’s an ‘in’ thing, but the retirement community is all over it,” he said.
The sport has become so popular that the Longfellow Club has started offering sessions at its facility in Natick, and in June hosted the pickleball competition for the Massachusetts Senior Games, drawing more than 40 competitors, including 20 players from Rice’s Cape Cod region.
Competitors played in teams by age bracket, and those who won medals are eligible to compete in the National Senior Games next summer in Cleveland.
For Rice, pickleball is more about the fun.
“I have arthritis issues, so I’m not ready to take on that level of competition,” said Rice, whose team took the gold medal in the 75-to-80 age group at the state’s Senior Games. He did point out that it was the only team in the age bracket, so simply playing was grounds for first prize.
Gellis said he constantly gets input from Longfellow members to ensure the club offers a schedule that maximizes opportunities to play.
Named for a dog, pickleball is becoming the next hot sport - News - Boston-com
The art of switching sporting codes for the modern day professional can be a tricky business.
Many have tried, few have succeeded and the overwhelming majority have failed.
Yesterday, Great Western Sydney AFL player Israel Folau became the latest superstar to opt for a code change, after declaring time on his Australian Rules career with an eye to link up with the NRL once again, or possibly rugby union.
The former NRL star had a tough time of things in the AFL, and thinks - as many have before him - that the grass looks greener on the other-side.
Success and failure in the dark-art of code hopping can be a tricky one to predict, but should Folau recapture the form that saw him become the youngest player to ever play for the Kangaroos - he would likely jump from our 'bad convert' list, into our 'good'.
Here are our top three in each. Best and worst sports converts - Sport - NZ Herald News
In a Thames-side corner of 115-year-old Craven Cottage, the quaintest football pitch on the planet, several hundred visiting fans of Manchester City are on their feet singing, fists rhythmically pumping the air.
Ya ya, ya-ya ya ya, ya-ya ya ya, ya-ya Yaya Touré.
As in City’s star midfielder, busy leading his team to a 2-1 victory over the home side, Fulham, owned by former Harrods pooh-bah (and father of the late Dodi) Mohamed Al Fayed.
This is stop two in a pilgrimage that will eventually see a couple of 50-somethings take in five English Premier League matches and one Champions League game in eight days — and make glaring what’s so terribly wrong with the way most North American sports teams treat their fans.
Stop one had been an Arsenal home loss to Chelsea.
It was a game neither side really deserved to win, played out in the luxuriously new Emirates Stadium.
But if the venue was more than a century removed from Craven Cottage, and the north London crowd twice the size, the dynamic in the stands was unchanged.
Arsenal fans used to serenade their then-captain with a variation on The Beach Boys’ “Sloop John B” (Robin van Persie/He scores when he wants), so the visiting horde from Chelsea couldn’t resist reprising that melody with their own lyrics:
He left ’cause you’re s--t,
He left ’cause you’re s-----t,
Robin van Persie,
He left ’cause you’re s--t.
And so the week went, from shrine to shrine, with the vastly outnumbered visiting fans always trying to out-sing and out-cheer the home crowd, as if channelling Henry V at Agincourt.
To wit: the Gooners (as Arsenal fans are known) at West Ham United, lauding striker Olivier Giroud to the chorus of “Hey Jude”: Naa, na na na-na-na naaa, na-na-na naaa, G-i-roud.
Or West Ham followers taunting the relatively mute home fans of Queens Park Rangers, to the tune of “Ta-ra-ra Boom-de-ay”: Sounds like a library/Sounds like a library/Sounds like a. . .
The thing to note here is actually an absence.
Apart from music broadcast during the warm-up — often (and endearingly) “London Calling” by The Clash — no music is electronically pumped into the stadium during the game. There are no Jumbotron messages telling people when to cheer, no commercial breaks, and the amount of advertising signage barely registers compared with a North American venue.
The name of a player leaving the game and substituted for another is duly put over the PA system, but that’s it. The whole match is finished within two hours, and the people in the stands are completely in control of the atmosphere.
Arab sheiks and Russian oligarchs might own many of the teams, but the fans, unprompted by anything, still own the game experience. It’s up to them. They know it, act accordingly and, as amazing as it might seem to a North American, the leagues and teams of Europe also know this to be the case.
That’s the magic they and the team owners are buying into, not trying to manufacture.
This is an ocean away from, say, the typical NFL game, which consists of eight (8!) minutes of on-field action crammed into three hours, thankfully relieved by Mensan television commentary, prediction and biography, the spiritual delights of the huddle, the time out and the challenged call being reviewed by video replay, then a welcome commercial variation on the theme of beer.
What does this say about us as sports fans, or rather, what do North American teams, leagues and broadcasters think of us, as fans?
At a recent Toronto Argonauts game, played out at the SkyDome, a.k.a. the Rogers Centre, a.k.a. the absolute worst place on the planet to watch any sport, even the time out had a sponsor, and the Jumbotron carried this cringe-inducing message: “SSSSSHHHH The Offence is Preparing.”
When you think you have to tell people to cheer for the home-side defence and give the offence relative quiet, you’re assuming the found-ins are not fans but moronic neophytes.
The would-be supporters end up being treated like the studio audience of an American TV game show where some comely woman walks around with an instructive sign saying “Get Loud,” just in case you didn’t see the red light that says “Applause.”
Constantly assaulted by loud music, commercial breaks, truly weird non-athletic, on-field spectator competitions (build a “Baconator”?) and then sudden exhortations to be silent or to cheer (wow, there are T-shirts being propelled into the crowd with a gun), no wonder most people in the stadium opt for silence as their default position.
We have been numbed, dumbed down and made somehow extraneous. We aren’t sports fans so much as witnesses, an audience for some perverse video game, all noise and visuals, in which you are told to “click here” at moments deemed desirable by the franchise’s management.
This stems from an inherent assumption about ownership, or rather the assumptions of ownership as interpreted/imagined/guessed at, by the league or team.
It’s as if, should you happen to be the proprietor of, say, the Toronto Maple Leafs, you don’t just own the team, but the sport as well. You, as owner, define the experience for the chumps who’ve emptied their pockets to watch a dreadful excuse for hockey — an otherwise beautiful, magic game corrupted by too many grasping suits.
But don’t think of expressing your disgust at the local version of the NHL where it counts. Don’t think of showing up at a Leafs game with something as honestly democratic as a placard that says: “Please, dear God, give us professional hockey.” That just won’t do. You are merely a spectator.
Toss a waffle at your peril.
And no, none of this is because North American sports franchises are uniquely corporate where others are not.
The two most valuable teams on the planet are Manchester United and Real Madrid, and proper footballers are among the best-paid athletes anywhere. The transfer, or trade, period sees many hundreds of millions of dollars change hands
Exeter Chiefs head coach Rob Baxter felt there was still room for improvement from his side despite maintaining their unbeaten home record in the Aviva Premiership with a 33-9 success over Worcester Warriors.
Exeter went into the break 19-3 ahead through a try from Gonzalo Camacho which Gareth Steenson converted, and the Irishman followed that up with three penalties with Andy Goode replying with a late penalty. The former England fly-half added two more after the break before the Chiefs notched tries from Haydn Thomas and Chris Budgen.
"It was four very valuable points but I can't help but feel that we left a point out there, not least because large parts of our game held up well and should have given us a foundation to push on a little earlier than we did," said Baxter.
"The enthusiasm of the players to defend was far better than last week [at Bath], our toughness on the game line in the first half was better than last week and our maul defence was fantastic. That [the maul] is probably Worcester's biggest weapon and they got no change there at all and our scrum was pretty dominant.
"Those kind of things should have given us the platform to push on but in the second half we lost the momentum for 20 minutes. Once we got that first score in the second half, we really could cut loose but I am a little disappointed that it took so long for that score to come.
"If we had controlled the momentum a little better and pushed on five minutes that fourth try would have come. You have to give Worcester credit, they are a good dogged side and they are not just going to give up on the game. They kept coming at us in the second half, they got some reward for their pressure and it made an awkward game for us."
The defeat means that Worcester have not won on the road in the Premiership since New Year's Day against Wasps. And Warriors head coach Richard Hill accepted this was probably his side's worse performance of the season.
He said: "It was difficult to put your finger on exactly what was going wrong but it was across the board with a lot of inaccuracies. We had a very poor start, which puts you on the back foot.
"You can't come back here after being 19-0 down at one stage against Exeter. That is what we have to address because that is the fourth game in the league where we have conceded a try in the first five minutes and it knocks the stuffing out of you.
"Exeter, as usual, were pretty accurate because their skills are good. They very rarely make any mistakes and they put pressure on you because of that. But we were making too many errors, drop passes, lost the breakdown battle, couldn't get our drive going."
Read more: Baxter sees room for improvement - Rugby, Sport - Belfasttelegraph.co.uk
The NCAA has decided it will boycott New Jersey during five of its championship events stating it will look for other host venues for the competitions. Mark Lewis, NCAA Executive vice president of Championships and Alliances, commented via a press release, “Maintaining the integrity of sports and protecting student-athlete well-being are at the bedrock of the NCAA’s mission, and are reflected in our policies prohibiting the hosting of our championships in states that provide for single game sports wagering,” adding, “Consistent with our policies and beliefs, the law in New Jersey requires that we no longer host championships in the state.”
New Jersey is planning to issue licenses for online sports betting by January 9th 2013 but the possibility of this never happening is still very much true. The Major League Baseball, the National Football League, the National Basketball Association, the National Hockey League as well as the NCAA have filed combined suit against New Jersey’s sports betting law.
The state Division of Gaming Enforcement director David Rebuck, said, “The Division of Gaming Enforcement will begin processing applications submitted by any interested party seeking licensure,” Rebuck continued, “We are confident that there will be no legal impediments; if the court finds differently, we will consider all of the options before us.” He said the division will proceed with the current plan. Officials in New Jersey calm as much as $380 billion a year is punted illegally on sporting events, stating in its court documents that such gambling has not and will not damage the integrity of the sports leagues opposing the activity.
New Jersey Defends Online Sports Betting Law in Court