Sunday Sport: Champions and Challengers

Unhappy Liverpudlians, Happy Cavaliers.  Sunday Sport

The Brickyard.  Today is the day. The running of the 102nd Indianapolis 500.  The 102nd Indianapolis 500 presented by PennGrade Motor Oil is the premier Verizon IndyCar Series event, to be held today, Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend,  at the  Indianapolis Motor Speedway in Speedway, Indiana.  As always, the event is scheduled for 500 miles (200 laps).  The race was won last year by Takuma Sato, but Ms. Danica Patrick is the heart's favorite this year.  She won her first race at Indianapolis, and finishes her illustrious career with this last race today. 

The month of May activities formally began on May 12 with the fifth running of the IndyCar Grand Prix on the combined road course. Practice for the Indianapolis 500 began on Tuesday May 15, and time trials were held May 19–20. Ed Carpenter won the pole position, his third career Indy pole. Carb Day—the traditional final day of practice, as well as the annual Pit Stop Challenge and Indy Lights Freedom 100, was held Friday May 25.

A real star of the show is the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.  Constructed in 1909, it is the second purpose built banked oval racing circuit after Brooklands and the first to be called a 'speedway'. It has a permanent seating capacity of 257,325, with infield seating raising the grand total capacity to an approximate 400,000. It is the highest-capacity sports venue in the world.  Considered relatively flat by American standards, the track is a 2.5-mile-long (4.0 km) rectangular oval with dimensions that have remained essentially unchanged since its construction. It has two 5⁄8-mile-long (1,000 m) straightaways, four geometrically identical 1⁄4-mile (400 m) turns, connected by two 1⁄8-mile (200 m) short straightaways, termed "short chutes", between turns 1 and 2, and between turns 3 and 4.

We wish the best to Ms. Patrick and to all the racers today. 

Fans of the National Basketball Association have reached as fever pitch of excitement, as the final rounds of both Conference championships have reached a full count.  

In game six on Friday, the Cleveland Cavaliers beat the Boston Celtics convincingly 109-99 to force game seven.  The game will be played tonight at Boston.

Last night, the Golden State Warriors performed the same feat against the Houston Rockets, beating them 115-86, to force their own game seven, which will be contested tomorrow night, Memorial Day, at Houston.  

Real Madrid performed a feat previously unthinkable in World Soccer.  The Spanish giants retained the Uefa Champions League on Saturday night. They defeated Liverpool 3-1 in Kiev to lift the trophy for a third successive season. Indeed, Madrid are the Champions League winners in four of the past five years.  They have also won the Club World Cup in 2014, 2016 and 2017.

 

When last night's game was tied at 1-1 Welshman Gareth Bale, well known to readers of this space, made a spectacular bicycle kick, which inspired his team, and spurred them on to eventual victory.  Bale shocked the Liverpudlian Players with the artfulness of the kick, which is even clear from the photos of the event.  

Congratulations to Real Madrid. Champions.