Tour de France:
Each year France's grand festival of cycling
kicks off in grand style, and keeps the French at home to welcome the Tour as
it passes through their village. This year the Tour began in Dusseldorf,
Germany, on July 1st, to the great acclaim of the Germans. The second stage also began in Dusseldorf,
before a slow journey back to France via Belgium and Luxembourg. La Grande Boucle, as it is called, is a chase
for the overall champions yellow jersey, but also a chase for glory. Sadly,
this year's Tour has again been tainted by scandal. This year the scandal was
on the part of the organizers and judges, not on the cyclists, and had nothing
to do with cycling. Instead, in the
first two weeks they made boneheaded decisions, time after time, starting with the
ejection of champion sprinter fan favorite Peter Sagan. The UCI said that
should never have taken place.
African born English cyclist Chris
Froome, riding for the SKY team, all but
wrapped up a third consecutive Tour de France triumph as he outpaced his rivals
in the penultimate day time trial won by Polish cyclist Maciej Bodnar, riding
for Bora, on Saturday. Last to go, the Team Sky rider was the third
quickest of the 167 to tackle the 22.5 kilometre course that started and
finished in Marseille's Orange Velodrome soccer stadium, extending his
lead to 54 seconds going into Sunday's ceremonial ride into Paris.
Incidentally, the Orange Velodrome started as a velodrome, and continued that
way as it was retrofitted for soccer and rugby, the wooden velodrome track was
ultimately removed in the 1980s.
Chris Froome will not be removed,
though, and if he avoids any calamities on the 103km trek from Montgeron to the
Arche de Triomphe on Sunday's last stage, he will take his overall Tour wins to
four in the last five years, one behind cycling greats Miguel Indurain of
Spain, Belgian's Eddy Merckx and Frenchmen Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil,
and three behind American Lance Armstrong.
In Saturday's stage, another Polish cyclist, Michal Kwiatkowski of Team
Sky was second. If, indeed, the ceremonial ride remains ceremonial on
Sunday, and every indication is that it is, Froome will win the Tour,
Colombia's Rigoberto Uran will come second, and Frenchman Romain Bardet
third.
Budapest, Hungary: Aquatic Worlds
FINA Swimming Worlds provides the best in
action for the aquatic sports every other Summer, and this year is no
exception! Week one has featured the
open water swims, and more of interest to our readers, the Diving competition,
and the Water Polo tournament, week one.
Group
play in the water polo tournament has certainly provided lots of action, and
lots of ups and downs this week, and is a week which shall be remembered. With the riotous crowds and fantastic
atmosphere at the Alfred Hajos Pool, the days ahead promise wonderful water
polo.
The
leaders of each group will next play on Tuesday. Today features play ins for the second and
third placed teams in each group, and it promises much excitement. Today's headline match is Spain, behind
Serbia and Greece in Group D, against Russia, second in Group B. In other
play-in matches, Brazil, which took second in Group A on the strength of a 6-6
tie with Canada, will face Australia, third in Group B. Kazakhstan, with a win
over the Canadians on Wednesday, will face Italy, Group B’s second place team.
In the fourth match Japan, which has only advanced once in FINA Worlds (2011),
will play Greece, the second-place team in Group C.
The winners of Sunday’s matches
will face four rested teams on Tuesday; either Brazil or Australia will earn
the dubious honor of a match against Serbia. Hungary will draw the winner of
the Spain vs. Russia winner; Croatia will face the Italy vs. Kazakhstan winner,
and whomever wins the Greece vs. Japan match will play Montenegro.
The men's diving competition concluded on in stellar way on Saturday night, with a
stirring competition which resulted in a win by Tom Daley of England, The final
day of diving from Danube Arena in Budapest saw Great Britain’s Tom Daley
prevail over 2016 Olympic champion Chen Aisen for the gold medal in the men’s
10m platform. Last year, in the
Olympics, Daley failed to reach the finals competition. This year he made it through to the final in
2nd position, and once he got there he performed perfectly. Daley received a total of 12 perfect-10
scores over the course of his six dives, and twice scored over 100 on a dive.
He totalled 590.95 points, beating out masterful Chinese diver Chen by a slim
margin (585.25). The 23-year-old regains the world title after winning it eight
years ago in Rome. Yang Jian won bronze
for China, giving them two medals in the final event to cap an incredible meet
that saw China win eight of the thirteen events. Russian Aleksandr Bondar took
4th after qualifying 1st from the semis, and Ukrainian Maksym Dolgov moved up
to 5th after being the last qualifier (12th) for the final in the semis.
Just a few hours prior to this performance in
the 10m, Daley won a silver medal in the mixed 3m synchro with teammate Grace
Reid. China won gold, as Li Zheng and Wang Han combined for a score of 323.70,
and the Canadian pair of Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac won bronze.
China’s 8 gold medals in this year's diving
competition is down from the 10 won in Kazan, as this year five other countries
won one gold each. Russia finishes 2nd on the medal table with 1 gold, 2 silver
and 2 bronze.
British Open
South
Africa's Branden Grace moved into contention at the British Open on Saturday
with his record-breaking third round of 62.
Grace's round is the lowest in the history of the majors. He incredibly moved from four over par to
four-under par overnight, just two behind leader Jordan Spieth of the United
States, and level with Matt Kuchar. England's Ian Poulter, and current US Open
champion Brooks Koepka were both three-under overnight. Earlier, Australia's Jason Day was one of a
number of players to score 65 in the benign conditions that contrasted sharply
with the miserable weather late on Friday.
The British Open wraps up today in what promises to be a nail biting
final round.
Japan: Sumo Wrestling
Mongolian Hakuho has smashed the sumo wrestling record with his 1,048th
win. The grand champion, took down
Takayasu yesterday in a frenetic bout, to deafening cheers at the Nagoya Grand
Sumo Tournament. He is now the "yokozuna",
or grand champion. With his 1,048th win,
Hakuho surpassed former wrestler Kaio's record, in place since 2011. The 32-year-old Mongolian was so small when
he arrived in Japan at age 15 that only a minor sumo
"stable" would take him.
"I'm glad that I was able to show this
victory to the fans," the now 6'3" (almost two meter) wrestler said,
struggling to catch his breath after the historic win against his
"ozeki"-ranked rival.
Hakuho's success comes as foreign wrestlers
increasingly dominate Japan's 15-century-old sport. The sumo association, though, forbids foreign nationals from becoming sumo
master, or "oyakata" - a title that successful wrestlers often
seek after they retire. Since Japan continues to forbid dual citizenship,
Hakuho may renounce his Mongolian citizenship in order to become oyakata, but
that will be when his competition career is over. Hakuho's father is regarded as a national
hero in Mongolia, as the country's
first Olympic medalist, a silver for wrestling in 1968.
Soccer certainly continues somewhere in the
world.
The 2019 Pan American Games (Spanish: Juegos Panamericanos de
2019), officially the XVIII Pan American Games and commonly known as the Lima
2019 Pan-Am Games, is a multi-sport event governed by the PanAm Sports
Organization, being held in Lima, Peru from July 26 to August 11, 2019, with
preliminary rounds in certain events having begun on July 24, 2019.
