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Lot of cyclists and athletes die young too

For a time, Chyna was a big name in popular culture. “If They Only Knew,” her autobiography, reached the New York Times bestseller list in 2001.

Laurer was a native of Rochester, N.Y., and graduated from the University of Tampa in Florida before taking up wrestling.

She joins a long list of WWE professional wrestlers who have died relatively young, including Rick Rude, Curt “Mr. Perfect” Hennig, the Ultimate Warrior and Owen Hart.

Steroids are not good for your long term health as Flo Jo didn’t quite find out because she was dead.

It’s a view, certainly

When you are in a sport you are tied into it, as you can see from boxers past their prime and golfers going into the senior tour,” (Steve – Interesting-) Davis said, when asked once again about retirement, 13 years ago. “It takes a strange person to give up. It’s a much more natural process to try and fight. I don’t think it’s a clever thing to retire at the top. It’s best to go out screaming.”

They’re right but aren’t they going to get stick for being so

Novak Djokovic, tennis world number one, said he believed men should be awarded more prize money than women as their matches have more viewers.
He made his comments after winning the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells on Sunday and defended the use of viewing statistics to determine prize money.
Earlier the event’s chief executive, Raymond Moore, provoked controversy ahead of the final between Victoria Azarenka and Serena Williams by saying the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) was a “lucky organisation” which “rides on the coattails” of the men.

Outrage in 3…2…1….

Conduct a small mind experiment. Split the two tours. Would the women be earning as much as the men?

An explanation for prop forwards

The ancestors of modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and another extinct line of humans known as the Denisovans at least four times in the course of prehistory, according to an analysis of global genomes published on Thursday in the journal Science.

Hey, works for me (I was a full back).

Oh please, do sod off

The exculpation of Joe Marler for calling Samson Lee a “gypsy boy” is as questionable as it is risible.

Cut through the dubious logic of the citing commissioner’s judgment, or the assumption that the “matter was closed” – best of luck with that – and focus simply upon the acceptance that the England loosehead’s words were uttered “in the heat of the moment”.

Is that right? Really? And even if it is, can it excuse what was said? This, then, is what the Six Nations disciplinary process has come to: ​the heat-of-the-moment defence, a smokescreen that equates racial abuse with the lads just letting off steam.

I would question whether “gypsy boy” is racial abuse. Might, just about, accept that it’s a racial epithet but I’m afraid that I don’t count all such as abuse.

And I think I’d go further than that. I’m not sure that the concept of racial abuse has a place on a rugby field. Nothing but self-preservation is needed to prevent someone calling Itoje “monkey boy” or the like and the egos of prop forwards can handle gypsy boy even if Marler might not physically survive having called him gyppo.

So if he’d said Gyppo would we have to hang him?

There are a million harmless ways to wind-up an opponent, but calling someone “gypsy boy” is not one of them. The word “boy” carries an extra hint of condescension, as if Lee has risen above his station in being there at all. Again, there is no real need to crucify Marler as a human being. The only requirement was to punish him and hammer home the point that demeaning people in this kind of way is dangerous and therefore unacceptable.

We know Lee took offence. We know Wales took offence, because Rob Howley, the assistant coach, said there “was no place in the game” for that kind of language. Jones and England must understand that an apology alone will not expunge an offence that has implications out there on the streets. The sporting role model argument has always been shot with flaws but you cannot have an England international deploying that kind of terminology.

Myself I’d run with the idea that propping is one of those areas of life where sticks and stones would be the appropriate stance to take.

On the rugby

So, yes, we won, for the third time this championship. And yet any of the four Southern Hemisphere teams would beat any of the Northern ones in any of the games I’ve seen so far.

Yes, Argentina too.

Six Nations is definitely second class rugby at present.

I’m sure he will end up with a “real” Messi shirt

And yet there’s something rather more lovely about his one made from a plastic bag.

“I love Messi, he plays well, the shirt was made by my brother and I liked it very much,” he said after being tracked down by the AFP news agency.

If this really is Sir Pterry’s universe then an ageing Messi will, in one of his last games for Argentina, face a young Murtaza Ahmadi playing for Afghanistan. But alas it is not that world at all, we may well be Pan Narrans but it does not run on narrativium. Million to one shots are not sure things in our version.

Bollocks, bollixy bollocks mate

I don’t believe Fury should be removed. But as a former professional basketball player in the NBA and now as a psychologist who works in the US and Europe, I wouldn’t vote for him. And if, as in previous years, I was invited to the ceremony, I would not attend.

Some, including the Guardian’s Gaby Hinsliff, claim that sportspeople aren’t (or shouldn’t be) role models; this argument aggrieves me. The question is not whether athletes should be role models, or whether you as a parent, fan or pundit think there are copious better options outside of sport. If anyone looks up to an athlete, they’re a role model. And whatever the case, we should not exonerate any athletes for bad behaviour either on or off their field of play.

Sod off.

Athletes are athletes, it’s there in the description. Talent at shooting hoops, punching Ukrainians, trotting along faster than others, that’s the sole and only point of the enterprise. Their views on anything else are, just like those of you and I, sod all to do with their skills or talents in sports.

A boxer no more needs to accord with current day bien pensant thinking than a mechanic’s views on buggery matter to his ability to fix a car engine.

Why drop Tyson Fury?

As I understand it the public gets the vote on this, does it not?

The BBC has been urged to drop the boxer Tyson Fury from its Sports Personality of the Year shortlist after he made a series of sexist comments about fellow contender Jessica Ennis-Hill and women in general.
Fury, already at the centre of a row over his homophobia, said heptathlete Ennis-Hill “looks quite fit when she’s got a dress on” and suggested “a woman’s best place is in the kitchen or on her back”.

As we know, the general public is entirely anti-homophobic and anti-sexist.

Therefore no need to drop him from the short list, just let the public vote confirm that. Which it will, of course, won’t it?

Ooops!

For England, Australia’s victory over Wales yesterday also brought the hideous realisation that had Chris Robshaw not to kick for the corner in the dying seconds against Warren Gatland’s men, they would have qualified for the quarter-finals by vanquishing Uruguay.

Interesting little point

Robshaw is criticised for spurning penalty kick for draw and going for lineout and possible try to win.

Japan is praised for spurning penalty kick for draw and going for try and win.

Hmm.

Guess whether you get the try or not makes a difference, eh?