Sport

Sorry to return to this, but the behind-the-scenes, anonymous leaking and power-playing has to stop. Last week I suggested that Simon Halliday make his case if he was the person being lined up to replace Bill Sweeney as the Rugby Football Union’s chief executive. As Simon has now made his case, I presume my claim was correct.

Seeing people you were at school with (OK, couple of years different) snarlinmg and shrieking as they try to conquer the top levels of society. Scale those commanding heights….

Arundell nearly joined Bath as a teenager, when he attended Beechen Cliff School, but then joined London Irish instead when he moved to Harrow School.

So, if I ever meet him we’ll have spomething in common – we’ll both know the same Co Op. There’s a conversation starter, right?

‘Creating our own utopias’: the Black cycling revolution sweeping the globe
I speak to a former elite racer about my love of cycling and the grassroots groups breaking cultural barriers to entry

Economic rather than cultural barriers I would have thought.

But actually discussing this would lead to thinking that certain gene sets – associated with skin colour, yes, but only associated – lead to an outperformance at certain tasks. Which would never do now, would it, for we’re all blank slates.

Cycling is expensive. Not so much the kit itself. Rather, the surface upon which to do it. Lossa nicely paved roads seems to be a useful precursor. That means being in a rich country.

There are cultural issues as well. I’ve heard – somewhere or other – that Eritrea hsa a significant road racing scene as a result of the Italian colonial influence.

But still – a useful starting point is that it’s necessary to have 100 miles of paved road before it’s possible to have a 100 mile road race.

Then there’s that physical issue. Now this is just me gobbing off, not speaking from any position of knowledge. But it’s certainly possible that the gene sets which make West Africans bad swimmers and excellent short distance sprinters could have an influence on certain types of cycling. Dunno, kirin maybe, or track sprints, or that one where they start really slow on opposite sides of the track etc. Similarly, we might think that East African (and altitude upbringing) gene sets which lead to long distance running success might be usefully applied to 100 mile road races. It’s even possible to go one step further into real speculation and think that Indios raised at 12 and 14 thousand feet might do well in sprinting up Alps. You know, speculation.

To be crude about it, as the black world gets rich it’s entirely possible to think that those – varied, as above associated with but not actually determined by skin colours – gene sets might lead to conwuering cycling. As has happened with sprinting and long distance running of course. Though I do think that the real irruption in mountains is going to come when the Incas discover the wheel.

Anyway, such speculation aside. I don;t think that it’s cultural issues at all. It’s money. Cycling is just one of those things that – for the sport, not the replacement for Shank’s Pony – thrives in a rich society. Because, d’ye see, roads?

Golfers defy 17 million-to-one odds with back-to-back holes in one

Not really.

Two golfing friends have defied odds of 17 million to one by achieving the sport’s holy grail of a hole in one in consecutive shots.

Steve Wilmshurst, who is 58, and his 70-year-old playing partner Liam Nairn achieved the extraordinary feat on Monday while playing the 16th hole at the Studley Wood Golf Club in Oxfordshire.

Wilmshurst and Nairn were playing as part of a foursome and the National Hole-In-One Registry quotes the odds of two players achieving that feat on the same hole as 17 million to 1. An individual player is quoted at 12,000 to one to make a hole in one.

The odds, at the start, of two consecutive shots being a hole in one would be 12,000×12,000. One in 144 million.

But, well, some holes might get a hole in one, others definitely won’t. So, conditional one the first one going in the second is more likely – it’s possible to do a hole in one on this hole that is.

17 million to one sounds weird though.

And of course, once the first one went in then the odds of the second doing so are one in 12,000.

If only we still had that yacht floating around to explain this to us…..

“Our findings suggest that there is something about playing sport, even though a person may experience concussion, that may be beneficial for long-term cognitive outcomes,” Dr Matt Lennon, a researcher at the University of New South Wales, said. “While it may be that those who play sports have had access to better education and more resources, we controlled for these factors in the analysis, so that doesn’t explain the result. We hypothesise that there may be physical, social and long-term behavioural effects of sport that may make for healthier adults in late life.”

This is headed by the weird line:

Oxford and Harvard study finds no link between amateur concussions and long-term cognitive decline

Which isn’t what they found at all. The suggestion is that having played sport competitively, if amateurlyly, provides a long term health benefit to cognition greater than whatever damage might be done by a few low-end head knocks.

Which is not all that amazin’ a findin’. Interestin’, but not wholly amazin’.

A Scotland-born transgender golfer has come through qualifying to stand only two steps from becoming a member of the LPGA Tour, a scenario that one former professional on the women’s biggest circuit has labelled “unfair”.

That is, have we already institutionalised the pohysical sex differences into the rules of the game?

Super-rich spending up to $500,000 on exclusive Paris Olympics packages

As any fule kno going to Paris in August is a terrible waste of time and money. Therefore this is a great method of increasing equality. The rich will have $500k less, others will have $500 k a more and nothing of value will have changed hands to make it so.

Sounds like a plan, eh?

By the end of the conversation, my anger and incredulity at how Everton was being run was balanced by a touch of sympathy for Moshiri. He cuts a tragic Premier League figure. To use a well-known Liverpool phrase, he has ‘had his kecks pulled down’ by the football industry. His intentions when buying Everton were noble, but the evidence suggests he has been used as a cash cow by agents and players.

To end up with a wage bill that is 92 percent of the club’s turnover – and having nothing to show for it – proves he has been taken to the cleaners.

That’s the sort of thing that happens in a sports business with relegation and promotion. All the money goes to the players.

Of course, Spud managed to get this entirely the wrong way around but then that’s normal, right?

Billy Vunipola was tasered twice by police officers while being arrested at a bar in Majorca.

The incident took place in a bar called Epic in Palma, with Vunipola taking off his shirt and threatening customers and employees with bottles and chairs, according to local reports.

Vunipola, who is 6ft 2in and weighs more than 20 stone, required a second taser volt in order to be handcuffed by police officers at around 4.30am on Sunday morning, before later being taken to nearby Son Espases Hospital where he was reportedly sedated and bound to his bed.

In association football this sort of thing is devolved to the supporters. In rugby it’s the players themselves……no delegation, see?

If you have wondered why your partner always beats you at tennis or one child always crushes the other at Fortnite, it seems there is more to it than pure physical ability.

Some people are effectively able to see more “images per second” than others, research suggests, meaning they’re innately better at spotting or tracking fast-moving objects such as tennis balls.

Thought that was obvious? In my very few childish attempts at cricket I simply couldn;t see the ball. At lesat, not in the same sense as – obviously – some others could.

I also recall a test batsman being asked how he was so good at dealing with spin – “Well, you can see the spin as it leaves the bowlers’ hand!” Something entirely obvious to him and not to mere mortals.

Yes, yes, people talk about reaction times but that’s not wholly it. Being able to see what will happen earlier is a part of it at least.

As so often, science tells us something we already knew, merely formalises it.

James Anderson’s 700 wickets: ‘You would not expect a player to improve as they get older’

There is the physique, which declines as time goes on. Which bit at which time depends. Flat out speed perhaps from 18 or so onwards. Upper body strength from maybe 28 onwards (don’t take those ages as being accurate, mere examples).

OK, then there’s also expertise, skill, which is something we’d expect to rise with age – doin’ stuff tends to make you better at doin’ stuff.

Peak athletic performance is at the optimal point of those two curves, curves which move in opposite directions over time. You mature into the skill of the thing as the body starts its decay.

Rugby wings peak in their late 20s perhaps, rugby props in their mid 30s. That sort of thing.

The Six Nations has abolished a long-standing tradition of forcing home teams to wear their alternate strips in instances of kit clashes during this year’s championship.

The onus in the Six Nations – and the Five Nations before it – had traditionally been on the home side to change their jerseys in the event of a clash but Telegraph Sport understands that the protocol, which has existed for over 75 years, was reversed ahead of this year’s Six Nations as part of wider plans to modernise the championship.

Sure, it’s different, by why is it modern? Someone’s got to change and the allocation of who it is is neither modern nor archaic.

Twats.

Strip out the bit about “our fans”, whose wishes have been ignored for the best part of 18 years, and the essence of the strategic review was laid bare: a money grab, designed not to “enhance the club’s future growth” but to swell the bank balance of six siblings in Florida. Bottom line over scoreline, as some staff at United describe the Glazer era. It was ever thus.

The Glazers are due to pocket over £500 million from the sale of a 25 per cent stake in United to the Ineos billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, with the other half of the £1.03 billion purchase price going to other shareholders.

Put another way, that is a similar figure to the debt burden that was loaded on to the club when the Americans completed their hostile takeover in 2005, and which has remained largely unchanged ever since.

It’s a business. And?

England have the best nine and ten in Europe – it’s time to rejoice

Umm, I know that folk think we did well to reach the semi but that’s larding it on a bit isn’t i…….ah, some other, less important, sport.

Both we and Argentina are gonna get creamed. We’ve been flattered, a lot, by the draw.

So, guesses on the only match now in doubt?

Seriously, we’d need two red cards for them to have a chance, right?

One Northern Hemisphere team into the semis. Skin, teeth and all that but made it.

Definitely made a bad fist of the handicapping though. Seems obvious to me that favourites 1-4 (without trying to rank them) all ended up in the same 2 quarters, at 5 through 8 – to be slightly polite – ended up in the other two.

So, little pocket om the back of a rugby shirt. What is it in that little pocket. Over the spine?

So, which world cup match had the cross of St George on both flags?

And I can think of at least one more likely one. Any others?

But one of the big differences from 20 years back is that second and third ranking teams (tho’ Fiji ain’t that any more, snigger) have kickers who can reliably get 40 metre penalties. That used to be an area where sideline conversions, longish penalties etc, only the top teams had kickers – to the obvious advantage of their ability to keep the scoreboard ticking over.

Well done and all that but still a surprise. But a certain amount of Argentina not turning up rather than our boys excelling, no?