Advantage or hindrance? Why home comforts can be a burden August 4, 2022 England’s Lionesses surfed a tidal wave of expectation to win the Women’s Euros – a wave that would have engulfed athletes with lesser mental resilience, however great their physical and technical qualities. Who knows whether they would have triumphed had the tournament been overseas? And who cares? It was on English soil with all the [...]
Great Britain and Northern Ireland in strong showing but no gold rush July 25, 2022 If the Great Britain and Northern Ireland performance at the 2022 World Athletics Championships was turned into a secondary school attendance report, the team would have received a C plus. On one hand, the seven medals the team captured in Oregon, United States were the most by a contingent of athletes since 2015 – when [...]
Wightman the latest in a long line of British 1,500m successes July 20, 2022 In the 1950s it was Roger Bannister in the 1,500m; in the 1980s it was Steve Ovett, Sebastian Coe and Steve Cram dominating the global landscape of middle-distance track and field athletics. And this week, in 2022, it’s Jake Wightman, the 28-year-old three-and-three-quarters lap runner who secured gold at the World Athletics Championships in Oregon. [...]
British Athletics on mission to buck trend of mediocre Championships July 14, 2022 Just once has the Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletics team left a World Championships with medals tallying into double figures – at Stuttgart in 1993 – and there’s little hope of a repeat at this year’s edition, which gets underway in Eugene, Oregon, tomorrow evening. Of course there is medal hope – notably in [...]
Fan spending FOUR days on bus to watch World Athletics Championships July 13, 2022 Dedicated fan bases are what sports are built upon; the desire to be there for your team or player and witness any history they make. But would you spend four days on a bus going coast-to-coast for a few days of sporting action? Because that’s just what Jan Figueroa is doing. The 24-year-old Puerto Rico-born [...]
Eyes on Eugene as gamble on host could impact future of World Championships July 7, 2022 Next week, World Athletics will discover whether its bold gamble on the future of the World Championships might just pay off. A boutique venue in the third biggest city in the 27th largest state in the United States is a radical departure from the editions that have gone before. But it’s no coincidence that Eugene, [...]
‘I’m left wondering what price The Hundred franchises could one day fetch’ June 30, 2022 “What does Ed Warner know about tennis?” What indeed? My critique last week of the Lawn Tennis Association’s performance drew this feisty query in the Sport inc. comment section from Tom (no surname provided). It also garnered a response column in Morning Wire from the LTA’s CEO, Scott Lloyd. Both Tom (no surname provided) and [...]
World track and field in need of resurrection ahead of major championships June 27, 2022 The tectonic plates of British athletics shifted at the weekend as favourites fell to underdogs and new records were broken. As Jeremiah Azu and Daryll Neita won 100m British titles, toppled favourites and looked to book spots at this year’s World Championships in Eugene, US, you’d be forgiven for not knowing it was even going [...]
Ed Warner: Wimbledon shows that the Lawn Tennis Association gets too much money June 23, 2022 If you want to know what’s wrong with tennis in Britain, look no further than Wimbledon. Blame the Championships for being such a phenomenal success that they bequeath the Lawn Tennis Association more money each year than it appears to be able to handle effectively, while simultaneously raising the public’s hunger for the LTA to [...]
BBC wins the race for London Marathon broadcast rights for another five years June 20, 2022 The BBC will broadcast the London Marathon for a further five years after extending its long-standing rights agreement with the race’s organisers. The new deal begins with this year’s edition of the 26-mile race, which is due to take place on 2 October, and runs until 2026, marking 45 years of live coverage on the [...]