Armstrong you don't deserve to compete

Apologies for the lateness of this post, I had exams I was pretending to revise for. I know it's a week late but it is big news I need to rant about.

A few weeks ago we saw Lance Armstrong trying to save what little dignity he has left on international television on a sofa next to Oprah Winfrey, the aim of this wasn't to give the public info on how he cheated; instead it was a pathetic excuse for an apology so he can compete in Triathlon.

I find it disgusting that throughout the interview Armstrong showed no remorse for those cyclists trying to win clean, and gave little thought as to the cloud he has left hovering over the sport of cycling.

The 7 time cheat remained insistent throughout the interview that everyone else was taking the disgusting decision to dope, however he still won't name any names and refuses to give any evidence on the matter: That doesn't scream liar at all does it?

The truth is Armstrong has no right to walk the streets freely, let alone compete, throughout his career he made money through sponsorship that he had no right to, he won several lawsuits against media outlets that purported to the fact he never won honestly by any definition that is fraud and it is a wonder he hasn't been arrested yet.

I do feel that this is partly due to western legal systems that cannot prosecute anyone who is moderately famous even if there is no evidence to suggest their innocence: take Harry Redknapp for example who obviously is guilty of tax avoidance but still got through with no punishment whatsoever.

But I digress: Armstrong is a disgusting cheat who should be in an orange jumpsuit behind bars, not trying to compete against the world's best triathletes such as the Brownlee Brothers and Javier Gomez.

Don't take away the Modern Pentathlon

In September the IOC will decide on a new sport to enter the Olympic program for 2020, and in doing so, will decide upon a sport to exit the schedule of the greatest sporting event on earth.

And sadly, current speculation suggests that the unlucky sport will be none other than the Modern Pentathlon, the brainchild of Pierre de Coubertin, the man accredited with reviving the Olympics from their ancient roots.

I personally feel that to lose the modern pentathlon from the games would be to remove the soul from the Olympic games. The victor of the Modern Pentathlon isn't just the best athlete in many disciplines of the same sport like the Heptathlon on Omnium, they are the best all round athlete in the world in all sports, it follows the ideal of a soldier with the skills to carry a message using the skills of Shooting, Fencing, Swimming, Horse Riding and Running.

The argument for removing Modern Pentathlon from the Olympics is that it lacks a following outside of Eastern Europe. I would not deny this fact however I would point out that the 23,000 seat stadium at Greenwich park was full to the rafters during the London Olympics. I think if more attention was given to the sport, people would flock in their thousands to see stars like Samantha Murray and Laura Asadauskaite.

The sport's governing body, the UIPM has offered a way of squeezing all 5 disciplines into one stadium; the idea has pros and cons: it includes a difficult to see fencing piste and a wasteful pool that would only be used for a few races, however it does offer an improved, less distracting format for the fencing and a more exciting running portion held on a 400m track.

In conclusion the IOC has a responsibility to keep the Modern Pentathlon in the Olympics, if only to prevent Baron de Coubertin from rolling in his grave although the UIPM needs to carry its weight and raise the sport's profile before it's too late.

Why the Paralympic grassroots stats are wrong

On Friday, the Sport and Recreation Alliance revealed results of a study which suggest that participation in Paralympic grassroots sport has barely risen since the London Paralympic games. But if this study is accurate, why haven’t we seen an increase in disability sport?

This study has been dismissed by the chief executive of the British Paralympic Association, Tim Hollingsworth who said "There is still a long way to go, but just four months on from the Games it's wrong to suggest nothing has changed."

I think it is worth pointing out that immediately following the close of the Paralympics the weather took a turn for the worse and we had enough rain to make 2012 the second wettest year on record in the UK, only surpassed by 2000.

To me it seems incredibly unlikely that people would start taking up sport in such disgusting, and I struggle to imagine that many disabled people, who are often made vulnerable by their impairments, would want to take up a new sport.

I would also note that many of clubs surveyed may not advertise the fact that they facilitate to disabled participants and in fact the study reported that only 24% of the sports clubs that were used to compile the data had all of the required facilities to cater to participants of Para-sport, a figure which completely disproves the findings of the report

Overall I struggle to believe the findings of this study, it was created much too hastily and didn't even survey clubs that will accept disabled athletes, in July I think we will start to see the real legacy of the Paralympics when it comes to grassroots sport, but for now the only legacy we can measure is how life for disabled people has improved since the world was stunned at the achievements of Paraltmpians in the Summer of 2012.

Why Splash was a massive flop

Rather than my usual ranting about the world of sport, in this post I will be taking the role of TV critic and evaluating everything that is wrong with Tom Daley’s new TV show Splash.

I had very low expectations for this show and it still managed to fall well below them.

My first problem with the show is the title and the tagline, “Who can make the most Splash?” both of which go against the main aim of diving; to create as little splash as possible.

The show itself will not benefit Tom Daley in any way shape or form; He is wasting his time teaching D-List celebrities to do the most basic dives meanwhile his fellow Olympic medallists David Boudia and Qiu Bo are training every day, both of whom will undoubtedly beat him in Rio, just as they did in London. When Tom Daley doesn’t reach the Olympic podium in 2016, Splash will be Exhibit A as to why.

I’m not the type of person who would normally criticise an Olympian for making media appearances, I love to see the world’s finest athletes appear A Question of Sport or A League of Their Own but Tom Daley has let the fame get to his head by letting a show to be centred on the athlete.

I am fine with recently retired athletes like Victoria Pendleton and Beth Tweddle taking part in shows like Strictly Come Dancing and Dancing on Ice as they no longer need to worry about training and considering Louis Smith’s prospects of competing in Rio are slim I was happy to see him lift the strictly glitter ball.

Ignoring all of the above, the show fails as basic entertainment: figure skating and ballroom dancing have been developed as performance arts whereas diving is just a sport, which is not improved by ridiculous strip teases and five minutes of build up.

The hosts, Gabby Logan and Vernon Kay, knew very little about what they were presenting. Not to mention having a comedienne to judge a diving contest, there was little consensus in the scores given and Leon Taylor kept looking into the camera when giving his comments.

In 10 years time when we reflect on awful TV from the 21^st century this will be high up on the list of “That show was ridiculous!”

In conclusion, this show is cringe-worthy, inaccurate way for ITV to extort money from weak-minded viewers through the medium of televoting.

Top 5 sportspeople of 2012

Well it's New Year's Eve (I need to get a life) and we are forced to wave goodbye to the glorious year of sport that was 2012. We were treated to a summer showcasing the pinnacle of human achievement. In this post I will be reliving the most amazing displays of ability that we saw over the past 366 days.

5. Mo Farah

The first ever Briton to win an Olympic gold medal in distance running, he managed to do the distance double by becoming Olympic Champion in both the 10,000m and the 5,000m. His victories were the crowning glory of 'Super Saturday' and united an entire nation in a state of euphoria. Because of this he is my number 5 on my list of 2012 sportspeople.

4. Serena Williams
This year the face of women's tennis finally achieved a career grand slam by winning an Olympic gold medal, as well as the Wimbledon and US Open championships. She cemented her title as the best female tennis player in the golden era of tennis. 

3. Michael Phelps
The greatest swimmer of all time stole Larissa Latynina's title of greatest Olympian of all time by bringing his Olympic medal total up to 22, 18 of them gold. His year wasn't without  surprises; he was beaten to gold in the 200m Butterfly by a young Chad le Clos from South Africa. He also had stiff competition from his compatriot Ryan Lochte and all of the USA 4x100m relay team was beaten by France. His entertaining races have earned him the third spot on my list.

2. Usain Bolt
Before the London Olympics doubts were raised over the sprint king's ability to win the blue riband event of  track and field after his training partner, Yohan Blake, beat him in the Jamaican national championships as well as Bolt's false start in Daegu at the world championships in 2011. However the big man pulled out the stops and won gold in the 100m, 200m and 4x100m becoming the first man in history to do the sprint double triple which earned him as my 2nd favourite sportsperson of 2012.

1. Bradley Wiggins
The first ever Brit to win the Tour de France. After winning one of the World's most gruelling sport events, he still had the energy to act as a domestique for Mark Cavendish in the Olympic Road Race and still had enough in the tank to win gold in the Olympic time trial. He was also elevated to third place at the 2009 Tour de France. After becoming the only man in history to win an Olympic Gold as well as the Tour, he became my favourite athlete of 2012.

This list is based on achievement rather than personality, athletes like Jessica Ennis would be on here but I decided to base it on their achievement rather than the effect their medal had (Jess' gold was my favourite of the London games).

Don't moan about the honours

The other day the 2013 New Year's Honours were announced and unsurprisingly the list was dominated by Olympians and to a lesser extent, Paralympians. However many people both members of the public and Paralympic athletes have been complaining about the honours that the "superhumans" have received.

The honours list most notably includes knighthoods for the sideburned Tour de France winner Bradley Wiggins, as well as 4-time Olympic Champion Ben Ainslie. Paralympic cyclist Sarah Storey was appointed a dame while the performance directors of both British Cycling and Rowing were awarded the title of ‘sir’.

However many people were surprised to find out that David Weir was only awarded a CBE despite winning 4 gold medals earlier this year. Weir himself has tweeted that he is “extremely happy to have been given a CBE...” although has said that Paralympians must work harder than Olympians for recognition, which he later clarified on Twitter as a reference to the fact that Sarah Storey only received a Damehood now when “she should have been honoured a long time ago because of her achievements in Paralympic sport...”

I agree with Dave on this matter, Paralympic sport stars struggle to get the attention qnd recognition they deserve even in the run up to the 2012 Games, the biggest event in Para-sport history.

Some however cannot be as gracious Weir; Lee Pearson, the face of Paralympic equestrian told the Independent on Sunday that he was disappointed to receive a CBE rather than a knighthood. This really saddens me to see that he cannot be happy with what he has and must be criticising the fact that he hasn’t been awarded higher.

Let’s face it, 2012 wasn’t even Lee Pearson’s best year, although he won gold in Greenwich it was a poor performance from the rider who won three Paralympic titles at each of the three preceding Paralympics, and yet he still expects to be raised from an OBE to a knight.

Given this arrogance I would hesitate to award him a knighthood, even if he did manage to win three gold medals at the 2016 Olympics.

Overall I think that we do need to start treating both our Olympic and Paralympic athletes with equal respect although I think that anyone should moan about the prestigious titles they have been awarded, especially considering that there is only one MBE between all of the code breakers of Bletchley Park, without whom we wouldn’t have a nation to compete for.

Are the European Games going to be so great?

Today at the European Olympic Committees (EOC) General Assembly it was announced that the first European Games will take place in Baku, Azerbaijan (which isn't in Europe) as it was the only bid city.

The idea of the games is to promote European success in the Olympics which has been on decline all around the continent with the exception of Britain, which has the Commonwealth games for its athletes to prepare.

I have been wanting a European equivalent of the Pan American Games for years; a continental multi-sport event will provide an opportunity for cities that wouldn't normally host something like this to host a big sporting event.

In the case of Baku, they can gain experience for future Olympic bids from hosting a city, which will ultimately result in more new Olympic hosts.

Baku has the potential to be an incredible host; the oil rich nation planned and constructed a purpose built arena for the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest in less than a year. Although the existing venues in Baku tops out at 2 arenas and a stadium under construction.

Political tensions over the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic mean that we can almost immediately rule out the possibility of seeing an Armenian representation; as the people of Armenia are banned from entering Azerbaijan.

I fear that the inaugural European Games are going to lack one of the keys to any multi-sport event: Athletics. The European Athletics Association (EAA) voted against taking part in the competition instead opting to keep their biennial competition which fails to gain much publicity in Olympic years.

Although it should be noted that the EOC believe that the EAA will eventually give in, although another competition in the year of the World Championships may not get the all star names that would be hoped for.

LEN, the European Aquatics governing body are still in talks with the EOC, potentially leaving out another staple of the Olympic programme.

I hope that if these games take off, a Paralympic counterpart will be introduced to get more attention for Para-sport.

Baku really have their work cut out, they need to host a fairly large competition with only 2 and half years of preparation and whatever happens in 2015 will affect the survival of this competition. I really hope that athletics and aquatics play a part in the games or it will all be in vain.