Sports

Alex Dibble on the all new Formula 1 Season…
With a new Formula 1 season beginning on the 14th March in Bahrain, I have been mulling over the latest set of rule changes, and how they will affect the racing. The major difference in 2010 of course will be the refuelling ban – pit stops will only be for tyres. However, my mind was cast back to…

Tom Walker on how the recent Togo assault is just another reminder of an ongoing saga…
The machine gun attack on the Togo football team bus, killing three and wounding two, is the latest miserable day to record in the heavily blemished diary of world sport. Hostility has frequently found its way into the newspapers via sporting events and the genuine possibility that Emmanuel Adebayor, a Premiership…

Tom Brown looks at the winners and losers of the last week in sport…
Lee Westwood’s caddie: for years he had to carry the clubs of a close but no cigar character; now his boss may well be ready to go all the way. He’s yet to win a major, but Westwood has come about as close as you can get, missing out by one shot at this year’s Open. But since that disappointment at Turnberry, Westwood has taken his game to next level, playing some stunning golf to win the Dubai World Championship and with that…

Tom Brown looks back at the winners and losers of the past seven days…
The Haye vs Valuev fight promoters: When some guy called David fights a seven foot giant, the ‘David vs Goliath’ tagline writes itself. And it’s even better for the promoters when the outcome remains the same as David beat Goliath, sorry Nikolay, at the weekend in Nuremberg. Looking at the pre-fight photos, it was easy to feel distinctly worried for the relatively tiny (albeit six foot three) David Haye, as the enormous, 22 stone Valuev towered

Donnchadh O’Conaill considers the public reaction to openly gay sportsmen…
Gay athletes are rare enough that, like a species of tiny prehistoric humanoids or a pair of mating pandas, their discovery constitutes a news item in and of itself. This is regrettable, but it is perhaps not that surprising. To take the most obvious example..

Tom Brown looks at the winners and losers of the past seven days in sport…
Chris Hoy: 33 years old, knighted and four Olympic golds in total. After a career-threatening injury, it’s perhaps difficult to see what Chris Hoy’s motivation to return the top of the cycling world would have been. But whether…

Alex Dibble looks back on Jenson Button’s title-winning campaign and believes next season you should be watching Ferrari, McLaren and Brawn rather than United, Chelsea and Liverpool…
Jenson Button awoke on Monday as the Formula One World Champion – a morning he has longed for since the age of eight. And as surely as the 29 year old will suffocate under press commitments over the next few months, eight year old karters at the top of their own podiums will, as of Sunday, be referred to…

Alex Dibble believes every sports tournament should have defending champions…
Luton Town began this football season as reigning champions of the Johnstone’s Paint Trophy. Yet, by virtue of their relegation from the Football League, they will not be allowed to defend their title, as the competition is restricted to clubs in Leagues One and Two. Without its previous victors however, the Johnstone’s Paint trophy will be stripped of its value in 2009/10. In 2005

Tom Foley analyzes the ramifications of Formula 1’s season of rule changes and scandals
If it ain’t broke…
Firstly, the much maligned KERS (Kinetic Energy Reduction System) was introduced in an attempt to save on energy output by storing some of the car’s energy to use for a later power surge. However, fast-forward four races….

Vicki Sparks finds penalties all too distressing, but is there another solution?
I look at my watch. It’s 4.55pm on a Saturday afternoon and my heart is pounding. Usual for many football fans, you might think, but the season proper hasn’t started yet: I’m at Wembley for the Charity Shield encounter (or pre-season warm-up, as it’s otherwise known) between Chelsea and Manchester United; Wayne Rooney has just equalised, and…

Tom Brown does his best to find some positive news from the dark summer of 2009
Barring one night at Wembley when England took their sweet revenge over Croatia to book their place at next year’s World Cup, the summer of 2009 will not go down as being a particularly memorable one. At least, not for the right reasons.
Crowd trouble, diving, transfer embargos and player misconduct have been taking most of the headlines, but perhaps even worse
Josh Butt argues that the Formula One authorities have been too lenient on Lewis Hamilton’s team…