In Visitors, I invite one person each week to share perspectives on a sport, a sporting event, sporting aspects or any thing in between. This week, Craig Walsh, a sports fan and cycling enthusiast from Australia, joins us to preview the upcoming Tour de France. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Craig Walsh

On July 1, the world’s biggest and well known bike race begins in the French town of Strasbourg, near the France-Germany border, without its biggest protagonist. Seven times winner Lance Armstrong is absent due to his retirement from professional cycling at the end of last year’s race. He will be there though, but in one of the team cars giving advice and support (he is still technically under contract till the end of the year) to his team-mates who begin life for the first time in 7 years without him.

Instead for the first since 1999, we will begin without a defending champion, the 1997 winner Jan Ullrich was absent to injury, and the late Marco Pantini the winner of the 1998 winner was absent due to having too high of blood haematocrit level after being disqualified in that year’s Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy). Ullrich will begin the Tour as the only current rider in the bunch, who has won the Tour, and this represents his biggest chance since, and it could be his last serious chance. At 32 and in his final year of his big contract with his German team T-Mobile, he will be motivated to do win the only his second Tour. He was second in 1996 (his debut Tour), 1998, 2000, 2001, 2003, fourth in 2004, and third in 2005.

Ivan Basso of Team CSC has been in great pre-Tour form, winning the Giro d’Italia (Tour of Italy) in such dominating fashion, by over 9 minutes to his nearest challenger, and winning three stages along the way. He also won some smaller stage races earlier this season. Basso has shown such pedigree in the race before, finishing 2nd last year, 3rd in 2004 and winning a stage, 7th in 2003, 11th in 2002 and the best young rider competition, before crashing out and breaking a wrist whilst in a break and being forced to abandon in 2001, his debut year. With such progress shown, one would think this year since has been in red hot form will be his year and so therefore starts as the other favourite. His team boss Bjarne Riis of Denmark was a former winner back in 1996 and was a team-mate of Ullrich.

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This fortnight’s quiz is conducted by Arnab da, one of the best bloggers from India. Do e-mail the answers at pratyushkhaitan@gmail.com within the next 10 days even if you don’t know most answers as the fun is in the quizzing itself. Results to be announced on 7th July.

1. The story goes that XXX made a bet with his team captain about whether he would win a certain match. If he won, his prize would be a alligator skin suitcase. Who is Mr XXX?

2.

The person? And what is going on here?

3. The movie “Khuda Gawaah” opens with a sequence in which a certain sport is being played. Name the sport.

4. About whom was it said: “A call for a run from him should be considered nothing more than a basis for negotiation”.

5. One of his many claims to fame was taking the wicket of W G Grace—a feat which he commemorated with a poem. Who am I referring to?

6. Who was the first German-born person to win Wimbledon?

7. What connects Indian cricketer Sudhir Naik to Senegalese footballer Khalilou Fadiga
[Note: Earlier this question showed Senhalese instead of Senegalese which was an error. If you have already sent in your answers, you can send in a changed answer if you were misdirected]

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Any one who thought that this world cup would be played in good spirits would have realised the reality of things in the Australia-Croatia match. Football is fun. Football means a super carnival atmosphere. Football is also pretty rough, especially when matches are close, more often than not.

One word to describe the early part of the Portugal-Holland game would be intense with high quality football being played. The Maniche goal meant that Portugal had the early advantage. Then, we had the many brawling incidents of course. For Portugal, it was extremely stupid of Figo to go for the head-butt as losing another man and so a 9 vs 11 would have meant suicide.

I thought Holland shouldn’t have got involved in the brawls as it meant, above other things, a lot of time wasted which cost Holland as they were already 0-1 down. In the actual match, Holland missed some easy chances and were unlucky in other times. The two goal keepers must be commended for making some astonishing saves which were very much significant in causing a lot of tension to every one.

With each match, as the world cup script unfolds - one match at a time, the anticipation and the thrill keeps increasing. While all this happens, we keep falling in love all over again with the great tournament.

Without any ado..

• Wallpapers you don’t want for your desktop.

• Will Luke watches Tendulkar bat.

• Norway to bid for 2018.

• The Indian in Badwater.

• Unsoccer.

• Greatbong: The devil dares dada (Saurav Ganguly).

• Complete Sports: ESPN montage video.

• Spanish cyclists quit.

• Every thing Sports: When are the French newspapers going to stop?

• Grab bag.

Is there any thing you would like featured in next week’s Decalink? Mail me then.

While the 100 metre world record battle is being followed, there is another less glamarous event where the world record is being broken and reclaimed - women’s hammer throwing.

CNN Reports:

Russia’s Tatiana Lysenko reclaimed the world record in the hammer throwing 77.41 meters at the Znamensky memorial international athletics meeting in Russia on Saturday…

Lysenko had previously held the record of 77.06m which she set in Moscow last July. Romania’s Mihaela Melinte previously dominated bettering the mark three times between 1998 and 2005.

The rivalry between Lysenko and Khanafeyeva is expected to continue during the European championships in Gothenburg, Sweden from August 6-13.

Hammer throwing as a sport has a fascinating history. Hammerthrow.com traces it:

Legends trace it to the Tailteann games held in Tara, Ireland, about 2000 D.C., and tell of the Celtic hero Cuchulainn who gripped a chariot wheel by its axle, whirled it around his head, and threw it father than did any other mortal. Wheel hurling was later replaced by throwing a boulder attached to the end of a wooden handle. Among the ancient Teutonic tribes forms on hammer throwing were practiced at religious festivals honoring the God Thor.

In school, each person used to enter into 4-5 events for the intra-school event. So I did put my name in for hammer throwing a few times as well. In case you are wondering, I never won an arm wrestling match - let alone a hammer throwing contest.

Maybe I should just stick to watching the world cup!

What separates an immensely talented team from a possibly great team? Coming out of tough situations with genius which is impossible to counter. It was written all over the 24 pass goal. It was also written over the Maxi Rodriguez goal.

BBC Live commentary described it thus moments after it happened:

What a goal! Maxi Rodriguez chests down Juan Pablo Sorin’s cross-field pass and lashes in a left-foot shot on the volley that arrows into the top corner.

Sanchez fumed at the defenders but I don’t think much could be done - impressive pass and astonishing finishing. The goal was much more important than the 24 pass goal in the context of the world cup as had it not occured, a strong favourite for the tournament could have exited early.

The Mexican team kept on attacking whenever it could, which coupled with their defense, set up an exciting match. There were if’s and but’s of course - Heinze could have easily been red carded which would have made things much more interesting. In injury time during normal play, the Argentine goal was disallowed when it wasn’t offside.

You have to keep on winning. There can be no excuses in the end. Argentina didn’t need any. Bravo!

Following Complete Sport’s picks, here are mine:

Picks in bold.

Second Round

Germany vs Sweden
Argentina vs Mexico
Italy vs Australia
Switzerland vs Ukraine
England vs Ecuador
Portugal vs The Netherlands
Brazil vs Ghana
Spain vs France

Last Eight

Germany vs Argentina
Italy vs Ukraine
Ecuador vs The Netherlands
Brazil vs France

Semifinals

Argentina vs Ukraine
The Netherlands vs Brazil

Dream Finals

Brazil vs Argentina

I have picked a few upsets but I have Brazil winning over Argentina in the finals.

Now, what are your picks?

Ronaldo has improve miraclously from the sluggishness of the first two matches. So much so, he can now take on any man or animal.

Every one - beware of the great fat man.

You guys are good! I didn’t expect any one to answer more than 7…

The results of Sports Quiz 2:

Best Performances (out of 10)

Nirav Mehta 9
Rahul Lath 9
Mayank Singhania 8
Atul V.Nath 7

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The Australians haven’t had it easy. 1-0 down first and then 2-1 down. It has been a ride so which the Australians will not forget for a long, long time.

Graham talks about the emotions during qualifying in the Australian interview:

This time, we held our own in Uruguay and had a stellar second round in Australia, managing to get through on penalties. Cue a huge party. Everyone loves it, even some of the oval ball fans, and it’s great. If we do well, thesport will really take off here.

Emotions? I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s overtaken the whole country. Everyone’s buying the jerseys. Everyone’s talking about it in the newspapers and on the street. It actually took a few days for the realisation to set in.

If you ever get a chance to watch a video of the Australia-Uruguay game in Sydney, watch it - you’ll see the emotion in the fans, the players and even in the commentators, who were close to tears. It’s an experience I will never forget. It was a pretty entertaining game too - a real cliffhanger.

It seemed that the party will be short lived when Japan was allowed a goal which shouldn’t have been. The Aussies have missed the previous world cups in the last moment and so, now that they were in the world cup, this opportunity would not be allowed to slip without a fight - and fight they did! Three goals within moments meant the hopes of qualifying to round 2 were alive.

The game versus Croatia was a scramble and by the end, every thing went crazy. It appeared more of a rugby match than a football match. Even the referee Graham Poll got caught in the excitement. He forgot to send off Simunic when he was yellow carded the second time. Then, he yellow carded him a third time.

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