Wikipedia has more on the annual highlight of the the sport:

The World Rowing Championships is an international rowing regatta organised by FISA (the International Rowing Federation). It is a week long event held at the end of the summer and in non-Olympic years is the highlight of the international rowing calendar.

You can find all the results from this page of official website. The highlight of the championship was Fan Xuefei. Who? Why? Shanghai Daily has the answer:

CHINESE rower Fan Xuefei etched her name in history as the youngest ever world (rower) champion on Sunday when she and her fellow crew members won the gold in the lightweight women’s quad sculls. The quartet of Fan, Yu Hua, Chen Haixia and Liu Jing won the gold medal in a new world best time of 6 minutes 23.96 seconds.

There are reviews in various newspapers on other countries as well like: Australia, Canada and England. No news on India’s performance yet, if they did take part that is.

In case you are wondering, regarding the young guns sport has seen, wikipedia has a list of young people in various fields and not just sports. Some from the field of sports are:

* Andrew Bynum - Youngest NBA player
* Naim Süleymanoğlu - Youngest Weightlifting Record Breaker
* Mike Tyson - Youngest Champion in Heavyweight boxing
* Norman Whiteside - Youngest player in World Cup Soccer

You can keep adding several people to that list but if you are wondering who the youngest world champion ever in any sport is, Fu Mingxia is the answer to the best of my knowledge.

How old (or should we say young) was she when he became world champion? 12 - the age you were probably playing with your He-man or Barbie dolls depending upon your gender.

Except the huge basketball fans (like me) or sport nuts (again, like me), not many will be interested in the 2006 World Basketball Championship which is taking place right now. Given that USA hasn’t won on the previous two occassions, they want to give a strong performance this time. They took a much more solid team to meet this end as well.

The favourites, as far as I am concerned, are Argentina. They have always performed well at international basketball events. In the recent history, they have won the gold at Athens and came second to Yugoslavia in the World Basketball Championships in 2002. The Argentinean team works well together but more importantly, they are more adept to playing the international basketball rules play (which is quite different from the NBA rules).

As far as this championship is concerned, the big plus for Argentina is Manu Ginobili returning for them. Ginobili has some thing to prove too via the tournament as Draft Express wrote in their preview:

The tournament will be a great opportunity for Ginobili to show the world that he can be a legit go-to guy without the presence of a player in the mould of Tim Duncan.

The tournament will soon enter it’s knock out stages soon (August 26th) and a Spain-Argentina semi final clash and possibly Greece vs. US in the other semi final makes it interesting.

Whom am I supporting? The burger guys of course. The rise continues with a round of 16 spot secured. They face Argentina next and I can see Manu Ginobili is scared to death already.

Sport brings the society together and bridges differences. This story from villages of south Indian state Tamil Nadu reiterates the same. From NDTV:

A unique initiative to encourage traditional games like Volley Ball in villages is paying rich dividends in rural Tamil Nadu.

Besides an increased awareness on physical fitness, these teams have actually helped in establishing friendly relations even among warring communities…

…over a thousand village teams have been formed across nine districts. Now, the two-day Rural Rejuvenation camp in Salem district was an opportunity for over 2 lakh villagers to display their sporting skills and camaraderie.

For a few moments, you don’t differentiate on the basis of race, religion and suchlike. Even harsh truths like poverty is forgotten when people play sport.

Update: On a different note, I notice that people can create blogs on the NDTV site just like people can on blogger or wordpress. Main stream media has often linked to blogs (Eg: the NY Times site). They have even had a select group of people blogging including journalists (CNN-IBN) but I am not sure if this is a first. Not surprisingly, most of the sport posts are on cricket.

With MSM giving blogs space, awareness will increase. Blogging in India is bound to grow at a very fast rate in the near future.

Sebastien Loeb is to rallying what Michael Schumacher is to F1. The guy keeps breaking records faster than you can keep track of them. Wikipedia attests to this as well:

In 2004, Loeb dominated the WRC-scene in a similar way to the Michael Schumacher domination of Formula One from 2000 to 2004, by winning six events and earning many podium finishes in other events to securely give him the driver’s title. He was also responsible for Citroën’s second manufacturer’s title in a row…

In 2005, with victory in the 9th round (Argentinian Rally), Loeb became the first to win six consecutive rallies, and the first to win seven in a season, having already won the opening Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo . He was in a position to clinch the title while leading Wales Rally Great Britain, but after it was announced that the last two stages of the rally would be abandoned due to the death of Michael Park in an accident on stage 15, Loeb deliberately incurred a two minute penalty to drop him to third place and avoid retaining his title in such circumstances.

Now, Loeb has added another prestigious record to his kitty. With his latest rally victory, he has equalled the record of the recently retired Carlos Sainz with 26 career wins. With 81 points, he leads this year’s championship as well by 33 points over second placed Marcus Gronholm. Another championship will be added soon then.

The best thing about rallying is the variability for me. A bit more on this from wikipedia:

Rally is also unique in its choice of where and when to race. Rallies take place on all surfaces and in all conditions: asphalt (tarmac), gravel, or snow and ice, sometimes more than one in a single rally, depending on the course and event. Rallies are also run every month of the year, in every climate, bitter cold to monsoon rain. This contributes to the notion of top rally drivers as some of the best car control experts in the world. As a result of the drivers not knowing exactly what lies ahead, the lower traction available on dirt roads, and the driving characteristics of small cars, the drivers are much less visibly smooth than circuit racers, regularly sending the car literally flying over bumps, and sliding the cars out of corners.

I love dynamism in sport. For, it is always interesting to see how some one fairs in the different ways in which a sport challenges. It means that a sports person has to adapt to various conditions and circumstances to eventually become a champion as well.

The adaptability has to come not only courtesy the skill you possess but also by using the head. The mind, after all, is a key ingredient for success at top level sport. So, a Michael Schumacher and his Ferrari team has to know exactly when to cahnge tyres and what to do if it rains during lap x, keeping in mind the position of Michael Schumacher and the other drivers.

Challenges come. You over come them. You become a champion.

Shuttlecocks are getting thinner as a direct impact of bird flu? [Thanks Sakshi]

Scarcity means increase in prices but also lowering in standards and that is evident. Every thing is connected and this is one more case of the same.

Barry bonds is in the news again. I didn’t care. Neither do you I am sure. The reason is not because you may not be an American and thus not interested in a lot of what goes on in US sports. Even Americans don’t care as this poll shows. [Via Blogcritics]

The Barry Bonds don’t care maybe due to the constant over coverage in the media during his home run chase. Each time Bonds hit a home run, ESPN cut regular programming to cover it. The result was that people went numb when they heard the words Barry Bonds. The senses system told them - shut every thing or your brains will burst.

We saw some thing similar in India not long ago during the Ganguly-Chappell controversy. First, people were either in favour of Ganguly or Chappell. The issue dragged and the media dragged it along. By the end, people didn’t care any more. They just wanted to hear no more of the Ganguly-Chappell issue. Tendulkar is back once again in the Indian team. Got the don’t care feeling? I guessed so.

Constant repitition maybe cause this numbness. For example, how many of you got excited when Roger Federer won Wimbledon again this year? Even against a promising Nadal, most people new Federer had little chance of losing. Had the opponent in the final been some one else, the Wimbledon final would have recieved much lower television ratings. The don’t care phenomena would have been much more evident.

Some how, flawed geniuses excite us and help us avoid the don’t care phenomena. So, a Kobe Bryant will never fail to bore us. One day, he scores truck loads of points and we can’t get enough of his talent. The next day, we wonder if he failed. Breaks in successful performances avoids repitions. Would we have got as excited for the second Jordan three peat had he not had the gap to try baseball despite scenario in which he achieved the second three peat very different?

We care about our sports but only that much and no more. For, the don’t care stage isn’t too far off.

Update: Read Ravi Gurnani’s flawed sporting idols here.

The New Zealand basketball team isn’t as widely followed as their rugby team. How many of you would like to back a team which won only against Angola in basketball in the 2000 Olympics?

Wikipedia has more vital information:

The Tall Blacks is the nickname of New Zealand’s national men’s basketball team and not a number of large black coffees. The name was chosen as it reminds people of New Zealand’s Rugby Union team, the All Blacks. For sponsorship reasons, they are often referred to in New Zealand media as the Burger King Tall Blacks.

So with the biggest win versus Australia, tying the on going 4 match series 1-1, the Burger fellas are bound to feel good. The New Zealand domestic league is followed religiously by all of three people but that number is bound to grow as well after this big win.

Whatever happens, I will love the innovation behind the name of the team. All New Zealand teams contain black (All Blacks, Black Caps). Basketball players are tall.

So we will call you the Tall Blacks!

Do check out the Kiwi Hoops and Basketball.org.nz websites for an indepth look into Kiwi basketball. New Zealand basketball is growing and it is evident from New Zealand being the semi finalists in the 2002 Basketball World Championships. Burger King is very pleased.

Update: The tall blacks are 2-1 ahead in the series now with a convincing win in Australia!

Juan Pablo Montoya will switch to Nascar next season as CNN reports:

McLaren’s Juan Pablo Montoya will leave Formula One at the end of this season to drive in NASCAR, reuniting the Colombian with car owner Chip Ganassi, it was announced on Sunday.

Montoya excited a lot of people when he came to F1. After all, he was already a mini star. From Wiki:

While Zanardi had a miserable year in Formula One, Montoya, with Honda power and a great Reynard chassis at his disposal, took the American motorsport scene by storm. He took the 1999 title in his rookie year, something accomplished six years earlier by former Formula One Champion, Nigel Mansell.

The season that saw Montoya crowned as the youngest ever CART FedEx Championship Series Champion at the age of 24 was closely fought, especially with Dario Franchitti who led the championship going into the final race in California. Both drivers finished the season with equal number of points but having won seven races to the Scotsman’s three decided the title in the Colombian’s favor. Montoya’s tally of wins, pole positions and fastest laps meant that he was considered the fastest driver in a series which lacked electronic aids such as traction control, adaptive suspension or automatic gearboxes. However, the CART rookie also attracted criticism - notably from Michael Andretti and his team - for his aggressive style of driving.

For all it is worth, Montoya has had a disappointing F1 career. The style of Montoya’s racing is built on risk taking. While it was criticised by sections in CART as well, he was very much successful. In F1, overtaking doesn’t happen as much while on track. Most of the over taking takes place when some one is having a pit stop. So more than the risk taking, the strategies are crucial.

(more…)

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, Saakshi O. Juneja of To Each It’s Own joins us to give her thoughts on badminton and the state of badminton in India. If you would like to contribute for a future edition of Visitors, do not hesitate to e-mail me.

By Saakshi O. Juneja

I have been labeled as a “Tom-boyish” girl, right from my childhood days. Barely had any interest in sitting at home playing with Barbie look-alikes or fake kitchen sets. I always out there with the boys and (some) girls, getting myself dirty while playing games such as, ‘Hide-n-Seek’, ‘Chor-Police’ and the likes.

I guess the likening for aggressive out-door activities was built in me right from the start and was further encouraged by my family. Both of my older siblings actively participated in sporting activities in school and inter-school levels. My dad in the early 1980s started a sportswear manufacturing unit in Mumbai and went on to establish a well-renowned brand in India, today.

During my younger days, I skipped from one sport to another mainly cause of my constant need of change or maybe I was searching of my ‘The’ sport. I started with Athletics, moved on to swimming and then finally landed on Badminton. And it has remained my favorite sport till this very date.

During the late 80s and early 90s, one can Badminton as a sport was at its peak. At that time I used to play at with my friends and was also enrolled in coaching practice at Juhu Gymkhana. With only 3 badminton courts and around 50 odd kids cribbing to get themselves on them, it used to really difficult for the officials in-charge, to handle the situation at times.

(more…)

If you can’t wait for the World Cup, you should catch the table football world cup live on the official table football site. What is table football? There is wikipedia to tell you a lot on it. Foosball, as it is popularly known in the US is superb to play.

I was fortunate to have a table what now seems ages back. Many hours of fun came courtesy that table. In Friends, Joey and Chandler break open the foosball table when the pet chicken gets inside it. We (my brothers and I) didn’t quite have to do that and I can’t remember where the table disappeared. Must get a new one soon!

Foosball is certainly one game which is far less popular and played far too less than it should.