What a wonderful explosion of sports
Colin EH Croft
Published: Guardian
Sunday, July 12, 2015
What a tremendous smorgasbord of summer sports we are having worldwide. It is as if the world of sports has gone mad, with surprises, upsets, sometimes favourites winning too!
Pan-American Games Toronto 2015, the third time that Canada has hosted the event, started on Friday with a splash of spectacular colour featuring dynamic home group Cirque de Soleil. The road to Rio, Brazil Olympics 2016 passes directly through Toronto, with at least 10 sporting disciplines using these Pan-Am games for qualifications to Rio next year.
Thus, these games, over the next two weeks, take on massive importance and responsibilities. Teams representing a wide spectrum of countries, from Antigua & Barbuda to US Virgin Islands, 40 countries from our regions, plus Canada, will be pulling out all stops to have a good show.
Unbelievably, USA, always a power-house in athletics wherever they compete, turned up in Canada with a team consisting of no less than six hundred athletes, including more than 100 of them certified as “veterans.†They must be very serious. But USA is on a high, with USA women beating Japan women badly last weekend, 5-2. With that wonderful, kaleidoscopic ticker-tape parade also on Friday in New York City, at least one favourite team came through. USA was so much more ready and aware in that final.
The first 17 minutes of that searing game had USA using the direct approach. Japan’s women with an assorted passing game, must have wondered how they could have coped with one of the most dynamic displays ever seen in any football tournament; men’s or women’s.
USA hit the Japanese so fast and hard, they wilted. That third Carli Lloyd goal, a lobbed drive from 50 metres out to beat Japan Women’s goal-keeper, Ayumi Kaihori, must be considered the best international goal ever scored by man or woman, even better than Holland’s Arie Haan’s 30m pile-driver versus (West) Germany in FIFA World Cup Argentina 1978.
President Barack Obama, after enjoying USA performing heroically against Germany in FIFA Brazil 2014 World Cup, even went a step further, proudly suggesting to “our ladies†that they are welcomed at the White House anytime, with FIFA Women’s World Cup Trophy in possession.
By the time you read this, Serena Williams, another American, will probably have completed her “Serena Slamâ€, winning Wimbledon 2015, her fourth Grand-Slam winner’s trophy in succession, after being victorious in the US Open late last year, then Australian and French Opens this year. What a massive upset it would have been if Serena, looking as fit as ever, would have lost to 20th-ranked 21-year old, Garbine Muguruza of Spain, playing in only her first Grand-Slam final.
But if Serena would have won yesterday, then maybe she too will soon visit the White House, eh? Why not? After all, Barack is also on a roll these days too!
But it was the “Old Manâ€, Switzerland’s Roger Federer, 33 next month, who surprised all, pulling off the ultimate upset with a demolition of England’s Andy Murray that no-one saw coming; a magnificent straight sets win 7-5; 7-5; 6-4. Federer served out of this world in that semi-final. Murray was so blown away that Federer beat him worse and with more ease than USA Women beat Japan Women, as Murray looked somewhat disheveled and outpaced.
Today’s final at Wimbledon puts the master of the older generation, Federer, against the brash, elastic, flexible, not yet peaked talent-wise, but at his physical prime, 28 year old Novak Djokovic. How the older man handles the speed of Novak could be the key to victory or defeat. Talking about speed, T&T’s “Soca Warriors†are off to a fantastic flying start in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, comprehensively beating Guatemala impressively 3-1. Somehow, though, T&T took their feet off the gas in the second half. They must keep that sharpness.
Defending champions USA and Mexico are favourites to meet in the final of this year Gold Cup at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but the “Soca Warriors†could pull an upset too if they keep themselves organised. Captain Kenwyne Jones seems to be doing a good job. I like cycling, sometimes using it for fitness, and Florida is now so hot that it seems a curse, but when one sees Tour de France, its spectacular speeds and crashes, the cycling story becomes scary.
Already at least three top contenders, one with the leader’s yellow jersey on; Germany’s Tony Martin, out with a broken collarbone; have withdrawn with only a few days completed. This is a really tough cycle race and there is still yet another two weeks to go to Champs-Elysees in Paris.
But the upset of last week has been England’s cricketers putting themselves into a winning position as this article is being written. At close of Day 3, Australia had two days to get 412 runs to win, or England to get the required 10 Australian wickets to go 1-0 up in the five-Test series.
This is a long, hot summer and sports are coming thick and fast. Enjoy!
