British race walker Dominic King is aiming to prove he can compete with the world’s best at this summer’s Olympic Games.
King is the only athlete to post the required qualifying time to represent Team GB in London, after recording a personal best of 4:06:34 in Slovakia earlier this year.
That time put the 29-year-old well inside the Olympic ‘B’ standard after he shaved eight minutes of his previous best, as he looks to become the first British competitor in the event since Chris Maddocks at the 2000 Sydney Olympics.
Despite the lack of competition for the solitary spot available, the Colchester Harrier is taking nothing for granted.
“All I can do is keep my fingers crossed that the selectors call me with good news, but the recent events involving Aaron Cook show that nothing is guaranteed," he said.
“They are never going to truly admit the real reasons why they aren’t selecting one individual over another. No matter how much we try to believe that the best competitor will always be selected, it isn’t true.
“Unfortunately, politics do play a part in the team that is selected for major events but those responsible have a hard job and every sport is different.”
It has been a successful year for King, who was part of the ten-strong squad for May’s IAAF Race Walking World Cup in Saransk, Russia.
After a four-year absence from the international scene, King posted his second fastest ever time of 4:13:25 to finish in 51st place, ten spots ahead of twin brother Daniel.
King, who took up race-walking in 1994 after encouragement from club coach Jerry Everett, is aiming to better his seventh place finish in the 2006 Commonwealth Games, and has mixed feelings about potentially ploughing a lone furrow in London.
“It is good to have someone so close trying to follow the same dreams but sometimes it can be hard because they are a rival as well as a friend and training partner," he added.
"While it would have been good for us to compete together again, it eases some of the pressure on me for him not to be there.
"While I am relishing this chance to perform in front of my family and friends, past experiences have taught me a lot.
"I have learnt a big lesson from the 2002 Commonwealth Games when I let the emotions overcome me and went off too fast, and ended up being disqualified. I will make sure that this doesn't happen again."
Goldfinger Bindra gunning for London encore - The Guardian
London's hipsters embrace the original creative, Shakespeare, after rare theater find - msnbc.com
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
The Horse and Groom pub is on the same site as the Curtain, a recently discovered Shakespearean playhouse in London's trendy neighborhood of Shoreditch.
LONDON - The Horse and Groom pub is known as a drinking hole and dancing venue in the heart of London’s edgy Shoreditch.
It is not known as the place where Shakespeare’s ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was first performed more than 400 years ago -- that is, until archeologists discovered the remains of the Curtain theater, an early Elizabethan playhouse.
“It is cool,” said 26-year-old Sophie McKay, a writer and part-time bartender at the pub as she gazed at the patch of pebbled courtyard under which archeologists recently found remnants of the Curtain, built in 1577. “A friend sent me the link and asked, ‘Isn’t this where you work?’ And I said, ‘Yes it is!’”
The Shakespeare fan -- her favorite character is Lady Macbeth -- heard that the entrance to the theater once stood near the Horse and Groom’s own front door. Pre-dating the more famous Globe, on the south bank of the river Thames, the Curtain first performed ‘Henry V’ and housed William Shakespeare’s company -- the Lord Chamberlain’s Men.
Shakespeare's pre-Globe theater unearthed
The remains of the open-air playhouse -- which was covered up again after its discovery -- lies in what was once the home of tanneries, factories, slaughter houses and bombed-out buildings.
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art decorates a wall on Hewitt Street outside the courtyard where archaeologists uncovered the Curtain, the playhouse where Shakespeare's 'Romeo and Juliet' was first performed.
But today it is arguably London’s trendiest district, known for crowded bars, dance clubs, boutiques and experimental restaurants. It's an amalgam of graffiti-covered 1960s buildings, glass-fronted offices and converted Victorian factories, giving it a shabby-chic vibe.
That Shakespeare performed his tales of love, lust, ambition, betrayal and war in a place now inhabited by hipster creative-types makes sense to East London resident Trevor Howe, who was having a drink with photographer Amrita Chandradas, 24, at the Horse and Groom.
Hipsters to the rescue? UK celebrity venue in spat with auto firm Jaguar
“It’s vibrant, alive, exciting,” said the 41-year-old artist and photographer. “It’s always changing, it never stops, there is always something new.”
Howe and Chandradas agreed it was exciting that ‘Romeo and Juliet’ was first performed where they stood -- and upon realizing the tragedy about young love was a favorite of both, they embraced giddily.
Best-preserved Elizabethan theater?
The discovery of the Curtain’s walls and a yard, which came during work on a major regeneration project, is equally exciting for the experts involved in the excavation.
Over six weeks, the World Shakespeare Festival will show all of the Bard's 37 plays, each in a different language, and each by a different international company. Renowned artists and new young companies will celebrate performing Shakespeare in their own language within the architecture he wrote for -- the Globe Theatre in London. NBC News' Peter Jeary reports.
In addition to being one of only a dozen such playhouses believed to have ever been built, the site may well be the best-preserved Elizabethan playhouse, said Heather Knight, a senior archeologist from the Museum of London Archeology who helped uncover the Curtain.
“They are very rare buildings so to find anything of one of these buildings is exciting, but to find a wall that stands to its complete height is unique,” she said.
The reason the Curtain, built in 1577, and other Elizabethan playhouses are so rare is that they were razed by the Puritans after the English civil war.
Shakespeare in Jericho echoes year of Arab strife
“The most bitter and most effective attacks on Shakespeare’s and the other playwrights’ productions came from English Puritans,” leading Shakespearean scholar Hildegard Hammerschmidt-Hummel said. “They thought the theater to be the root of evil.”
F. Brinley Bruton / msnbc.com
Graffiti art covers a building on London's Great Eastern Street close to where archeologists uncovered the Curtain, an ancient Elizabethan playhouse.
No sign of rampaging Puritans in Shoreditch these days, however.
If anything, the current rough-and-tumble creative life in Shoreditch may owe something Shakespeare, said Tom Monaghan, manager of The Queen of Hoxton, a self-described bar, club and art collective near the site where the Curtain was found.
“To think I work right opposite from were Shakespeare used to try out his material,” the 30-year-old said. “Shakespeare could have put Macbeth through his paces over there.”
Monaghan, who interspersed the conversation with barked commands into a mic pinned to his t-shirt, stood amid people sipping European beer and wearing skinny jeans and lank hairstyles.
Then he asked: “Is it a coincidence that the area has become creative again?”
More about Shakespeare:
- Restored scribble may be Shakespeare's signature
- Much ado over The Theater's ruins in London
- The Bard or not the Bard? That is the question
- Shakespeare celebrated at world festival
London Welsh file promotion appeal - Belfast Telegraph
Thursday, 7 June 2012
The Exiles won this season's Championship after beating Cornish Pirates in both legs of the final.
But the Richmond-based club were told just hours before the first leg kicked off in Cornwall they did not meet minimum standards criteria set down by English rugby's Professional Game Board for Premiership entry.
London Welsh played the final's second leg at the Kassam Stadium in Oxford, which is thought to be their preferred venue should they gain top-flight status.
As things stand, Newcastle will remain in the Premiership next term despite finishing bottom by a point behind Wasps this season.
But should London Welsh succeed in overturning an original decision that went against them, then they will go up and the Falcons be relegated.
In a statement, the RFU said: "The Rugby Football Union has today (Thursday) received London Welsh's appeal against the decision that the club failed to meet the minimum standards criteria set out by the Professional Game Board for promotion to the Aviva Premiership.
"It is proposed that the appeal hearing, which will take place before an independent panel, will be held on June 21 at the London Bloomsbury Hotel.
"An expedited timetable has been agreed with London Welsh, with the proposed date of June 21 the earliest possible time to allow for the exchange of cases and evidence.
"During the appeal, no further comment will be made."
London 2012 Olympics: Usain Bolt stuns the world by winning 100m showdown with Asafa Powell in 9.79 sec - Daily Telegraph
World 400m hurdles champion Dai Greene insists that winning Diamond League races is of no importance to him this season and that his training programme has been geared to peaking perfectly for the Olympics.
One can only trust he and his coach, Malcolm Arnold, know what they are doing because Greene showed none of the strength and power that carried him to the world title in Daegu last summer as he struggled home in fourth place on Thursday night in a weary 49.98sec.
A long way ahead of him was Javier Culson, the Puerto Rican who took the silver in Daegu but has looked the man to beat all season. His winning time of 47.92sec was the fastest in the world this year and has been bettered by Greene only once in his career.
Greene, who appeared to be running out of gas in the final straight, said: “It was disappointing. I’m not going to lie, I wanted a lot more. I didn’t think I was going to run as fast as Culson did today but I just didn’t feel quite as fresh as I did a few weeks ago.”
In mitigation, Greene was forced to pull out of last week’s Rome Golden Gala with a stomach virus and he admitted his preparation had not been ideal.
“I thought I could have gone about four tenths faster,” said the Welshman. “That was the target in my head. I ran very aggressively from the start but it was a struggle from hurdle seven onwards. Hopefully, things will get a bit easier in the future.”
Worryingly, Greene’s training partner, Jack Green, was limping heavily after the race after suffering a technical meltdown and hitting seven out of the 10 hurdles. He was sixth in 49.70.
The eagerly awaited Olympic 5,000m showdown between Mo Farah and defending Olympic champion Kenenisa Bekele is in danger of not even happening after the Ethiopian trailed home in Thursday night’s 5,000m race in fifth place.
The race had been nominated by the Ethiopian athletics federation as an Olympic trial and unfortunately for Bekele, the four athletes who finished ahead of him were all compatriots, leaving him in serious peril of missing out on selection for London.
Bekele has yet to run under 13 minutes this season, though he insisted that he still had time to post a quick enough to catch the selectors’ eyes because the final decision would not be made for several weeks.
“I don’t give up hope,” said Bekele. “I still have time. No problem, I will make it.”
Thursday's race was won by Dejen Gebremeskel, the 5,000m bronze medallist at last year’s World Championships, in 12min 58.92sec, though Farah still leads the world rankings after running 12min 56.88sec in Eugene last Friday.
Jessica Ennis, the newly crowned UK heptathlon record-holder, had a mixed night after recording her third quickest ever time of 12.83sec in the semi-finals of the 100m hurdles only to be disqualified from the final for a false start.
Victory went to Australian world champion Sally Pearson, who put down her Olympic marker by running a world-leading time of 12.49sec in her first outdoor race of the European season. Britain’s Tiffany Porter showed her own Olympic medal credentials by taking some big scalps in finishing third in 12.70sec.
Abi Oyepitan turned back the clock with her best 100m time in eight years to finish in second place in her race in 22.71sec – the fastest time this year by a UK runner and well within the Olympic ‘A’ qualifying standard.
The last time she ran so quickly was at the 2004 Athens Olympics, where she reached the final. Having already secured the ‘A’ standard in the 100m, the Tony Lester-coached athlete now looks back to her best after years of injury problems. Nigel Levine, the UK indoor 400m champion, enjoyed a breakthrough night with a victory in the 400m in 45.11, a huge 0.67sec inside his lifetime best and well inside the Olympic ‘A’ standard.
Gareth Warburton also produced the performance of his life to win his 800m race in 1min 44.98sec to become the third Briton to hold the Olympic ‘A’ standard for the two-lap event.
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