London 2012 Olympics: Usain Bolt fails to fire in season opener - Daily Telegraph
You could chalk it down to the rarest of off nights, which is obviously the way he was trying to play it afterwards. You could put it down to the capricious Czech weather, with a wind swirling around that made it distinctly parky in the early evening. Indeed, his opponents, like Chambers, all used the weather to explain away the performance.
Yet Bolt himself was making no excuses. He had run into a headwind of 0.8m per sec but still expected to get inside his season’s best 9.82sec, the fastest time in the world this year that he had set earlier in the month in Kingston. He had been talking 9.7sec.
Instead, he sounded just a mite perplexed, unable to understand what had just befallen him. “It was very bad. No excuses. My legs normally feel good, and they drive me along but today I didn’t feel any power. I really can’t argue,” he said.
“It doesn’t bother me but I started the way I don’t usually feel. So that does bother me a little bit. It was going through the motions, really. Normally when I run I can tell what went wrong. I felt really good coming into the race but my first 40 was really, really bad.”
He reckoned he did not know what his rivals would think but Collins made that clear. “This gives you hope to come back and race him again,” he said.
As for Chambers, the search for the qualifying standard must go on to Paris at the start of next month. His time was at least his best since he was given the all-clear to attempt to qualify for the Olympics but, also, finishing behind veteran American Darvis Patton (10.22sec) and Jamaican Commonwealth champion Lerone Clarke (10.26sec) demonstrated the amount of hard work ahead. In the B race, Mark Lewis-Francis won in 10.36sec.
Still, perhaps it is too easy to overly worry about Bolt. He was reflecting here only on the eve of the race that expectations of him are of course always absurd because he has performed so consistently at an extra-terrestrial level. “You have to understand that he is human. He can’t run 9.5 every day,” sympathised Collins.
Nonetheless, this was reminiscent of Bolt’s 2010 season when, battling against injuries, he began to struggle, lost in Stockholm and had to end his season early.
By the end, though, he was still trying to put on a brave face as he was, after all, still a winner. “Even losing one race, losing two races, doesn’t matter. It’s about getting to the Olympics,” he shrugged. “And doing your best.” But this was far, far from his best and you could just imagine Yohan Blake and Tyson Gay rubbing their hands.
London picked as test bed for Skynet-like Intel tech - The Register
London will be a guinea pig for future smart city technology after Intel pledged to spend a slice of £25m ($40m) on a new lab in the capital. The chipmaker will also plough millions into research centres dotted around Blighty.
Intel will set up the unwieldily monikered Collaborative Research Institute for Sustainable Connected Cities in the capital in partnership with Imperial College and University College London, it announced yesterday at an event at 10 Downing Street.
The company will spend the £25m over the next five years on all five of its Collaborative Research Institutes, but wouldn't give the breakdown of exactly how much London would be getting. ICL and UCL will also chip in some dosh, but again no figures were bandied about.
At the same event, Chipzilla said it will open a string of research centres around the UK, investing around £45m in an Intel Labs Europe UK R&D network: this will employ 350 researchers in labs including the one in London and others in Brighton, Swindon and Aylesbury to start with, and five more to be decided on by the end of the year.
"It is investments like this that will help us put the UK on the path we need to take to create new jobs, new growth and new prosperity in every corner of our country," Chancellor George Osborne said at the launch.
"We are determined to make the UK the best place to do business in the world and a great place for technology companies to invest and build new business. It is encouraging to see major tech partners like Intel investing in this country as a result of the policies that the Government has put in place," he self-congratulated.
Intel will use the London lab to suss out smart city technology and it will also team up with Shoreditch's Tech City entrepreneurs to use their "social media expertise" to "identify and analyse emerging trends with cities".
"Using London as a testbed, researchers will explore technologies to make cities more aware by harnessing real-time user and city infrastructure data," the company said in a statement, describing similar Skynet-like smart city research elsewhere.
"For example, a sensor network could be used to monitor traffic flows and predict the effects of extreme weather conditions on water supplies, resulting in the delivery of near real-time information to citizens through citywide displays and mobile applications."
Rattner: City under pre-planned stress
Intel CTO Justin Rattner also said that the London Olympic games would give the firm a great opportunity to look at a city under pressure and figure out where the weak points are.
"London is, as everyone knows, the host city to the 2012 summer Olympic Games, and we plan to use the event to understand the experiences of a city under pre-planned stress. What systems worked or didn’t work and why? How were the daily lives of the citizens, workers, and businesses of London affected?" he wondered out loud.
As well as giving Intel the opportunity to see it mess up, London is also a good choice for the research institute as the fifth largest city in the world.
"It has the largest GDP in Europe, and with over 300 languages and 200 ethnic communities, its diversity is a microcosm of the planet itself, offering an exciting test bed to create and define sustainable cities," Rattner enthused. ®
London Welsh plight reaches parliament - espnscrum.com
London Welsh's quest to overturn a Rugby Football Union decision to deny them promotion to the Aviva Premiership should they win the Championship final has been raised in the House of Commons.
Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West, urged the RFU to re-think their decision by tabling an Early Day Motion yesterday with the aim of attracting enough support to trigger a debate in parliament. The Rugby Football Union announced on Wednesday - a matter of hours before London Welsh's play-off final first leg against Cornish Pirates - that the Exiles had failed to meet the minimum standards criteria for the Premiership and therefore would not be promoted should they claim the Championship title.
London Welsh look set to appeal this decision and Thomas has moved to bring the matter to the attention of parliament - although it is highly unlikely that it will be debated. His motion read: "This House condemns the decision of the Rugby Football Union to reject the possibility of London Welsh gaining promotion to and playing in the Premiership in 2012-13.
"[It] notes the huge contribution London Welsh has made to both league and international rugby throughout its history; further notes the determination of the board of London Welsh to continue to develop both the performance and commercial sides of the club; and urges the Rugby Football Union to reconsider its decision."
Thomas also queried the RFU's decision to find fault with the club's proposed groundshare at Oxford United FC's Kassam Stadium when four other teams in the Premiership already operate under similar circumstances.
Thomas attracted support from Denis MacShane, MP for Rotherham, who recalled the plight of Rotherham when they were refused entry to the Premiership on similar grounds in 2002. He also heavily criticised the RFU, saying: "Frankly the men in blazers and those bright pink and orange corduroy trousers who control the RFU will not give any consideration to the passion of London Welsh, its players and its supporters.
"We experienced that in Rotherham when we got into the premier league and were then booted out. We had a wonderful ground and people could get right down to the touchline to watch the rugby. It is much better than sitting up in a big stadium, but those gentlemen of a particular class are the worst administrators of any of our major games. I wish my Hon. friend well, but he ain't going to get going until they change their corduroy trousers."
In addition, David Mowat, MP for Warrington South, raised the question of the Newcastle Falcons who look set to benefit if the RFU rules that Welsh have not passed the MSC for the Premiership. He claimed that their relegation would see the game have a strong dominance in the south of England, to which Thomas responded: "I certainly hope that when Newcastle takes its place in the Championship, as I hope it will, it continues to benefit from the RFU's support and largesse so that it can have a genuine chance of winning a place back in the Premiership.
"Nevertheless, we have to allow proper promotion and relegation to take place. I do not think London Welsh has been properly treated thus far."
London 2012 Olympics: Kosovo athlete barred from competing as independent - The Guardian
Kosovo's best medal hope, judo champion Majlinda Kelmendi, has said she will compete at the Games for Albania after the International Olympic Committee ruled that she could not enter as an independent under the Olympic flag.
The decision came as the IOC also ruled out the idea of female Saudi athletes competing under the Olympic flag as a way of circumventing opposition within the kingdom to their presence in a Saudi team.
Kosovo's independence is recognised by 80 countries including the UK but not by the UN or the IOC. The sports minister of the former Yugoslav province, Memli Krasniqi, said Kelmendi and Kosovo had been treated unfairly, and compared their case with the invitation to Yugoslav athletes to compete under the Olympic banner at the Barcelona Olympics in 1992, when the Serbian leadership in Belgrade was under international sanctions for its participation in war crimes.
"It is an extremely disappointing development and contrary to the values enshrined in the Olympic charter," Krasniqi said.
"There are no good reasons to turn down a genuine request by an athlete who is among the best in the world. Kosovo sport has been suffering from this isolation for 20 years and we have athletes who have been forced to leave in disillusion to compete for other countries."
The minister said it was ironic that a Yugoslav team had been allowed to compete in Barcelona despite international sanctions imposed because of the role of the then leader, Slobodan Milosevic, in orchestrating crimes against humanity. Kosovo was one of the targets of Milosevic's ethnic cleansing campaigns and 10,000 Kosovans were killed before Nato intervention forced Milosevic to withdraw his troops in 1999.
"In Barcelona, when Yugoslavia under Milosevic was under heavy sanctions, the IOC was so humane it invited athletes from Yugoslavia to compete. We would love to have similar treatment for our athletes," Krasniqi said.
Kelmendi is the fifth ranked judoka in the world in the under-52kg class, and won three Grand Prix and World Cup events last year. She has both Kosovo and Albanian citizenships and had hoped to represent Kosovo for the first time in London.
The decision on her participation came at an IOC meeting in Quebec City, Canada, which also saw the organisation's president, Jacques Rogge, rule out Saudi women competing under a neutral flag. "There is absolutely no need to consider the possibility of the participation of Saudi women under the IOC flag," he said.
Saudi Arabia is one of three countries to never include women in their Olympic teams. The others, Qatar and Brunei, plan to bring female athletes to London but the Saudis appear unwilling, an attitude which has brought criticism from human rights groups and others. "It's not an easy situation," Rogge said of talks with Saudi officials on the issue. "There is a commitment. We're working steadily with them to find a good solution."
David Mepham, UK director of Human Rights Watch (HRW), which has called for tough IOC action over the Saudi team, said the group was worried at the seeming impasse. He said: "It's looking unlikely now that the Saudis will include women in their team for the London Games, which is a great concern for us."
HRW is calling for the IOC to bar Saudi Arabia from London unless it takes steps beyond just including women in the Olympic squad, Mepham said: "We also want them to take steps back in Saudi Arabia to ensure that women and girls can participate meaingfully in sport. We've documented the systematic discrimination which really prevents this – there are a few private gyms, but essentially women and girls are not allowed to participate in sport."
London 2012: Phillips Idowu faces monumental task - coach - BBC News
Olympic silver medallist Phillips Idowu is facing a "monumental battle" to win gold in the triple jump at the London Games, says his coach Aston Moore.
Idowu's main rivals, Frenchman Teddy Tamgho and American Christian Taylor, have better personal bests.
American Will Claye, 20, will also pose a threat to the 33-year-old Londoner.
"I believe it will be a monumental battle of will and talent. You hope that Phillips comes out on top," Jamaican-born Moore told BBC Sport.
"The fourth place could be a jump that would normally have won the competition, but you could finish fourth this year.
"[But] it's an Olympic medal, it's never going to be easy or everyone would be doing it."
At the Beijing Games, Idowu's best jump was 17.62m, but he was beaten into second by 17.67m from Portugal's Nelson Evora, who has been ruled out of the London Games by a stress fracture.
Since then new faces have emerged in the form of 21-year-old world champion Taylor, who beat Idowu in Daegu in August, world championship bronze medallist Claye and 22-year-old Tamgho, whose personal best of 17.98m is third on the all-time list.
"The two American guys are very dangerous," Moore continued. "Sometimes you can have good athletes but you know you've pretty much got their measure. [Yet] these guys are good winners.
"I'm almost forgetting the young French guy Teddy Tamgho, who we haven't heard from yet this year but he's been jumping 17.90s for the last two seasons."
Idowu, who came out on top against his rivals in his opening competition of the season at the Diamond League meeting in Shanghai last weekend, was devastated after coming second in Beijing and Moore says the 2009 world champion's target has not changed.
"The gold - that's what he's preparing for, that's what he's ready for and he will be disappointed with anything other than gold.
"He wanted to win the last one but he came second by 5cm. He wants to put that right on home soil.
"He's a Londoner, a Hackney boy. I think he's going to love it."
UK Athletics' national triple jump coach Moore, himself a former triple jumper for Great Britain, started working with Idowu a few months before the Beijing Olympics and admits he has seen a change in the athlete ahead of London.
"I wouldn't say that pressure is getting to him but certainly with a lot of the athletes, as it's a home Olympics, people are much more focused, and I've noticed that from him," said Moore.
"He's much more focused on what needs to be done and how it needs to be done. My job is to make sure it doesn't become over the top and he starts looking at every last detail. I think together we can manage that quite well.
"Those five years are his most successful so that makes our relationship reasonably tight because I am the person that has helped him through his best period as an athlete."
Moore guided Commonwealth gold medallist Ashia Hansen to a world record and has worked with UK Athletics since 2000, but he admits he will feel the nerves when Idowu lines up for his first jump at the Olympic Stadium in London.
"I'm usually most nervous in the first round, because this is the one. This is the one that sets the scene for everything.
"I want the jump to send a particular message out to every other competitor. So I'm most nervous about that one because I want him to nail it, and then get better from there. Normally my blood pressure and heart rate and everything jump on that one.
"Then, it's work as usual."
London Mayor's office: Boris Johnson announces new communications chief - eGov Monitor
Mayor of London Boris Johnson has appointed a senior BBC journalist as his new communications chief. Johnson has said that he is delighted that Walden has taken to position. The post was vacant after Guto Harri, also a former BBC employee, left the position to work for News International.
Boris Johnson has thrown his full support behind Walden, announcing that he will add drive, originality and flair to the position. He went further, adding, I believe Will has exactly the right skills to help us engage with Londoners. He has enormous experience of politics and a great track record at the BBC. I am thrilled to welcome him on board.
Walden has had a long career in journalism, starting in local papers and eventually spending 12 years working at the BBC. He has welcomed the challenge presented by the post, being pleased to join the Mayors office at such a critical time. He said, A diamond jubilee and an Olympic Games represent among the very best that London has to offer.
Johnsons use of another BBC journalists was a small surprise after his scathing comments against the corporation in his column for the Telegraph. He wrote, the prevailing view of Beeb newsrooms is, with honourable exceptions, statist, corporatist, defeatist, anti-business, Europhile and, above all, overwhelmingly biased to the left.
Vauxhall Mallards and Great Witchingham seek progress in ECB National Club Championship - EDP 24
Friday, May 25, 2012
4:36 PM
The two remaining Norfolk sides in the National Club Championship are set for a showdown this weekend.
Vauxhall Mallards will face Great Witchingham on Sunday in the group semi-final of the Kingfisher Beer Cup after both teams recorded comfortable wins in their second round ties last weekend.
Mallards registered an eight-wicket win at reigning East Anglian Premier League champions Cambridge Granta.
Skipper Paul Bradshaw removed both Granta openers with only 20 runs on the board, before Stuart Lipshaw’s five-wicket burst saw the hosts fold to 130 all out in the 40th over. The off-spinner claimed five for 23.
Carl Amos and David Turner put on 70 for the first Mallards wicket and Amos went on to steer the visitors to victory in the 40th over with an unbeaten 72 from 104 balls.
Witchingham thrashed Boston by 205 runs as Sam Arthurton, pictured, hammered a century.
Arthurton made 133, while James Hale (48no) and Carl Rogers (41) also contributed in a total of 279 for four from their 45 overs.
Boston were then skittled out for just 74, with Jonathan Spelman claiming four for 32 and two wickets apiece for James Spelman and Tom Collishaw.
Sunday’s match at Great Witchingham starts at 1pm.
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