Night Fever

So the Singapore Grand Prix has been and gone in a flash of blinding lights and flying sparks. The overwhelming response to Formula One’s first foray into the glitz and glamour of Raffles Boulevard was that is was a massive success - ‘wasn’t it spectacular!’ they'll say; ‘look at all the shiny cars flying through the bright city – it’s like a computer game!’ they shout whilst they count their piles of Singapore Dollars. Well, yes – to an extent, it was. You can’t deny it was a dazzling display – the floodlights bouncing of the gleaming cars as they shot around a bumpy, testing track with the backdrop of Singapore’s glittering and soaring skyline thrown in for good measure made it a true visual orgasm – it was like Emmanuelle for petrolheads.

The enthusiasm of the Pacific Rim nations for the sport is admirable too; thousands flocked to fill the grandstands and cheer on their heroes; if only they knew how much they were being manipulated by the little man!

All this, though – the glitz, the glamour, the enthusiasm – was largely irrelevant. The race was eventful, perhaps even exciting – but for all the wrong reasons. The weekend was littered with complaints of the traditional lack of overtaking opportunities, which for a newly built track, is scandalous. The first thing any sane person would account for in building a race circuit is where cars can overtake. It was only because of some hapless Ferrari mechanics and the fact Nelson Piquet seems to harbour a desire to chat with Louise Goodman about his retirement from a race at the earliest opportunity that anything significant happened this weekend.

What would have happened without the safety car? Massa and Ferrari could still have made the re-fuelling error, but Hamilton, Kubica and Raikonnen et al would probably have filled up, put some new boots on and been on their merry way. Coulthard, Rosberg and more importantly Alonso, would have been nowhere. And so would most of the action. Needing cars to clatter into the Armco to inject a bit of action into a race, exciting as it is, is not the way it should be done.

For a so-called action-packed race, there was little overtaking to speak of amidst the top six. James Allen and Martin Brundle wasted no time in fawning over the new dawn of Formula One night racing, but to your run-of-the-mill fan who’s watching in Swindon on a wet Sunday afternoon, it’s not going to make much difference.

Its all well and good Bernie Ecclestone relocating to the Pacific Rim for the obvious lucrative opportunities available, and I’ve no doubt other Asian countries – the likes of Japan, Malaysia and China – will be falling over themselves to hold night races too. All of it was in aid of pandering to European markets who are sick of having their cornflakes in the dark as the tune in to F1 at three in the morning – but Bernie, surely it would be simpler - if you really want to keep the European markets happy – to safeguard the likes of the British and French Grand Prix? Both of these are held at normal times, and give fans the opportunity to become a part of the atmosphere and excitement – a pretty simple answer, you’d think. But ah – they’re not waving the cash!

There was me thinking Formula One was about the racing – but really, everything about the Grand Prix in Singapore this weekend compounded the fact that the exact opposite is the case.

Judgement day for atheltics looms...

So the day has come when we find out whether Dwain Chambers has been successful in his attempt to overturn the British Olympic Association's bylaw banning dopers for life, allowing him to compete in Beijing.

The whole affair has been a shocking indictment of athletics. The fact that people are debating whether the problem here is the severity of the punishment dished out to Chambers leads any sporting fan to question the collective will to eradicate doping.

People seem to forget that Dwain Chambers lied, cheated, and defrauded not just the sport of athletics, but his teammates who have lost medals as a result of his selfish actions. He has brought the sport into unquestionable disrepute, and cannot be considered a legitimate competitor in the Olympics or any event that he competes in.

What is also worrying is that from the coverage of the story, it seems that only past, or experienced athletes have spoken out against Chambers. Paula Radcliffe, Steve Backley and Sebastian Coe have all condemned the situation - yet I've heard barely a wink from the current crop, apart from Craig Pickering, a fellow 100m sprinter. Questioned repeatedly on the topic, Pickering suggests that the silence from amongst the rest of Chambers peers speaks volumes. Chambers himself has claimed that he took drugs because he thought everyone else on the start line was. It's no excuse, but you can hardly blame him for his cynicism when three of the last five 100m Olympic champions have been found to be drugs cheats.

Ultimately, however, Dwain Chambers knew the rules when he took the drugs. The BOA's policy of handing out lifetime bans to dopers was in place when he took the steroids - he knew the consequences. He shouldn't even be in a position where he can question the validity of the law. Unquestionably, the ban shouldn't be overturned; it shouldn't be an option to have Chambers at the Olympics, where children and aspiring athletes should be provided with shining examples of professionalism and sporting excellence.

If it transpires that Chambers does win the case, then athletics has some serious questions to ask itself. Why, if it is entirely committed to eradicating drugs from the sport, is it allowing a cheating liar to compete in the premier showcase for athletics? It is already a ludicrous situation that the ban imposed by the IAAF for caught drugs cheats has been reduced from four years to just two. The governing body and the sport in general needs to make a stand.

Chemmy Alcott - a bit better than Eddie the Eagle

There was an interesting article on the BBC today about British skier Chemmy Alcott, and her determination to achieve something in a sport where Britain should barely be able to compete, given our lack of snow and mountains.

The article focusses on the extra funding and expertise being thrown at one of our medal hopefuls for the Winter Olympics in 2010, in order for her to break into the women's top 10; over the last year, Chemmy has employed a team consisting of psychologists, a nutritionist, a performance movement coach as well as a sensory motor skills expert to work alongside her. However, the infrastructure she now has setup around her has yielded only three top 20 finishes in the season just finished.

Whilst three top 20 finishes, by British standards at least, is commendable, for a young athlete who had such high aspirations, it became a frustrating season and Chemmy, quite rightly, was disappointed. It raises the question - in sports such as skiing, where Britain has virtually no aspirations, what do we consider a success? And is it worth all the money being given to it, when there's little realistic hope of us creating a crop of future Olympic medalists? Obviously, the goal for Chemmy is to achieve a respectable position at the Winter Olympics, and possibly even sneak a medal - so what happens if she fails - does the money simply stop coming?

Alcott is quick to point out that a massive run of bad luck is one of the main attributes to her not being able to fulfil her potential; from technical malfunctions to stormy weather conditions, Alcott's route down the mountain has been far from smooth, which raises another interesting point. Regardless of how much money you throw at a sport in order to succeed, there's always an element that it may never be enough. Sport is by its very nature an unpredictable entity - pull a muscle in training or get the wrong conditions for your race and your dreams could be shattered.

What is encouraging about Chemmy Alcott, at least, is that she appears to have the will power and determination to succeed, and that is more than half the battle. Undoubtedly talented, Alcott does have the attributes to compete on a regular basis with her best friend Julia Mancuso at the top table of women's downhill skiing.

Money, whilst it helps, certainly is not everything - it must be combined with a strong work ethic, a good deal of talent, and a bit of luck. Chemmy seems to be missing only one of those things at the minute, that is lady luck shining on her, so for the time being, it can be deemed as money well spent. Let's face it - for a young girl from Hove and a country with no skiing pedigree, she should be lauded for even coming close to competing at the highest level.

Who knows, she may even get a medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics - she's still only 25, and by her own admission, she feels she's got all the attributes necessary:

"Don't write me off yet," she pleaded. "Vancouver is 21 months away and I have the talent, drive and the will to succeed."

With a little bit of luck, she might just do it.

"This isn't a great circuit for overtaking"

It's a Sunday afternoon at around 12.45pm. I'm tuned into ITV for my fortnightly fix of watching a high-end processional convoy. This week it's at Magny-Cours, in France - Ferrari are looking dominant after locking down the front row in qualifying, and Lewis Hamilton is set for a tiresome afternoon carving through the field from 13th after his cock-up last time out in Canada.

The well-informed Martin Brundle is having his usual pre-race discussions with fellow commentator James Allen about Hamilton's prospects of a reasonable points finish, as he utters the phrase, "It's going to be difficult for Lewis today - Magny Cours isn't a great circuit for overtaking, so he's got his work cut out", a frankly baffling statement before an event where such practice has been traditionally customary.

I think to myself - if it's not a great circuit for overtaking, why the hell is Bernie Ecclestone bringing the world's premier racing championship here? It's not an uncommon phrase to hear these days, either. At Monaco, "Qualifying well is so important here because overtaking's so difficult"; at Turkey, "Cars struggle to overtake here because they're constantly travelling in dirty air". Am I missing something? Is overtaking still even allowed?

I maintain that the underlying principle of racing, be it on a horse, in a car, on feet, is to race. What's the point in going to circuits where drivers can't do that? Where's the fun in watching a race being won by putting in a couple of fast laps on low fuel and then letting some Kwik-Fit fitters-cum-Storm Trooper look-a-likes do their business to get you out in front of your nearest rival without even exchanging a friendly glance with him?

I've heard people argue that it's interesting seeing strategies play out, but this, to me, is beyond comprhension. How is it interesting watching Ross Brawn assess where a car is on a track and calculate on his computer when to pit his driver? I would much rather see Lewis Hamilton and Kimi Raikonen be toe-to-toe, exchanging paintwork with each other and seeing sparks fly - it is truly infuriating.

The worst example has to be Monaco. So difficult is it to pass around the circuit, that it has merely a virtual procession of pomp and excess in one of the world's most glamorous venues - a place to be seen, rather than a place to race. The spectacle is something to behold, undoubtedly, but the racing is pointless. You might as well go to Knightsbridge or Chelsea and watch the city bankers waft past in their Aston Martins or Ferraris.

I'm sure that the circuits don't account for the complete lack of action in Formula One. The cars are so aerodynamically tuned that any time one car follows another, it wrecks the flow of air over the car behind and therefore means that the following driver can't get anywhere near the other. You shan't get teams to take a step back technologically - Formula One has simply become a very fast moving advert of what a car company can achieve when it puts its mind to it. It's brand exposure, the best of the best and a true showcase. But that makes for awful racing, when racing is why every single fan turns up at circuits, or tunes on their TVs to watch the damn thing.

Why can't anyone see that Formula One, as it is, is boring. They might go at 200mph, but if they're not overtaking and challenging each other, they might as well be going at 60. Can't someone put every driver in a car that can travel behind another, that doesn't have to change it's tyres and refuel in a race at a circuit where they can overtake? It doesn't sound like too hard a blueprint to follow, surely.

If not, I'm off to sit outside Harrods in a fortnight to see a Lamborghini burn up a Bentley at a set of traffic lights - it'd be far more exciting.

This is how it should be done - perhaps one of the most memorable overtaking moves, for me at least.

A Twenty20 virgin speaks out

I had my first experience today, not just of Twenty20 cricket, but cricket full stop. We went to Richmond County Cricket Club - one of the most picturesque cricket grounds, I'm sure, even though I've not been to any others - to see Middlesex Crusaders take on the Hampshire Hawks in this year's Twenty20 Cup.

As I walked through the gates, I was greeted with the sites of red wickets (how the purists must have fumed at this heathenesque defecation of the fine game!), and cricketers wearing blue and pink attire - slightly bizarre, I must admit.

It was a great afternoon though - the weather was excellent, the setting idyllic and I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I don't think the match was the greatest example of the format. Hampshire batted first, and made what I thought was an average total - 133. At 'half time', so to speak, other Twenty20 cricket scores from around the country were being read out across the tannoy, and I was hearing totals of 180, 165 and 210 so I presumed I was right in my initial thoughts. George, who I went to the game with, also reliably informed me that Hampshire weren't much kop at this malarkey anyway.

Middlesex, I envisaged, would surpass this total pretty easily - they had one-time England opening batsman Andrew Strauss and occasional England one-dayer Ed Joyce lining up for them after all. I know that Strauss isn't the most aggressive of batsmen and generally builds himself up towards a total in the manner of a fine test match cricketer - if he can survive past 20-odd, that is - but I still presumed that he was a first-class batsman, and therefore would be smashing the ball for fours and sixes all over the park. True to form, though, he made a pedestrian 12 off 19 balls.

Middlesex got themselves into all sorts of trouble with a lacklustre middle period, and stumbled to 65-6 off about 14 overs. It looked like it was game over and it looked like there would be little excitement or tension in the match, but they made a late flourish, and even had a chance of sneaking the victory after charging to around 115 with one over to go, but they fell just short in the end. That didn't stop Shaun Udal smashing four sixes in his brief stint at the crease, giving me and George the opportunity to use our mostly idle '6' cards.

Upon my first experience of live cricket, I would just like to make a few observations;

• Renaming the teams the 'Crusaders' and the 'Hawks' is an awful attempt by the cricketing big wigs to try and reach out to the masses. I'm pretty confident that no one even uses the names ('Hey, do you fancy watching the Hawks and the Crusaders tonight?"), and far from 'jazzing' up the format, they're completely unnecessary and embarrassing.
• A cricket team playing in pink, again, fails on all levels. In an attempt to encourage supporters to part with their hard-earned cash like they would a football shirt, and make a definite step away from the clinical whites that tradition dictates, someone down the line has envisaged this as a fantastic idea; but if I was a cricketer, I certainly wouldn't choose pink. It's another attempt to add a bit of colour and excitement, but the cricket is supposed to do that itself, so to embarrass the poor cricketers by dressing them in pink seemed a little heartless.
• Playing Kylie Minogue and Gnarls Barkley for brief moments as a boundary was hit, again, didn't really do much to gee up the crowd. From a quick observation of the demographic in attendance, I think they may have been more receptive to a nice bit of Handel or Beethoven.
• The format fails, if, like Middlesex did, the players don't slog it out. The whole reason that the format was introduced was to encourage slogging to keep the marketing men happy, so to see the batsmen snicking the ball away for ones and twos didn't really make any sense. One of the Hampshire bowlers even had the nerve to bowl a maiden, which I'd have thought was absolute sacrilege in this sort of match. As it turned out, a couple of the Middlesex batsmen almost rescued victory from the jaws of defeat and made for a tense final three or four overs, but for much of the second innings, the match seemed like a non-event.
• I'm not sure where the purists presume the binge drinking en masse is taking place. The atmosphere at Richmond, in spite of Kylie blasting out of the speakers, was quite subdued, and me and George often felt pretty foolish waving our '4' and '6' cards when a boundary was scored.
• The idea that you can leave home after lunch and return in time for tea is fantastic - you still get to see plenty of good cricket, but don't have to sacrifice half your life to watch it.

On the whole, though, what with the weather and the occasional boundaries to cheer, it was a really fun afternoon. Nothing too hectic, but not so pedestrian that I became bored. We're planning on going to the Oval to see Middlesex take on Sussex on Friday night, where I imagine there will be a more intense and lively atmosphere than the sedate affair I experienced today. But for a first time, I'd certainly give it the thumbs up.

An unsung hero

One of the great inequalities in sport dictates that some individuals do not receive the praise for their efforts that they deserve, simply because their sport doesn't command the attention of the masses and the lucrative sponsorship opportunities of others.

As the country gets swept up in Euro 2008 and berates itself over the absence of any home nation, and then braces itself for the inevitable failure of Britons at Wimbledon this Summer, one Englishman is making waves on the world arena, and the vast majority of the public wouldn't even know it.

When I say Mark Cavendish is one of the leading sprint cyclists in the world, it is not a stretch of the imagination. Some might say that on current form, Cavendish could easily be considered the best. After winning two stages in the Giro D'Italia a few weeks ago, Cavendish has continued his preparations for Le Tour, which begins on July 5th, with another stage win in the prestigious Dauphine Libre this week. He has a genuine chance of succeeding in his aim to win a stage, or even two, at the world's most famous cycling race, which is a phenomenal feat - one that most people outside of the cycling world wouldn't know about.

It's a gross disparity when footballers like Frank Lampard and Christiano Ronaldo, now out of action for two months until the football season starts again, continue to dominate the sports pages of all the newspapers, when other sportsmen and women, British ones at that, are performing at phenomenal levels at the same time, unbeknown to us.

It was the same with Victoria Pendleton in 2006, who after dominating the women's cycling World Cup, and although nominated for the Sports Personality that year, didn't get anywhere near the praise that her efforts truly deserved. Hopefully her greater exposure at the Olympics this summer will bring her to the attention of the wider British public.

Le Tour is the greatest test of physical and mental endurance that sport has to offer, and to have a British cyclist at the forefront of it with the potential to win stages, we should be shouting about it from the rooftops. Instead, we're debating whether some footballer will move for £60m and 150 grand a week. What's it all come to?

Wimbledon: The key to a debt-free life

The organisers of Wimbledon, until this year, at least, have employed the common courtesy of giving British players - most of whom it could easily be argued don't warrant nor deserve such charity - a wildcard into its tournament.

The consequence of such a process has led to previous tournaments being peppered with stories of plucky Britons taking a game, or even a set off some of the top players (anyone remember when little known Miles McLagan took the first two sets off of Boris Becker in 1999?). Hell, some of them have even won one or two matches.

Largely though, it's been a pointless exercise; the phrase "and that ends British involvement in Wimbledon for another year" gets wheeled out on the first Wednesday and Sue Barker, John Lloyd and Andrew Castle proceed to have a massive debate back in the BBC studio during a rain delay to try and discover the answer to the golden question, 'Why are we so truly shocking in terms of world tennis?'

But, no longer. This year, Wimbledon has granted just two wildcards to Britain's players in the men's singles; one has gone to Jamie Baker, who is somewhat justified in his presence through a wildcard given his missing most of the season because of life-threatening illness - and the other to Alex Bogdanovic - a talented player, but known in the tennis world only for all of a couple of days as he floats into Wimbledon each year, and, almost as easily as he's got in, floats straight back out again.

I entirely support the notion that any British players who play at Wimbledon should be there on merit. Whilst it is customary for home Grand Slams to give the majority of their wildcards to homegrown players, in the case of the French, the Australian, and US Opens, all those countries have players who justify being given one. We, unequivocally, do not.

However, the importance of Wimbledon for home-grown players, particularly British ones, goes beyond tennis. It is also a matter of finance. Take Alexander Slabinsky, the British number five ranked at 329, who would, in previous years, have been a candidate for a wildcard at Wimbledon. He has spent this season in obscure parts of Uzbekistan, Russia, France and Portugal, and for all this, his biggest pay cheque from these events has been €730, and his total earnings this year have been just over €7,000. It doesn't take a genius to work out that Alexander's career is not financially viable - but if he'd been at Wimbledon, even if he'd been knocked out in the first round, he'd have won (or earned...or received) £10,000 - enough to wipe out a great deal of debts, and enough for him to continue to travel to the nethermost towns of Uzbekistan and Russia in search of valuable ranking points.

Whilst Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic et al earn millions on the tour from prize money and sponsorship deals, it's good to take a moment to consider that not all sport is like this. Some sportsmen, as is evident here, struggle to even earn a decent living.

Roger and out?

So Roger Federer, has like everything else Swiss, been entirely clinical and efficient in winning Halle for a fifth time. He didn't even have his serve broken, let alone drop a set. Yet surely anyone who knows anything about tennis must be considering the idea that for all of Roger's success in Germany, he's shirking away from the prospect of a high-quality field at Queens to maintain his record on grass.

Halle is ultimately a warm-up tournament to Wimbledon, and playing there almost guarantees that Federer has three or four matches preparation. But I don't consider playing Philipp Kohlschreiber in the final as a test for Roger. In his run to the final, the highest ranked player Federer played was Marcos Baghdatis, who is ranked at 18. And when you total the rankings of the top eight seeds in each of the respective tournaments, it clearly demonstrates the gulf in quality - at Halle, the top eight seeds' rankings total 133; at Queens, they total 79.

Federer is definitely still the man to beat on grass - you can't have his record on the surface and not go to Wimbledon as favourite - but Nadal and Djokovic have proven with the ease of their transition onto grass that the gap between them is far closer than before. Judging on the quality of the tennis played by Nadal and Djokovic in the final, I think Roger would have struggled to beat either of them out there on the day. It's clear that these three have taken men's tennis to another level, and it's a pretty safe bet that the Wimbledon winner will come from this elite group.

It'd be fantastic for Federer to play Queens at some point in his career; loyalty, contracts and the fact that Queens has lost its sponsorship and therefore might not be able to offer the same prize money as previously, may dictate that Roger stays in Halle. But to be the best, you have to beat the best, and Roger can't honestly say that he's done that this week.

A tournament minus the nationalism = a tournament to savour

It's been great to enjoy Euro 2008 without the inevitable blood, sweat and tears that comes with following a home nation in a football tournament. We don't have to worry about broken metatarsals, or the lurid binge drinking stories that would grace the front and back pages of our newspapers. Even better, we don't have to read about WAGS and their handbags, their tantrums, or their shoes. It's fantastic - for the first time since Euro 96, we have a tournament where the football is genuinely taking precedent.

The positive attacking play from the likes of Holland and Portugal has led to some exciting matches; my money's on Holland - they've been phenomenal on the counter-attack, have scored plenty of goals and have strength in depth with van Persie and Robben coming off the bench to make a difference. Perhaps more importantly, they've shown themselves to be a team united (after each goal, most of the players have celebrated together with the manager, Marco Van Basten).

The absence of the home nations has led to supporters forgetting about nationalism and simply enjoying the football - it's amazing how nationalistic tendencies take hold during these events, and it's been a cleansing exercise not to worry about how dismally we're playing. I would argue that, even if we had qualified, we'd have struggled either way, as the quality of football from just about all the teams has been excellent.

The roar is silenced - for this year at least

Tiger has followed up his 'greatest win' at the US Open with the announcement that he won't be playing for the rest of the year, meaning he'll be a no show at the Open, the US PGA, and the Ryder Cup.

I think now that Tiger has won his major for 2008, he can almost consider it job done for the season. His fantastic start to the season where he clocked up a succession of wins, plus the major, means he's still done better than most players will at all. After birdieing the final hole to stay in the championship not once, but twice, over the weekend at Torrey Pines, Tiger not only demonstrated that he's not just technically and physically superior to the rest of the players on tour, but mentally too.

It'll be interesting to see how the other players react to the news of his curtailment of his 2008 season. This is what most of them have been waiting for - this is perhaps their one chance in their career to win a major, so the Open and the USPGA should be wide open.

Obviously, it's a shame that we're not going to see Tiger again this year - he is undoubtedly head and shoulders above the rest, even on one leg - but it does make the rest of the season far more interesting to see who'll capitalise on his misfortune.

Hopefully one of the European tour players will make a claim - will Lee Westwood follow up his fantastic US Open performance, or might Sergio Garcia consolidate on a fine 2008 to date with a first major win? It really is there for the taking, it's just a question of who wants it.

A life on the open road...

The picture here, I think, makes running seem almost enjoyable - idyllic, even. From being a regular runner for the last two or three months now, I can assure you the picture portrays an untruth. I have never known an activity which takes more willpower to complete.

Whether it be the motivation to actually get out the house to go for a run, or to continue running when my legs feel like lead weights and my feet are in agony because of the blisters I'm now the grateful recipient of, I feel like it takes all of my energy to actually get out and do it. Which isn't great, considering I have around two-six miles (entirely dependant on my frame of mind as I walk out the door) to run ahead of me.

Having said that, once I am out there, and I've just about put the blisters and tiredness to one side, it's almost enjoyable. I enjoy the solitude that it offers - you could say it gives you time to think, but that's not really the case with me - I've usually got AC/DC or some similar adrenaline fuelled riff coursing through my ears as I run. But I enjoy just having some time to myself, even if it is whilst i wheeze my way around Hyde Park. Running in London is even more surreal than usual, as you're constantly surrounded by others, yet you still feel that solitude, which is nice - it's almost like a haven.

Of course, this is completely thrown out the window when you're in the last mile, desperately wanting to finish so you can put an end to the torture you've forced on yourself - but even then, I somehow muster up just enough energy for a sprint finish - which I suppose is just my competitive nature. And, once I do finish, I feel pretty good, which I suppose is the whole idea.

I did 4 miles today in 30 minutes, which translates to 7.30 a mile - which I was very impressed with. My aim is to do a half marathon over the summer in around 1 hour 30-40 minutes, which would mean I'd need to do those sort of times over a far greater distance, but today felt good. Apart from the blisters. And the breathlessness. And the aching legs. And the hot and sweatiness. But apart from that, all good.

Having Hyde Park close by is a real bonus - I love the fact that spectacular images such as that of the Albert Hall, Marble Arch and Kensington Palace are all features of such a mundane daily activity of mine.

God knows how I'm going to cope with a marathon - I've already put my entry in for next year's in London. Six miles is bad enough, let alone 26. I think there might be a good few walls to break through yet.

On the cusp of disaster

I've always been amazed by the skill demonstrated by rally drivers. How anyone can drive a car at such speed over such trecherous terrain is beyond me, as they dice with 100 foot drops, surging over jumps at 100mph, and scything through woodland, literally inches from disaster. They are surely a different breed; a combination of phenomenal driving skill, mental toughness, and, probably most importantly, a fearless attitude.

The best and most sorely missed was certainly Colin McRae. Whilst one can only admire the unrelenting domination of Sebastian Loeb over the last couple of years, McRae truly was something else - an entertainer, a hero, a phenomenally quick driver, probably just as famous for a succession of sensational crashes as he was for winning 27 rallies, but then, that's the cost of performing on the edge of disaster.

Here's a clip of Petter Solberg at this weekend's Rally of Turkey - you can only sit back and wonder how - or why, for that matter.

And here's a clip of how it can go horribly wrong - by Colin McRae himself.

It's great to see another British driver doing well this year and continuing our fine heritage in rallying too; Matthew Wilson's continuing to show great promise despite the fact he should be terrorising town centres in a souped-up Vauxhall Nova at his age - he's 7th this weekend in Turkey in his Dad's Ford (literally - his Dad, Malcolm, owns the Ford team).

Keep up with all the action here.

How fast?!

Two weeks is a long time in athletics, but then, it turns out, so is 9.76 seconds. Having seen Usain Bolt destroy fellow Jamaican Asafa Powell's 100m world record a fortnight ago with an astonishing time of 9.72 seconds, we were treated this week to another sprinting milestone as Dayron Robles set a new benchmark for all 110m hurdlers to be measured by, with a new record of 12.87 seconds.

It seems baffling that us humans (and by us, I'm in no way suggesting I can run a sub 10 second 100 metre race) can run this fast. It seems even more astonishing - to me, at least - that these records continue to be broken. The body will naturally impose limits as to how fast we can go, regardless of the conditions of the race or the advancements in technology - yet these sprinters seem to disregard this minor setback and go still faster. One can only ask - how? New sprinting world records are naturally greeted with widespread suspiscion these days as to whether these times that are being run are artificial representations of what sprinters can do, and it's no different this time. Given the athletics' recent tarnished history, one can't help but wonder whether drugs are taking their course.

Inevitably, there will be a point where a human body can go no faster, but as already astonishing records keep getting broken, it's hard to see when that limit will be reached. There are records that are set that you think will never be beaten - Michael Johnson's 200m, or Seb Coe's old 800m record, but it seems even those are in some danger - Coe's has already been beaten and Johnson's is in danger from that man Bolt, too.

Will sprinters ever get to a point where they can simply sit back and marvel at how fast they've gone, knowing they can travel no faster, or will we witness the first sub 1-second 100m's a few years down the line?

The two people I don't want to be right now are Asafa Powell and Liu Xiang, the previous world record holders. Imagine being that fast and not being able to call yourself the fastest man in the world! Interestingly, Powell thinks he can go faster still - he thinks he's got a sub 9.7 second 100m in him. Give over.

The one legged golfer and the chasing pack

The US Open has proved to be the least fruitful of the four majors for Tiger over his career - by his standards, at least - he's only won it twice. The last of his wins came in 2002, and when you consider that last year, Tiger was ranked 152nd for driving accuracy, and 12th for driving distance, it's hardly suprising. Traditionally, the organisers of the US Open have saught to offer the most severe test in golf - any winner of the tournament has to be able to drive long, and drive straight.

In his favour, Tiger has proved to be pretty formidable at Torrey Pines - the setting for this year's US Open. So far, he's won five times there in his career, and it wouldn't be the biggest surprise if he made it six this week. However, he's not played a competitive round for two months as a result of a knee operation shortly after the Masters, and, whilst the brave face he's employed in the build up suggests it won't affect him, the occassional grimaces and winces that donned his face throughout his first round 72 today (+1 over par) suggest otherwise.

Tiger's is playing with Phil Mickleson for the first two rounds - he who blew up so emphatically on the 72nd hole at Winged Foot, when he could have practically putted up the fairway and won - and he who is the local boy with the local knowledge this year. He's begun with a level par 71.

One interesting fact is that the non-US players seem to be getting the hang of the US Open these days - from having four non-US winners between 1970 & 2000, we've had four in the last four years, so don't bet against one of the European Tour stalwarts giving it a good crack - both Sergio Garcia and Padraig Harrington have been in fine form in recent weeks.

But it's still all about Tiger looking for his 15th major win - and despite playing on one leg and not being the most accurate, or longest of drivers, I wouldn't be surprised if he won again. Little-known American Justin Hicks is having his day in the sun at the minute, leading on -3, so Tiger's four behind, but he's never been fast out of the blocks on the first day anyway. That's plenty close enough for him.

And by the way - doesn't the course look absolutely phenomenal?

I'd do anything to win a championship

Was it just me, or as Lewis Hamilton realised he was going to crash into either Robert Kubica or Kimi Raikonnen - who were both politely waiting for a red light at the end of the pit lane at the Canadian grand-prix in Montreal this weekend - did Hamilton make the very shrewd move of steering very obviously left and careering into what he envisaged was his closest championship rival, as opposed to Kubica, who would have been far easier to steer into, given that he was straight in front of him?

Ironically, Kubica now leads the championship after Lewis' cock-up, and after not scoring for two consecutive races, Raikonnen's now fourth in the championship, three points behind Hamilton and Felipe Massa. Take nothing away from Kubica - he fully deserved his win with a fantastic drive - and has been superbly consistent all season whilst fellow championship contenders have been falling over themselves to, well, fall over themselves.

Nevertheless, it made for a bizarre but interesting race, which now makes it two in a row where something worth watching has actually occured on the track - or at least something that was exectued by the drivers, as opposed to a bunch of Star Wars lookalikes who are highly trained Kwik-Fit fitters.

Wimbledon's here - Time for wildly inflated hopes once again...

So, another year, another Wimbledon. Andy Murray will be looking to make a real impact for the first time, not just at SW19, but at any Grand Slam in his career. He may be the current number 11 in the world and he may well have won 5 ATP titles in his comparatively short time on the tour, but the fact is, Britain's greatest and only hope of a Wimbledon win (and it's a falorn one, at that), has yet to get past the fourth round of a Grand Slam tournament.

He may still only be 21, but Murray has now been in the consistently in the world's top 20 for the last 18 months or so now, yet his Grand Slam performances have been wildly inconsistent, and this year's performances have followed a strangely familiar pattern; two tour titles have been interspersed with first and second round defeats (Murray's lost in the first or second rounds at Rome, Miami, Barcelona and Rotterdam this season). For someone who has shown the potential to not just compete with, but beat the likes of Federer, Davydenko, and Roddick, Murray's inconsistency is something that we shouldn't even have to discuss.

Whilst he has shown mesmerising form in some slams (notably the Australian Open in 2007, where Murray won 6-0 6-0 6-1 in the first round and then took Rafael Nadal to an epic five-set struggle in the fourth round, or his victory against third seed Andy Roddick at Wimbledon in 2006), the Scot has also been notable in his abject performances (Tsonga or Hyung Taik-Lee, anoyone?). It's almost become as customary as British sporting failure for the media to build up the chances of a Wimbledon win - this is only natural (how else would they generate such fever-pitch interest?) - but surely to pin our hopes on an inconsistent, albeit talented youngster, who has never gotten past the fourth round, is baffling.

I've yet to be shown that Murray can keep his head and put in seven truly great matches required to win a slam. I've yet to be shown that Murray even has the physical attributes necessary to go the two weeks distance - lets face it, he is still 21 (although that's no real excuse when you compare him to four-time French Open winner Nadal (22) and Australian Open winner Novak Djokovic (21 and just a few days younger than Andy). I hope I'm proved wrong in the next couple of weeks - grass certainly has the potential to be one of Murray's most successful surfaces - only time will tell if he has the quality and mental strength to do it.

First up is Queen's, where Murray can show us whether he's in the mood to brighten up our summers. It'll be a good test - Murray's likely path is to meet Sebastian Grosjean (a former Wimbledon finalist) in the second round, Ernests Gulbis (French Open Quarter Finalist), Andy Roddick (four-time Queens winner) in the QF. Should he get that far, he's in the same half of the draw as Rafael Nadal, so if anything is going to prove that Murray has the potential to win Wimbledon this year, it's his showing at Queen's this week.

Bring on the grass!