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Monthly Archives: July 2015
Tough having two dogs in a fight
SA champ Warren Joubert and my little man Alexei (aspirant champ).
It’s easy to watch when you don’t have a dog in the fight.
This week will be far harder when Warren Joubert and Grant Fourie battle it out for the SA junior-welterweight title. I’m a friend and fan of both, which makes it tough to savour.
Short of a draw – unlikely – there really is no happy medium to be gained. I’ll be charmed if Joubert wins, but upset for Fourie. The reverse is also true.
Joubert has always been an entertaining fighter. Rugged and ready, we’ve become accustomed to watching him, cut and bleeding, march forward and give and take in his quest to win. He will never be a world champion, but there’s something thoroughly noble about the way he goes about his business.
He’s the model pro, a guy who works hard and never leaves the ring wondering.
I first met Fourie shortly after he turned pro. He came to the sport with a reputation and the formidable shadow cast by his uncle, the late Pierre Fourie. His career started like a house on fire, but illness torpedoed his hopes of becoming an elite boxer. Once a hot prospect, he meandered about as a contender. This is his big chance.
It has been an up and down career for Fourie, but he’s never lost his dignity or ambition. He’s not just a fighter, he’s a fight fan. He’s often at the shows, a handshake here and a hello there. He loves the boxing brotherhood and they love him.
I’m pleased neither is an especially big puncher. That way, neither is likely to have me watching with my heart in my mouth.
I will be most happy with a closely-fought bout where they leave the ring with honour, win or lose.
Riding rugby’s hell road
You would think that a city as large and as ugly as Joburg would have learned by now how to stage big events.
Fat chance.
For more than 30 years Ellis Park has hosted Test match rugby and other major fixtures. And it’s still a dog’s breakfast.
Getting to and from the stadium for the South Africa-New Zealand game on Saturday was an exercise in frustration and bother. My instincts tell me this will always be the case, but I foolishly go against my better judgment, somehow hoping the next time will be different.
Traffic is a disaster. The lack of adequate public transport means that 50 000-odd cars head to Doornfontein in search of 10 000 parking spots. Do the maths.
Traffic control is a contradiction in terms with Everyday Joe suddenly adopting the habits of the average taxi driver. Cue chaos and gridlock.
We opted to hop out of our bus – there were no coach lanes, obviously – and hotfoot it from one kilometre away. It was faster, but meant traipsing our way through piss-filled puddles, broken pavements and the detritus so familiar to urban Joburg. Nasty stuff, but the happy banter around us made it tolerable. Barely.
The next challenge was getting into the stadium precinct itself. Our first port of call was the security check, which was horrendously overwhelmed. Two thousand-odd people, many of them kids, were bottle-necked and at a standstill. I’ve seen All Black-Springbok loose mauls that were less physical.
Check one negotiated and it was on to the shiny turnstiles. That’s not strictly true. Test match day, 61 000 people swinging by, and an entire row of the things was out of order. South Africans have the perfect word for this reality: slapgat.
The quality you really need for attending major rugby in Joburg is endurance. A bloody-minded attitude is what was required to then snake through the narrow security point where tickets weren’t scanned, but simply torn in half. This is how stadium disasters happen. They first simmer at the gates.
The legacy of 2010? Pull the other one.
Getting out was no less taxing, but you can imagine the cheery mood with many fans a dozen beers to the good and less than impressed that the Boks had lost. Throw in a couple of cars parked slap-bang in the middle of exit points and you get a sense of the bedlam that ensued. Guys were proper woes.
I’ve been fortunate enough to have attended big-time sport in many countries. I once took in an American Football game at Metlife Stadium (82 500 capacity) in New Jersey two years ago. It took us 10 minutes to get in, park and hand over our tickets.
(It did take us two hours to find the car later, but that was our fault).
The Johannesburg experience, which includes FNB Stadium, is unquestionably the most miserable, soul-destroying experience of them all. The average rugby fan is treated like crap. Pay your money and shut up.
To cap it off, my black colleague was told to bugger off as we negotiated our way out.
At least the rugby was world class.
Doping shame rolls on
The five stages of grief are well-known. They are denial and isolation; anger; bargaining; depression; and, finally, acceptance.
This pattern could well apply to world sport where the dark spectre of doping looms larger than ever.
We are seeing freakishly fast times and power ratios at the Tour de France while doping fiend Justin Gatlin is burning up tracks all over Europe with performances that defy belief. Even locally, visitors to the Craven Week spoke of some players being unnaturally big.
Lance Armstrong rode two stages of the Tour de France route last week as part of a charity drive. Having experienced four of the aforementioned phases since his grand mea culpa, he is now working towards acceptance.
Cycling’s biggest fraud not only raised an eyebrow at Chris Froome’s efforts, but he was indignant about how he remains a pariah while so many senior figures on Le Tour have doping histories.
“Why am I not welcome? Because I’m a doper? If that were the rule, the caravan would almost be empty,” he tartly remarked.
It says much for our misplaced sense of morality that dopers (and their enablers) are not only welcomed back, but often celebrated, their misdeeds all but forgotten.
Gatlin’s case is extraordinary. Twice he has been banned and twice he has been welcomed back into the fold. The first time he tested positive he claimed it was due to medication for a disorder. The second time he was nailed for testosterone. His excuse? Cream applied by a masseur.
He copped four years. But he couldn’t stay away. Now he’s the world’s top-ranked sprinter, having run 9.74sec for the 100m and 19.57sec for the 200m this year. Nike has even signed him up.
Athletics faces the very real, very awkward possibility of a doper standing atop the podium as the fastest man on earth when the world championship takes place next month.
It’s an uncomfortable truth for the sport to digest, but Gatlin’s ascension is a possibility, particularly as Usain Bolt’s form is scratchy. He’s been injured and hasn’t run much.
It’s difficult not to question Gatlin. His feats defy biology, especially at an age when sprinters ought to be slowing down. He’s 33.
Bolt was 22 when he ran 9.58sec to break his world record in 2009.
It’s true that Linford Christie ran his personal best at 33, but we know all about his past.
Given Gatlin’s history, and lack of contrition, it is impossible not being sceptical. He’s frequently tested, it’s true, but as anyone knows, doping is a game of cat and mouse. The smartest wins.
Bolt is very much the conscience of athletics. Not only its greatest protagonist – six Olympic gold medals give him that status – Bolt is also the compelling example of a clean athlete producing excellence. Or so we hope.
Lining up alongside him in Beijing next month, apart from Gatlin, will be other dopers in the shape of Mike Rodgers and Tyson Gay. Rodgers tested positive in 2011.
Fellow American Gay tested positive for anabolic steroids two years ago. He had a two-year ban reduced to one for cooperating with authorities. He’s back now and will be in the medal hunt. Bolt was irked enough to say that Gay should have been thrown out of the sport for good.
It’s going to be damn hard knowing who to cheer for when the 100m final takes place.
It’s a lot like the Tour de France, a race so absorbed by chaos and controversy you can never quite be sure what you are watching.
Experts are openly questioning Froome’s speeds, a sad, inevitable consequence of the Tour’s tainted past. Froome, remember, has never been bust for doping, but Team Sky went so far as to release some of his performance data in an effort to end doping speculation. This stuff is normally top secret, but shows how cynical the sport has become. No-one knows what to believe.
All this does is play into the narrative that sport is indeed a game; like games it can be manipulated, massaged and messed with. Gatlin and the Tour de France buccaneers need to know – we choose to believe, or not, strictly on our terms. – © Sunday Tribune
Building towards RWC is a crock
I’m no fan of “building” a team towards the World Cup.
This is what we have in the Rugby Championship with both the Springboks and the All Blacks openly talking about tomorrow’s match as a quasi-trial for World Cup selection, a chance to mix and match.
It’s true that all roads lead to Twickenham come September, but it’s a risky experiment. Instead of selecting teams for the here and now, they are chosen on the notion of what might work for the bigger picture. A team for tomorrow rather than a team for today.
Which puts a dent of sorts in the status of the Test match at Ellis Park. These games will always be full-bore, thunderous affairs, but it might have something of the phoney war about it.
If this is a Bok team in development phase – which might be a little late anyway – any chance of getting onto a roll could be destroyed. Remember, this is a single-round tournament because it is World Cup year. The scalp of the All Blacks, no matter how diminished they are sans Dan Carter and Sonny Bill Williams, must thus be claimed this weekend. The next time is likely to come in the World Cup semi-final itself. The momentum generated off a win at Ellis Park just 55 days out from the World Cup would be massive.
A reverse, however, would plant seeds of doubt, especially as it would be the third on the bounce (excluding the World XV lark). Not ideal.
The nature of Test rugby militates against being too cocksure about your World Cup picks, even now. Injury and form could wreak havoc with Heyneke Meyer’s plans. He would be the first to admit that he’s hardly ever selected a XV he was 100 percent satisfied with, mainly because injuries are an unhappy by-product of his job.
The same holds true for the All Blacks. This is by no means their best team. They too run the risk of blowing whatever momentum they have.
Joburg’s likely dank weather will be welcomed by the Boks – the softer the surface, the better for them against the hard-running All Blacks. This is especially true because two things were starkly evident in Brisbane last week: the Boks’ lack of out and out pace and a flagging of their energies.
The battle on the ground will be savage. Even if the Boks gain parity, or better, the All Black backs have serious gas to burn.
I expect them to rip our guts out.
Mayweather – yawn – limbers up
Andre Berto has had five fights in the past five years and lost two of those.
And this is who Floyd Mayweather jnr expects us to get excited about as he chases Rocky Marciano’s mythical 49-0 mark?
Berto is so far down the radar of most boxing watchers that only hard core fans would have heard of him.
He’s beaten one fighter of consequence (Jan Zaveck) and lacks the star power of any number of opponents who would have been better, chiefly Amir Khan, Keith Thurman, Danny Garcia and Gennady Golovkin.
Khan chasing Mayweather so relentlessly these past two years has become an embarrassment, but it’s still hard not to feel some sympathy for the Englishman. He’s done far more to earn a crack at Mayweather and the riches such a fight would bring. Khan should move on and forget about the self-absorbed American showman.
Andre Berto.
Berto is a guaranteed win for Mayweather and poses little to zero threat against boxing’s king. Robert Guerrero even outboxed him a few years ago and we all remember how Mayweather bossed Guerrero.
Mayweather clearly hasn’t listened to his dad who suggested Floyd would be better off retiring than fighting easybeats.
Mayweather will probably get away with it because he’s talking about taking the action to (free) terrestrial television in September. It’s not because he’s a generous guy; it’s because Berto would be a bust at the pay-per-view office.
Doubtless much will be made of long-standing tension between Berto and Mayweather said to involve crank phone calls and other such nonsense.
In a brilliant twist, Argentina’s Cesar Cuenca edged closer to Marciano’s record by winning the IBF junior-lightweight belt last weekend, taking him to 48-0.
Mayweather wouldn’t recognise Cuenca if he walked in the front door, but it would no doubt grate his sense of justice to have another man tugging at his record pursuit.
It’s time to talk about Serena
We need to talk about Serena Williams.
Before I do, full disclosure: I’m a big fan.
That probably puts me in a minority because Williams polarises tennis watchers. Many people I talk to seem not to like her. Asked why, they tend to mumble a lame response. It’s that uncomfortable stuff. You know, “big, muscular girl, not my vibe”.
What they really mean is that she doesn’t fit the blonde belter stereotype that adorns so many tournaments. It’s why Maria Sharapova is the top earner in women’s sport, despite not being on the same planet as Williams tennis-wise.
Sharapova can play a bit, but the head-to-head stats don’t lie. Williams is 18-2 up and comfortably the best player on the circuit. Talk in the week after her Wimbledon triumph suggests she may even be the best of all time.
Williams is different from the rest. She is neither slim nor demure. But she is a lady and she’s fun. I first saw her in the flesh in the week of the Laureus Sports Awards in Monte Carlo in 2000. She was bubbly and effervescent; charm personified. There wasn’t much not to like.
Andy Roddick said the same this week, about how terrific she is, if only people bothered to find out.
She certainly stakes a great claim to the title of best ever, although what the stats don’t reflect is how she got into tennis, starting out in hard scrabble Compton California and then working her way through an almost entirely white environment.
Racism was everywhere and her father worked hard to shield her and sister Venus from the uglier side of the game. It still crops up, like last year when the dim-witted president of the Russian Tennis Federation referred to her and sister Venus as the “Williams brothers”.
Now that she’s got to the top and won 21 majors Williams has to put up with drivel related to body-shaming. The New York Times got into the act this week by digging into the issue, which has long percolated in the sport. The gist of it was that other players on the tour prefer not to mirror her physique.
The article provoked a firestorm.
Perhaps the sharpest comment on the controversy was provided by author JK Rowling in response to an Internet troll who opined that “the main reason for her success is that she is built like a man.”
Rowling responded: “Yeah, my husband looks just like this in a dress. You’re an idiot.”
She added a pic of Williams at the post-Wimbledon party looking stunning in a red dress.
Happily, Williams is comfortable in her own skin and she was soon posting pics of herself in a bikini on Instagram. Body shame? Not from her.
This talks to her mental strength, which she so frequently demonstrates on court. There are competitors who can match her stroke for stroke, but when she needs to shift a gear or put the squeeze on, she does so. Her mental game is bang on.
Of course she’s strong too. Tennis rewards power and she’s worked relentlessly on her power game. Muscles are a by-product of hard work. No need to apologise for that.
The US Open is just five weeks away and presents the formidable American with the opportunity to complete an official Grand Slam of the four majors in a single calendar year. The last woman to do so was Steffi Graf, 27 years ago.
(Williams currently holds all four Grand Slam titles, but the US Open was won last year).
Graf is a compelling measure of where Williams stands in tennis’ pantheon. The German won 22 majors, a mark almost certain to be claimed by Williams, who will then be in sight of Margaret Court’s haul of 24 Grand Slam titles.
There’s little doubt Williams will nail the all-time record, but whether she will earn the broad acclaim she deserves is in doubt.
Bewilderingly, not everyone approves of a world class athlete with personality and grace and sass and style. Not everyone approves of a player who is utterly dominant and has set staggering new standards for her sport.
Too bad. Long may she reign. – © Sunday Tribune
A bent nose and Gyllenhaal would be perfect
Massive respect to Jake Gyllenhaal.
Having been around fighters for around 30 years, I have a good idea of the obessive training required to look good and fight good. Pound-for-pound, there aren’t many sportsmen who could match up to boxers for speed, endurance, agility, strength and toughness.
Reaching the pain barrier is something most of the top fighters thrive on.
Gyllenhaal is no boxer – he’ll admit as much – but he transformed his phyique into one a champion boxer would be proud of for his starring role in Southpaw.
It’s taking method acting to the nth degree, which is a necessary requirement if Gyllenhaal is to pull it off as a legitimate boxer. I hope the fight scenes are authentic. Many a good boxing movie has been spoiled by lame and inevitably over-dramatised boxing scenes.
But at least Gyllenhaal looks like the real deal. Champion, right there.
SuperSport rolls with heartening RWC campaign
France’s Franck Mesnel.
What do Princess Charlene, Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Miss World Rolene Strauss have in common?
They are all members of the star-studded cast assembled by SuperSport for its ambitious Rugby World Cup campaign which kicks off this weekend.
The campaign incorporates famous South African and international personalities pledging “Our Hearts Are In It”, the SuperSport slogan crafted for the tournament.
The campaign is highlighted by two 90-second promos and more than a dozen 60-second vignettes with famous people recalling their best rugby memories.
Among those in the promos, in clips featuring them clutching at their hearts, are PJ Powers, Trevor Noah, Morné du Plessis, Bryan Habana, Chester Williams, Strauss, Sean Fitzpatrick, Franck Mesnel, Ladysmith Black Mambazo, Princess Charlene, Ryk Neethling, Hekkie Budler, Sam Warburton and Richard Hill.
Francois Pienaar.
Ogilvy, DStv’s advertising agency, presented the strategy of rallying the nation around the “Hearts Are In It” call and this formed the brief SuperSport put to various production houses.
“We have to get people behind the Boks. We are also a broadcaster of the event, so we couldn’t be aligned solely to the Boks. We had to truly be the World of Champions,” explained Katherine Hughes, SuperSport’s on-air marketing manager.
Admit One Productions won the pitch on the basis of their concept, which encompassed multiple platforms, in line with SuperSport’s broadcast strategy.
“They produced so much content that one 60-second promo became two 90-seconders with much more for online and elsewhere,” added Hughes. DStv’s Catch Up service and digital platforms will also showcase the campaign.
While the bulk of the shoots took place in South Africa, many did not. Admit One also travelled to Wales, Ireland, England, France and Monaco to secure big names like Fitzpatrick, Princess Charlene and former World Cup winner Richard Hill. In all, they were allocated 23 shoot days to secure all the footage.
The man we love to hate – Sean Fitzpatrick (who could not have been more helpful or friendly).
Said Ruette Steyn, chief producer of Admit One: “The concept and timeframe was so easy to understand. It was an emotional thing, so everyone knew what we wanted. We needed 15 minutes, tops.”
She was delighted with the outcome: “This campaign was the one we were waiting for. You dream of putting content like this together.”
Voiceover artist Patrick Willis has years of experience and even he was blown away by the impact. “It’s one of the most powerful pieces I’ve ever seen and even my bokkie was close to tears,” he remarked.
There were some quirky moments along the way, like seeing Miss World manage a wardrobe change in a car in front of the Union Buildings.
One-time All Black nemesis Fitzpatrick hosted the crew at Stoke Park golf club in Nuckinghamshire. Former England football player and manager Glenn Hoddle wandered past and then Fitzpatrick walked up holding a bacon sandwich and a coffee.
“He was the consummate pro, just lovely,” said Steyn. “He asked how Naas Botha was doing.”
Noah was as funny as you would expect and ad-libbed his way through any number of humorous moments.
As John Smit was preparing for his shoot on Durban pier, a jogger ran past. “So when are the Sharks gonna win again?” he blurted out.
“Ja,” said Smit, the Sharks’ chief executive, “I get a lot of that these days.”
There was a hairier moment during a crowd scene shoot that required a podium and seating for a crowd shot. At one point an extra’s hair caught alight, to which Springbok Oupa Mahoje enquired “I think someone’s smoking at the back.”
Fortunately no great harm came to the unfortunate woman.
Hughes said the Springboks were great fun to work with. “You would be surprised at some of the antics. They have amazing camaraderie and were so patient. ‘Take 100’ would be no problem for them.”
The vignettes boast content gold with the like of Ashwin Willemse, Springbok PR manager AnneLee Murray, 1995 World Cup announcer Malcolm Gooding, Hall of Fame TV producer Scott Seward and Fikile Mbalula sharing heartfelt rugby cameos.
PJ Powers.
The two promos will play out tomorrow, to coincide with the Springboks’ first match of the Rugby Championship against Australia.
The 13 stories will begin flighting on August 1.
The silliest ritual in sport
I’m in a minority of one, I’m sure, but the football transfer season must be one of the silliest, most overrated rituals in all of sport.
News channels report breathlessly on the latest bloke poised to sign, reporters doorstep players and hysteria takes hold among fans who are in one of just two camps. They are either thrilled to bits or feel personally betrayed because their favourite player has upped sticks.
Never mind that loyalty is something only dogs fully embrace. Players chase the cash and to believe for a moment that they have some deep love for the badge is to be seriously deluded.
You can tell it’s the off-season because the media report so earnestly on the comings and goings, whether it be top-end clubs or the bottom feeders. They’re all fair game for the voracious news hounds, desperate for even a whiff of transfer news.
Granted, some of the moves are indeed significant, but it’s hard to justify the hysteria and embellishment that accompanies every transfer move. I even saw a kid on YouTube responding to Robin van Persie’s move by bursting into tears. His parents ought to get him out more.
The smarter clubs of course squeeze every bit of life out of the players, parading them before the media, getting them to run on treadmills before the cameras and other such nonsense.
Perspective? Pah.
This is football where crazy comes standard.