Du Toits day is tomorrow

Firstly just a quick reminder of yesterday, Khotso "Crocodile" Mokoena claimed silver in the long jump. Sorry couldn't resist. Wednesday will see the assault on what would be the most incredible medal in Olympic history. Natalie Du Toit will swim in the 10km open water swimming event at 3am SA time - be sure to set your alarm clocks for one of sports greatest moments.

Du Toit lost her left leg in a motorcycle accident when she was 16 and after conquering the paralympics in 2004 and competing in the able bodied Commonwealth Games in 2002 (finishing 8th in the 800m final) she set her sights on becoming the first amputee to qualify for the Olympics. Tomorrow I have no doubt Du Toit will fulfill her destiny and if you think I'm blowing smoke up your ass - she finished 4th in the able bodied world champs in Seville earlier this year! Now this would be a story to rival that Phelps fellow ...

Sifiso Nhlapo will also be in action in the BMX qualification with the final on Thursday. Oh what a story it would be to have 3 medals by Thursday.

Blade Runner Again

I think that we all know how I feel about Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius. Found an interesting debate on iafrica.com about the issue which raises some good points and is worth the read. That doesn't make the anti Pistorius lobby right though!

The reason the Boks lost

Several articles on the net and in some local papers have suggested that the reason the Boks lost on Saturday was down to the tomfoolery and splat dash attitude they took into the game apparently epitomised by the Sasol advert which ran in Saturdays papers. Lets take a look ...

The add that caused the loss

Clearly an unhappy team
Thank goodness John Smit didn't play, who knows how many we would have lost by then
Aaaah The Beast what a poor test he had

Seriously guys the reason we lost was because of our gameplan/poor execution as far as I'm aware the boys didn't piss the night away celebrating with Percy on Friday - too me this looks like a worthy tribute to an even worthier player. Honestly someone pays these people to write ...

Finally

Khotso Mokoena you little beauty!!!!!! Finally what has been a torturous week for South African sports fans got it's silver lining.

Mokoena soared to a silver medal this afternoon (SA time) in the long jump. The former world junior champion in triple jump secured the silver with a jump of 8.24 metres after briefly leading from Panama's Irving Saladino.

Mokoena who is the current world indoor champion secured the first medal for team SA at this games. I'm sure he'll come home to heroes welcome and rightfully so. Here's to hoping we add to the haul, as the Chinese, Yanks and Brits have proved winning is contagious, lets hope team SA all get the fever.

Note: My favourite for gold Sifiso Nhlapo is up on Thursday and I'm also tipping Natalie du Toit for a medal.

Black Out at home ...

It's bad enough that Eskom can't provide us with electricity but to be blacked out at home. We lost 19-0. Enuff said. Somebody had better go home and have a darn good look at themselves. That's all I have to say on that ...

The Spirit of the Olympics Part III

Seriously dude not cool! This is how not behave at the Olympics. Ara Abrahamian and Sweden take a bow, for trying to destroy the Olympic spirit.

Blade Runner can't hear either ...

AWESOME, AWESOME, AWESOME. We may not be lighting up the world at the Olympics but just wait for the Amakrokokroko, why does this country consistently produce paralympic teams that punch way above their weight level?

Our country is not only home to the arguably the two best paralympians, Oscar Pistorius and Natalie Du Toit, but also claimed 15 Gold medals in Athens, 13th place overall and a staggering tally of 35 total medals. Which begs several questions why don't we fire the whole of SASCOC and replace them with DISSA? Why on earth don't we as South Africans make more noise about our paralympians? And where the hell can I get a Amakrokokroko t-shirt!

I'll leave the last words to Oscar "you are not disabled by the disabilities you have, you are able by the abilities you have."

Togo 1 South Africa 0

Togo with a population of just under 6 million people, that's about the same as the FNB stadium on Chiefs vs. Pirates derby day, won it's first ever Olympic medal this morning.
The 27 year old Benjamin Boukpeti won the K1 Kayak Single bronze medal with a shock performance - throwing up more of that Olympic spirit I'm always going on about. So now great sporting nations like Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan (yes that is a serious country) and Togo lead South Africa in the medals table. which actually isn't that difficult considering we're sitting on a big fat toilet seat!

I'm claiming the whole Southern African angle from now on, Kirsty Coventry won us (liberal use of the word there) our second silver medal in the women's 100m backstroke. Whom I kidding a country with an estimated inflation rate 0f more than 9 million percent can produce an Olympic medals and we can't.

Come on boys and girls raise your game! Rowing semi's on Thursday come on Di Clemente and Keeling.

That Boy Phelps.

Okay generally I'm not easily impressed by sporting achievements, records are there to be broken and all that, I mean honestly we come from a country where people with one leg and no legs compete side by side with the able bodied. But the mens 4x100m freestyle final this morning was amazing to watch.

I'm generally not that big on Phelps or the Americans but to see a race where the top 5, yes that's correct the top 5 teams broke the world record is once in a lifetime stuff. Imagine swimming a world record time and finishing 5th! That would f&$k me right off.

Never mind Phelps the swim by 32 year old Jason Lezak to record an "unofficial" world record of 46 seconds flat was incredible. Do this go down to your local Virgin active pool and try and swim 4 laps in 46 seconds seriously try and swim 2 laps in that time, freakin' amazing.

If you do one thing today watch this video, seriously do it.

Note: the video is only available to SA viewers I'll try and find one for everybody soon.

The Spirit of the Olympics Part II

This captures the spirit of the Olympics better than any Nike Ad ever could.

Andrew Cronje is a member of Team SA's hockey squad in Beijing and has put together this amazing collection of a few thoughts and pics from Beijing. Cronje will probably never be a household name but reading his blog just shows what the Olympics means to all the "little guys" out there. Andrew Cronje go you good thing! Check it out seriously the man is a legend.

Update: Unfortunately our hockey boys went down 5-0 to the Netherlands on Monday but I'm guessing even that won't spoil Andrews Olympic memories

The weekend round up

For those of you who have better things to do than lie on your couch with beer in hand and chips on stomach for an entire weekend (if that's possible). To keep you in the loop around the water cooler and so you don't embarrass yourself at next weekends braai, the sasportsblog team brings you a wrap up of the past weekends sport.

No doubt it was a big weekend of sport and we can't blame you for losing your focus momentarily. Obviously the opening ceremony of the XXIX Olympiad was Fridays highlight. Mention seen Natalie Du Toit carry the flag brought a tear to your eye and something about the Team SA's shocking green shoes should keep you in the conversation and for added effect Kirsty Coventry as a Southern African medal winner (silver in the Women's 400m Individual Medley) should go down like Klippies and Cola in Pretoria after a Bulls victory.

Saturday saw the Boks return to winning ways with an empathic 63-9 mauling of the hapless Pumas. Depending on the type of people at the braai you can swing from the rebirth of the Springboks, citing wonderful performances against the much vaunted Argentinian scrum (be sure to mention The Beasts performance, a simply shake of the head and mutter Beast should do the trick) and smoothness returning to the backline (Fourie Du Preez's calming influence on Butch the debate), to the why Argentina even bothered sending a side and how it has robbed us of Jacque Fourie and Bakkies Botha for Saturdays big clash against the All Blacks.

Sunday saw the emergence of a new and perhaps unexpected challenger to Tiger Woods crown as the most dominant golfer of his era - Irishman Padraig Harrington, after he triumphed at the US PGA Championship by two shots. If anyone had said a golfer would win 3 out of 6 majors in 2007/2008, all the smart money and the considerably less intelligent money would have been on Tiger, but enter the Irishman! Oh what a tussle awaits when the stripped one reenters the fray! But once again the discussion here will centre around will Sergio Garcia EVER win a major, it's looking less and less likely as his mind increasingly resembles Steve Harmison's in the closing holes.

Monday (well Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday too) saw the implosion of the SA Cricket team handing KP (God how I hate that name) his first victory as England captain. The first innings collapse was pretty pathetic. De Villiers and Amla gave us a little hope on day 3 and 4 but in the end we where comprehensively beaten. Oh well at least we won the series 2-1. Here the conversation will inevitably turn to what a p%@ss Kevin Pietersen is and rightfully so.

Finally the weekend also saw the start of the season in England with the traditional opening fixture the Community Shield. Man Utd won he game 3-1 on penalties but seriously if your party gets to this sort of talk it's time to leave or else divert the conversation the way of the the draw for the 2008 MTN 8 knockout - the Pretoria derby of Sundowns against Supersport and the big Soweto clash of Chiefs vs. Swallows - be sure to pepper this conversation with the question to start an endless argument will Supersport (and what the hell throw Ajax Cape Town in there too) be able to repeat last years form?

Then sit back and watch the lads argue it out just don't blame us if the evening ends with boys having to be separated by wives/girlfriends/lovers!

Welcome Team SA

Friday saw the opening of the Olympics in Beijing. It was a jaw dropping opening ceremony that almost made us all forget about about the pollution/political problems that have hassled the games. Team SA led out by the amazing Natalie Du Toit.

If for some reason you have no idea who Natalie is you can read her story here. The mere fact that someone with one leg managed to qualify for the games is amazing add to that the fact that she is one of the medal favourites in the women's 10km swim and you can understand just what a remarkable person Natalie is.

Seen her carry the flag out was a moment that I'm sure bought a tear to many an eye and deservedly so, lets just hope that the performance of Team SA matches the opening ceremony! The 2004 tally of 1Gold, 3 Silver and 2 Bronze should be firmly in this teams sites. Hopefully we'll be able to increase the colour of some of those bronze and silvers - 3 golds would do us nicely! My biggest tip for gold BMXer (if that's the correct term) Sifiso Nhlapo

P.S. Dig the green shoes guys an' gals very Sefrican

The Spirit of the Olympics

Awesome new release from the guys at Nike just in time for the Olympics. The main reason that I like this ad, besides Oscar "Blade Runner" Pistorius, is the way it captures the spirit of the Olympics.

If we're honest we watch the Olympics more for the drama than the winners, sure watching Phelpedio, or whatever he'll be nicknamed, accumulate 8 gold medals is interesting but it's really the spectacular blowouts (Paula Radcliffe in 2004, Colin Jackson 1992 and many more) and the tremendous triumph of human spirit (probably best epitomised by Derek Redmond and others like Eric "the Eel" Moussambani) that draw us in, that's the reason we all love the Olympics!

Ask anyone who won the 10m Air Pistol in 2000 and I'm guessing you'll draw a blank but I can guarantee you that Eric the Eel will at least elicit a wry smile. Enjoy the ad and Blade Runner closing it out! Watch out for him in 2012 ...

The Open

With most of the Yanks stubbornly refusing to refer to it by its proper name, "The Open", as well as the lack of a certain Tiger Woods at the event there is certain to be a distinct downturn in interest from West of the Pond, something I'm sure Phil Mickelson will be desperately trying to rectify.

The interest from SA couldn't be greater with 13 qualifiers we should stand a great chance of getting in amongst the leaders. Ernie, despite his Scottish Open form looked about as comfortable as Bob Mugabe at 10 Downing Street shooting 80 means that he'll almost certainly miss the weekends play along with Darren Fichardt.Retief Goosen held the flag high in terrible conditions with a one over par 71, the Goose desperately seeking the form that made him a major winner in 2001 & 2004 at the US Open. He's currently tied for 7th and if he can keep it together in the difficult conditions could be a huge threat. Memories of '04 at the impossible Shinnecock Hills swirling around in my head, reminding us just how good he can be in difficult conditions. Early days yet but ...

The best of the rest, Trevor Immelman tied for 39th at +4 (wouldn't it be fantastic to see him win 2 majors in a year?) and the duo of Thoams Aiken and 48 year old David Frost tied for 56th at 5 over. The full scorecard available here.

The big story of the day was the return of the Great White Shark, Greg Norman the second-oldest player in the field shot a 70 to be tied for 4th after round 1 what a story it would be if the newly married, former world number 1 could pull off a stunning victory!

Robert Allenby, Rocco Mediate and Graeme McDowell lead on one under from Norman, fellow Ozzie Adam Scott and Bart Bryant who are all level par. My money is on Adam Scott, but what a story a Goosen or Norman victory would make.

THE Pieter De Villiers Video

A wonderful show of emotion from the springbok coach after the win against the All Blacks, it is quite comical to see the little guy hugging guys like Big Vic and Schalk (poor Vict almost bowled over by the coachs joy), this together with his reaction after the Januarie try shows that the man clearly has passion for the Boks and as any career counseller will tell you if you're doing something you're passionate about it's a great start.

Alot has been written about Div before and after the win, but one thing is for sure we are in for a change of style from the days of Jake White. White was known for been fairly dogmatic and his own man, whereas from early on Div has definately adopted a more concensus based approach to his team management and playing style.

All I can say is well done Div and long may it continue.

Kissing your sister never felt so good ...

Morné du Plessis once memorably described a draw in a Currie Cup final as being like ‘kissing your sister’. Well if that applies to the SA cricket team they must be having some very strange feelings in their collective boxes. Having been completely and utterly outplayed for 3 straight days they produced a magnificent performance to bat out 2 days and earn a draw at Lords.

Graeme Smith, Neil McKenzie and Hasim Amla where the architects in chief of the draw, but we shouldn't forget Aswell Prince and AB De Villiers contributions in the first innings while all around them capitulated they stood tall and left South Africa with an outside chance of a draw without them the game would have been lost after day 3.

Worry signs for SA where the lack of penetration of the SA attack Ntini, Steyn and Kallis picking up 1 wicket between them for a cost of over 300 runs, for a bowling attack compared to the legendary West Indians of the 1980's that return simply isn't good enough.

The good news is that the Proteas will head to Headingly with a extra spring in their step and the England bowlers will no doubt be out on their feet after bowling for almost 3 straight days, the wear and tear on Sidebottom and Anderson could be telling on an England side who will no doubt be lifted by the return of Flintoff. So Friday will see the start of what promises to be an intriguing five days in Leeds.

Christmas comes in Januarie

Despite the fact that South Africa's most popular news website can't spell his name correctly, Ricky Januarie is the name on every South African sports fans lips. An outstanding individual try completed a historic win for the Boks in Dunedin and an (almost) dream start to the coaching career of Pieter De Villiers. Roundly criticized last week and mentioned as a racial appointment and puppet by Craig Dowd, Div hit back in the best possible fashion by becoming the first ever Bok coach to win at the House of Pain and give SA our first victory in NZ since "The Slappies Try" of 1998.

Although I hope to that this blog never becomes a racial stamping ground Div did get a fair amount of stick in the media (a lot of it just and what a Bok coach should expect if he loses), some of which was based on the fact that he was a quota appointment, hopefully we can see that one now put to bed!

I point on the rise of Januarie this season. He has been outstanding and I believe this gives further credence to the policy of consistency in selection. Many will point to Jake White as the mastermind behind this however consistency in selection has been the cornerstone of most of the words most successful sporting teams, think Man United, the Ozzie crickets, The Chicago Bulls in the '90's. Januarie had a poor 2007 yet he was maintained in the Springbok structures and has repaid that faith in buckets - selectors take note, think of Ruan Pienaar, Frans Steyn et al. Form is temporary, class is permanent.

The Boks will rightly go into this weekends class with, what appears to be a distinctly undercooked Wallabie side, as odds on favourites. The only concern is that the Springbok mindset seems to work best as an underdog, there's nothing more dangerous than an injured Springbok. De Villiers must now prove that he can convert the back to the wall Springbok attitude to one that can handle the expectation of winning! He's made a good start ...

Rugby - Kiwi Style

Despite their dubious proximity to convicts, their love for all things lamb and what appears to be a newly found knack of crying about how much the Boks cry (and I thought rugby was a mans game), I rather like the Kiwis.

I sit opposite one at work and he's a nice enough guy, since I've taken down the poster of Smitty holding up ol' Bill he's stopped mentioning our scrum collapse last Saturday. Anyway this is the way the Kiwi's role during their rugby shows, imagine Naas's reaction on Boots&All ...

from our friends at BBC.

"New Zealand rugby fans watching a regular sports programme found themselves viewing hardcore pornography instead on Sunday afternoon."

but wait it gets better

"Four minutes of pornography interrupted sports coverage on the Prime Television channel, after what a spokesman described as a distribution mix up. The pornographic footage was meant for an adult pay-per-view channel. Instead, it found its way onto a regular free-to-air programme called Grassroots Rugby. Rival television channels reported that some viewers were angry about the broadcast, which may have been seen by children. "

Grassroots Rugby = porn. Brilliant!

More or less ...

A weekly feature on this site will be a round out of incidents that I feel we either need more or less of in sports (not specifically South Africa). They'll be the moments that put a lump in your throat or get you out of your chair with rage. I must admit I'm a tad old school when it comes to these things so I'm sure there will be plenty of debate about what I deem a "bad", but that's half the fun of sport isn't it - my horrendous tackle on Smitty, is the NZ commentators bit of harmless argy bargy. Let the debate begin...

More: Let me just say right off the bat that I'm a huge Roger Federer fan, I think if there where more sports stars out there like RF the world would be a better place (maybe a tad over the top there) but the quality of tennis that Federer and Nadal produced on Sunday was simply unbelievable. At 2 sets to love up 5-2 in the tie break, Nadal must have thought game, set and match but Federer pulled through to produce a match that will long live in the memory by fighting back to take not only the 3rd but the 4th set before finally surrendering in the 9-7 in the longest ever mens final, at times I sat with my jaw literally wide open at these two. (see the 4th set tie break below.) Long may the Fed vs Rafa rivalry continue.

The humility shown by both of them in the post match interview just further enhanced the reputation of both of these men. In an age where sports stars are hitting the headlines more and more for late night drinking, sex scandals, diving and generally doing whatever they can to make sports a profession you wouldn't want your kids to take up, Roger and Rafa are two players I would be proud to be related too. They went at each other tooth and nail for 4 hours and 48 minutes and yet at the end remained true to the spirit of sport.

Nadal: "I must congratulate Roger, he's still the No1, he's still the best, and he's won five times here."
Federer: "I tried everything, but Rafa's a deserving champion, he's the worst opponent on the best court. It's a pity I couldn't win it, but I'll be back next year."

Just have a gander at this:



Less: This happened a few weeks ago and I considered not posting it, but the sheer magnitude of what unfolded made me upset enough to dig through the archives and relive the moment. All I can say is Paul Collingwood you should be ashamed of yourself and every England cricket player standing on that field should hold their head in shame, it was a disgusting moment that leaves a sour taste in every ones mouth in my opinion the Kiwi dressing room had every reason to be as angry as they where. The Pommie press rightly lambasted Collingwood. Here are a few choice extracts:

"Oh, the folly of Capt Colly!" was the Daily Mail's headline. The paper said the incident was the worst involving an England captain since Mike Gatting argued with Pakistani umpire Shakoor Rana 21 years ago."Paul Collingwood's reputation may be sullied forever," it added.The Guardian compared the incident with the furore involving former captain Michael Atherton over alleged ball-tampering 14 years ago.Atherton himself wrote in the Times that England lost "a good deal of self-respect" over the incident but praised Collingwood's "outstanding" honesty and contrition in apologising."Cricket became a contact sport here yesterday [Wednesday] as England's win-at-all-costs attitude saw them beaten off the last ball by New Zealand in a game soured by the run-out of Grant Elliott at a crucial stage," wrote former England bowler Derek Pringle in the Daily Telegraph.

Justice was eventually done when the Kiwis won off a last ball overthrow - karma as they say is a b*tch.

For those who haven't seen it here is the video of the run out and the aftermath.

De Villiers first test ...

As big a build up as I have seen in SA in long while leading into the Boks first real test as World Champions (still has a nice ring to it). The Boks where disappointing at best and real letdown. A 19-8 loss to the All Balcks should never to acceptable to an SA rugby public who expect much more.

Lets start with the positives the return of Joe Van Niekerk was (at least for me) a pleasant surprise and the more I see of Conrad Jantjes at test level the more I'm convinced he's the real deal, although you've gotta hope that PDV opts for the experience of Monty at fullback and pushes Jantjes out to the wing.

Jean De Villiers also continues to impress this season although he will hopefully partner Frans Steyn in the midfield come next Saturday (unlikely with PDV's liking for Adi Jacobs).

The bad, was the fact that we never got to pressurize the All Balck line-out, only getting our first feed after more than 30 minutes. Disappointingly that we never managed to exploit the absence of Richie McCaw either as the All Blacks are at least 10-15% worse off without him.

Butch James was also disappointing and had one of his worse games in a Bok jersey for a while but Butch is a quality player and my money is on him bouncing back stronger than ever next week.

The downright ugly was the Bok scrum and the worrying thing is that De Villiers doesn't have much else in his squad to call on - Mujati didn't fair much better than CJ and Guthro, it would be unfair to expect The Beast at 22 to come in and rectify the scrum, with apologies to 'ol Will a prop a prop my kongdom for a prop! (or the selection of BJ Botha). Equally as ugly was the lack of leadership once John Smit left the field, we heard in the build-up to the match how the core of the team was full of leadership, but once Smitty left the field none of Victor Matfield, Jaun Smith, Jean De Villiers, Butch James, CJ van der Linde etc. stuck up their hand and with Smit out for the rest of the tour things aren't looking all that pretty.

Here's hoping the Boks can turn things around next week. Courtesy of the kind folk at RugbyDump here are some of the highlights from the match.