CARRY ON REGARDLESS
9)Kenyan runner Brigid Kosgei won the London marathon by more than three minutes from her closest pursuer but Brigid finished MORE than 100 seconds outside the time limit set in the quiz question. How come the world’s finest woman marathon runner could crush the opposition but leave the stop watch running so long? The chosen rearranged route, many flat laps of St James’ Park, no Tower cobbles, should helped. Brigid might have wished for more effective opposition and some recent competitive racing but above all her record chances were scuppered by chilly rain of an early October morning. Well done to all those who braved the conditions to complete their own epic 26.2 miles far from London and collected sorely needed millions of pounds for charity.
16)There were many firsts in the 2020 US Open Men’s Singles. It was Dominic Thiem’s first Grand Slam win. It was the first time that the US Open had been won in a fifth set break tie break and Dominic was the first player to come back from two sets down to win in FIVE in the Open era.
Thiem was also the first man born in the 1990s to win any Grand Slam event. Where were your stalwart legends born in the 1980s? Fed gave it a miss through injury, Raf kept his powder dry for the clay and Andy needs to consider his future again. An open goal surely for Novak; his record for 2020 stood at 26-0.Novak got himself disqualified for hitting a ball away in frustration which hit a line judge in the throat. No escape in the rules though Novak spent seven wasted minutes pleading his defence of no intent. He apologized only after getting on the plane.
This was just another in a series of misjudgements. Novak had organized a tennis tour in the Balkans during lockdown which broke all the social distance rules. The Tour ended in multiple positive test results, including one for himself. The multi millionaire organized a new players’ association with GREED as its motto days before the US Open, who without a million expected paying customers were still offering 90% of the original prize fund; gruesome shoddy lack of timing. Novak will finish with more Slam titles than anybody; he’ll always be an idiot to me. He’s an anti vaccer of course; sad there’s not yet a vaccine for stupidity.
Edward Gilder writes on the Tour de France 2020
“Little did we know at the start of the year that the top dollar question for Sned’s Quizzers would be “Will the Tour de France run in 2020 and if so when?”
So that should be10 points for getting the right answer, when all around us COVID 19 was laying waste to the international sporting calendar, and another 10 points for guessing that it would be run in September and successfully completed.
19)How many Brits will be in the podium has become a regular question. Perhaps it should have been replaced with how many Brits will start the tour? Chris Froome,a token Brit in my view, is still recovering from his horrific accident. Geraint Thomas, by his own admission, had eaten too many lockdown pies and Mark Cavendish in the twilight of his career hadn’t won a race yet this season having never recovered his form after a long viral illness. That really only left Luke Rowe, the Ineos Grenadier’s faithful road captain and Adam Yates the “Bury Buccaneer” and long standing Clarion Cycling Club member, to fly the flag for the UK. There was some gallant attacking cycling from the Lancashire lad throughout the race, but not enough to see him on the podium at the finish. Adam finally finished in a very creditable 9th place.NO BRITS on the podium then.
20)At the outset my money was on Julien Allaphillipe of Deceuninck-Quickstep for the yellow jersey. They had excellent form in events leading up to the tour and Allaphillipe had performed well in last year’s event. For the first few days my man was there at the front and then disaster struck. An illegally passed water bottle inside a no feed zone saw him relegated and his challenged faded away after that. That’s one soigneur who will be looking for a new job. Then along came the Dutch boys in Yellow otherwise known as Jumbo Visma. Following tactics they had so obviously learned from Sky over the past few years, they took control of the pace from week two, suffocating the race from the front when they needed to and allowing the breakaway pirates to escape when they could do no damage. Their man Primo Roglic, a former ski jumper from Slovenia and a late entry to cycle racing was now the man to beat. On rode the yellow train into week three, as mountains followed mountains and at the finish on the last Friday Roglic was seconds ahead of his nearest rival another Slovenian, Tadej Pogacer. Tadej who you might well ask? I had to look him up, but as the commentators said “welcome to the Rog and Pog show”!
The Saturday time trial had a mountain finish, Roglic couldn’t handle it and Pogacer not only made up time on his rival but beat him by 59 seconds in the race overall. Who would have bet on SLOVENIAN winning this year’s Tour!
So what of the other jerseys, Pogacer not only won the yellow, and the white jersey for best young rider but also won the king of the mountains title or the Polka Dot jersey as it is known. The points or Green Jersey, which Peter Sagan has won for 7 out of the last 8 years, was won by a likeable young Irishman called Sam Bennett who also won the sprint in Paris on the last day riding for Deceuninck-Quickstep.
A completed tour, no teams lost to COVID as had been the worry at the outset, and new names for you all to remember. If you are asked next year how many Slovenians might finish on the podium then go with at least 1. As for the Brits, well Adam Yates is moving to Ineos next season. Given their conveyor belt of winners in recent years don’t be surprised if he is snapping at their heels.”
Neil Southwood writes on the 2020 cricket season
34)”The domestic cricket season finally got under way on August 1st, four months late, after lockdown brutally coincided with the most glorious early-summer weather fans could remember. Inevitably it then finished on one of the wettest October weekends, with T20 Finals Day requiring its reserve day and reduced-overs games for the first time ever. It proved testing for all four counties involved but NOTTINGHAMSHIRE emerged triumphant in the Birmingham gloom to continue their excellent recent record in the competition.
There were certainly times in April and May when the very real prospect of no county cricket at all looked a distinct possibility, notably when the ball was described as a ‘vector of disease’. Eventually common sense prevailed and two excellent restructured county competitions were put in place. T20 of course is designed to be loud, brash, all-singing, all-dancing and played in front of packed houses. Fans were long since resigned to following loyally on live streams and radio, with the eerie renditions of ‘Sweet Caroline’ still being played to empty stadiums creating a rather sad soundtrack to the late summer.
Thankfully the cricket itself didn’t disappoint with three competitive regional groups and dramatic quarter finals bringing together four worthy semi-finalists. Three big-name counties – Notts, Surrey and Lancashire – were joined by underdogs Gloucestershire in their first Finals Day appearance for 13 years. Sadly for yours truly and Quiz HQ, their glorious run came crashing to an end in the first semi. Put in to bat after over 50 hours of persistent rain, the Shire were caught cold by Surrey’s fine attack in tricky conditions. A meagre total of 73-7 in 11 overs proved easy pickings for the star-studded Surrey batting line-up.
The second semi saw two northern powerhouses battle it out in a higher-scoring but even more one-sided 11-over encounter. Notts had dominated the northern group as they so often do though fortunate to squeeze past Leicestershire in the quarter-finals.The young Foxes were guilty of crucial fielding mistakes in the last couple of overs to let a winning position slip from their grasp. On their fourth Finals Day appearance in the past five years, Notts used their experience well to overcome Lancashire’s 94-4 with a comfortable 16 balls to spare.
The best contest was certainly saved for last as conditions improved and the Final fluctuated one way then the next. A 90-run partnership between World Cup winning star Jason Roy and the belligerent Laurie Evans set Surrey up nicely, before five wickets fell quickly in the final overs to restrict them to 127. Notts lost their key batsman Alex Hales in the first over of their reply, and two more wickets soon followed, before Ben Duckett and Peter Trego steadied the ship. Duckett has experienced some tricky times since his move from Northants.Trego was playing his first T20 game for the club after many years collecting runners-up medals in this competition at Somerset. The pair formed the perfect partnership here to guide them to the verge of victory. This was sealed by their talismanic Australian captain Dan Christian to ensure their second T20 trophy. Whilst Notts continue to underperform badly in the longer form of the game, you can pretty much guarantee they won’t be far away from limited-overs silverware. Even in this strangest of seasons they didn’t disappoint.
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