TEARING IT UP

TEARING IT UP

Tear up your list of former winners of the Women’s World Cup for all four previous winners failed to make the semis. Tear up the current world rankings as Olympic champions Canada(No 7)go out in the group stages as did Germany(No 2)and Brazil(No 8).The USA limped into the round of 16 after impressing no one in a scrappy group. It was an oddly tepid display from the American favourites and an early end to the hopes of the hundred plus quizzers who had chosen the holders.

Instead celebrate the achievements of long shots Nigeria, Jamaica and Colombia who won games and even more scared the pants off more illustrious opponents for this 2023 edition was absolutely the arrival of women’s football as a truly world game. England needed to beat two teams from the Americas, one from Asia, one from Africa, one from Australasia, one from Europe before the Lionesses arrived in the Final. Yes, the list of semi finalists, Sweden(No3)England (No 4),Spain(No6)and Australia,(No 10 but with home advantage)hardly sounds revolutionary but no team ,least of all England, will ever go “It’s only Haiti, or Columbia or Nigeria,” again.

England took the field in the semi final, needing to beat the eleven Matildas and the overwhelming majority of the home crowd. It wasn’t pretty as England took their time, played a possession game and appeared happy to sit on a 1-0 lead until the Oz star striker Sam Kerr scored a wonder equalizer.

England quickly scored two more to quieten the Australian crowd, whose enthusiasm for the tournament had made it such a success.

England’s opponents in the final, Spain, had been beaten 4-0 by Japan in their group, had been among England’s victims en route to the Euros. Worse, the squad had been involved for months in a battle against their male chauvinist coach and national federation, which erupted into an international storm after the Final. Some first choice players had gone on strike. Surely the Lionesses, even though their form had been so up and down, could deal with this mutinous crew! They couldn’t. The most fervent English fans could agree that SPAIN were worthy winners. Rather sadly, the repulsive behaviour of Luis Rubiales, boss of the Spanish FA, during the celebrations overshadowed their triumph.

Engines started and the tapes went up for the first race in the British Speedway Grand Prix. In front of a crowd of 30,000 at Cardiff’s Principality Stadium. British hopes hung on 3 of the 20 riders, Dan Bewley (winner of the British GP in 2022), Tai Woffenden (previous world champion) and Robert Lambert.

The GP comprises 20 races with 4 riders, each rider races in 5 rounds (1st place=3 points; 2nd place=2 points; 3rd place=1 point; 4th place=0 points). After 20 races the 8 riders with the most points go into 2 semi-finals. With the temporary track being lauded as the best track ever seen at the Principality, the races were very competitive and there were no run away riders.

Your NO hopes(not in European Union)were pinned on those three British riders and three Australians.

British hopes were dashed in the 4th round when Tai Woffenden lost control of his bucking bike and was catapulted into the track breaking his wrist! In the 5th round an over eager Dan Bewley let his nerves and clutch handle get the better of him, and was ejected from the race having broken through the starting tape! Only one British rider, Robert Lambert remained. After winning two of his races Robert had ended the rounds as the second highest point scorer. Lambert had the pick of the gates going into the second semifinals and every one was on the edge of their seats! However, the current world champion Bartosz Zmarzlik from Poland who had just about scrapped through the rounds was about to spoil the party and stop Lambert from getting through to the final.

In the Final, NO hopes were focussed on the remaining Australian, (Jack Holder).YES had three chances, the Pole (Zmarzlik), a Swede (Lindgren) and a Slovakian (Vaculik).All 4 were in the top 5 of the Speedway GP standings so the cream had risen to the top.

In an attempt to block a run to the front, Holder and Zmarzlik hampered each other allowing Martin Vaculik to speed ahead and not be caught! Martin Vaculik is Slovakia’s only Speedway GP rider and is well liked by the British crowd. Despite his defeat, Bartosz Zmarzlik remains at the top of the Speedway standings with an unassailable 138 points.

It was a brilliant night of Speedway, and a fitting way to celebrate 100 years of racing! And for our correspondent Maggie Heginbothom, the celebrations lasted long after the final race.

Kindly friends who know of my lifelong addiction to cricket sometimes ask me what I made of a televised Hundred match the night before. They step back startled as I snarl. Apologies friends, ask me instead about the County 50 over competition which is played throughout August, under the radar, beneath the notice of the Beeb or the sports pages though with crowds of thousands, often taking county cricket, squeezed out of Hundred grounds, to beautiful outgrounds.

The Hundred is a circus, played between teams called Hula Hoops v Pop Chips, for sponsorship of a tournament aimed at children has been handed to a snacks company. The Hundred is a monster which pushed the Ashes into a nonsense time frame, a monster whose main selling point is that it’s even shorter than the county’s Vitality Blast.

The Hundred though has helped to establish the women’s game and made professional cricketer a realistic career choice for talented schoolgirls. So reluctantly the Quiz includes a question on the Women’s Final played at Lords, in front of a record crowd for Women’s domestic game. Hollie Armitage, captain of the Northern Superchargers(Leeds),won the toss and decided to bat second, despite the fact that 70% of this year’s games had been won by the side batting FIRST. And so it proved here. The Southern Braves(Southampton),runners up for the last two years, set a tough target, despite the early loss of their two overseas stars. The Superchargers were in early trouble and lost by 34 runs, close for a Test Match but a chasm in the Hundred.

British Athletics sent 80 competitors across an ocean and a continent for the 2022 World Championship. Only 55 made the three hour flight to Budapest in 2023.”We’re only sending athletes who could make a final,”which surely neglects the development role of a world championship in the year before an Olympics. This reduced squad did win TEN medals, the best for thirty years, including medals in FOUR of the five relays. Both numbers were way beyond the expectations of the vast majority of you quizzers

There were huge areas of the track and field with no British representation. Apparently we no longer run more than a mile or throw things. No crisis, though; Germany did not win any kind of medal, for Brits the very definition of schadenfreude.

How brilliant that space was found for KJT, who won heptathlon gold with 6,740 points. This was a total that would not have won any medal in 2022 Worlds and LESS than the target the Quiz had suggested as par. Hands up, doubters, like me and perhaps KJT herself, who thought she would never be a major player again after an Achilles tear, after being taken off the Tokyo track in a wheelchair. Always WHAT Ifs in sport. What if the reigning Belgian world champion had been in Budapest, what if the American Hall had not been hampered in the jump events by an injury?

Don’t be mealy mouthed-this was an epic brave comeback. Perhaps more drama to come in Paris.