SNOOKER NAMES

WHAT’S YOUR SNOOKER NAME?

There was a moment as I put three crosses for the three latest events

on so many quizzers’ entries

that I wondered if a Quiz update was necessary.

All three were either/or questions,

but all three had a different outcome from last year.

This did not defeat everybody

though Byron Grote and Judy Watts were the only perfect quizzers.

Rather bizarrely, the clowns at Quiz HQ had allocated 5 points for the Snooker,

so the few who predicted the emergence of a swashbuckling newcomer leapt up the table.

Speaking of tables, Webmaster Henry has squeezed some WD 40

into the mini league tables which are now up to date

on www.snedsquiz.net

If you are despairing of your place in the main table,

behind new leader Ed Hood,

you may find you are top in Wales or Cornwall etc

or even like Monty Whitfield literally the TOP DOG

Steve Cram called London 2023 “the greatest women’s marathon field ever assembled.”Perhaps this was Geordie hyperbole but there were world record holders, Olympic champions, previous winners aplenty. Most intriguing, the field also included Sifan Hassan, Tokyo golds at 5 and 10K, fast enough to medal at 1500m. Sifan though was running her first marathon and had been fasting for Ramadan. Surely no chance!

Prospects of a fast time receded when two time winner Brigid Koskei lasted only a few hundred yards. Hassan slowed to a momentary halt with a hip problem and fell back, way off the leading group, their pacemakers setting only a measured pace on a cold drizzly morning with rain making grip in high tech running shoes more difficult.

So, perhaps predictably but to the consternation of most quizzers, the winning time was 33 seconds MORE than the quiz par time of 2hr 18 minutes. That wasn’t the headline, nor was the second fastest men’s marathon ever, or Mo’s last race, nor even the absence of threatened protests. For Sifan Hassan, at one stage hundreds of yards behind, had caught the experienced runners and breezed home to victory down the Mall. Stand by for record times when she learns how to run a marathon-every drinks station was nail biting stuff.

Every four years, I settle down spellbound to watch curling at the Winter Olympics. Steve Cram is a brilliant commentator on this complex game, as well as the marathon. Unlike bowls, the other players can influence the speed and direction of the stone by frantic brushing of the ice so it’s a real team sport, chess on ice. And then curling disappears from our screens for the next four years. Shame! I was hoping that these World Mixed Doubles would be different as Scotland tried to retain the title for the third successive year with the 2021 winning team reunited. The male curler, Bruce Mouat, had been skip of the Men’s Four who had only weeks before thrashed Canada in front of forty thousand raucous fans in Toronto to win the World title. Surely this was the equivalent of beating Brazil in the Maracana though ignored by media South of the Border.

Playing in a round robin group of ten, the pair won seven of their nine games but this was only good enough for third. The Scots faced a play-off match against the USA, the eventual winners, if they were to make the semis. They lost, narrowly, so NO MEDAL for the Scots this time. Please Beeb, more coverage of this world sport where the Scots, British fot the time being at least, are world class.

The World Snooker Final started with all quizzers still hopeful. Those who had selected FORMER CHAMPION were represented by four time champion Mark Selby. Oddly for a rather stern faced competitor whose chief skill, despite a maximum break, is relentless safety play, Mark is called the Jester from Leicester. Facing him, the big hope for the FIRST TIMERS, was the Belgian Bullet, Luca Brecel.(Bullet??Luca is bald.) Ten years ago ,Luca had been the youngest ever competitor at the World Snooker Finals but his erratic if flamboyant play left him vulnerable as did his erratic if flamboyant preparation. Luca turned up for one match with only five minutes to spare and boasted of partying till dawn between matches. When Selby stopped him scoring for four frames and more than an hour, wise old heads nodded. The greybeards stopped nodding as Luca sped away to victory, the first champion from mainland Europe, only the fourth non Brit champion.