Brief notes
After a long break, just a few things to comment on:
1. Apparently, Michael Jackson was somewhat in debt at the time of his death – perhaps as much as half a billion dollars – which makes me wonder if he’s done a John Stonehouse?
Perhaps he’s gone to live with Elvis….
2. Ok, so he was the King of Pop, but why does EVERYONE have to pay tribute to him? Watching the Wimbledon coverage today, the first thing Tim Henman and Tracy Austin had to do was to tell the world what a loss it was. Exactly what does it have to do with tennis coverage? Is the tennis so boring that you need to talk about something else?
3. After much (tedious) arguing, the Formula One Teams Association and the FIA have reached an accord. Despite everyone saying all the way through that it wasn’t about personalities, that accord includes Max Moseley’s retirement as chairman of the FIA when his current term expires in October. This is a Good Thing.
But, as he did once before, Max is now claiming that he doesn’t have to keep to the terms of the agreement because FOTA have already breached them. Basically, he’s wriggling out from under because he doesn’t want to give up control of the FIA. This is a Bad Thing, because it’s Max and his co-conspirator Bernie Ecclestone that have caused Formula One to become the sad joke that it currently is.
Same old story…
Apparently, the stewards at Sunday’s race missed two things that are obvious in this video. Firstly, Hamilton IS marginally ahead in the run down to the chicane; unfortunately, he’s on the outside, which is not the racing line for that corner. And secondly, he immediately gives the place back to Raikonnen – as they go down the pit straight, the McLaren is fully behind the weaving Ferrari.
McLaren have appealed against the penalty, but their appeal may not be allowable under FIA rules; it is unclear whether a time penalty (as opposed to a points penalty) can be appealed. Perhaps people wouldn’t be crying “FOUL” quite so loudly if it hadn’t been Ferrari that benefited from Hamilton’s demotion to third. After all, over recent seasons the FIA, and Max Moseley particularly, do seem to have been more than generous to the Italian team.
Brands Hatch summer
Over the summer (such as it was), me and a good friend paid a few visits to Brands Hatch to watch some of the smaller, club meetings that get held there. Pretty much every weekend there’s something good happening at Brands and, if you’ve never been, a New Era bike meeting or an Autoglymm Historic meeting are excellent ways to experience the noise and the spectacle of motorsport really close-up.
I took a number of pictures and video clips each time we went and I’ve been meaning to get round to editing the videos together and putting them up on YouTube. I’ve finally done it, and the clip above is just one of 10 or so clips that are now available on my YouTube channel, which you can find at http://www.youtube.com/user/wolfieb1968
You’ll have to forgive the quality of the video – I’m no cameraman, and I was using a stills camera. But I think you’ll get an idea of just what an adrenalin rush Brands Hatch can be.
Hardly surprising
Dwain Chambers has lost his case to be allowed to compete for the UK in the up-coming Olympics. He was seeking an injunction that would have allowed him to compete, ahead of a full hearing on the legality of the ban that is expected to be heard in March.
It’s not surprising that this is the outcome; the by-law that bans athletes convicted of drug offences of ever competing in the Olympics may or may not be unlawful, but it was in place long before Chambers received his ban. He left it too late to embark on his challenge, and the judge saw no reason to overturn the status quo.
The unfortunate thing is that the UK team is going to be deprived of a very good medal chance by not allowing Chambers to run. And the position of the BOA goes against that of the IOC and the IAAF – basically, it says to athletes that they have no hope of rehabilitation, ever. Yet, in Beijing there will most likely be athletes that will be competing, having already completed bans for similar offences. As I said the other day, the BOA’s rules should not be the ones that apply here – it should be the IOC, as they are the ones organising the event.
In an ideal world, we would not be having this discussion because no-one would ever cheat. But the reality is that athletes do all the time, for many and varied reasons. We can’t continue with a system that is so grey; it needs to be clear cut. Do we want drug cheats to be banned for life, as the BOA would have it? If so, let’s make that the rule. You get caught, you get banned. No grey area. Or do we believe in giving an athlete the chance to be rehabilitated and come back to the sport for another go? If that’s what we want, then once they’re served their ban they should be able to compete in ALL competitions, not just ones that are picked for them by the ruling body.
Either way, we need to pick one. And we need to do it now, so that everyone knows where they are come 2012.
Should he stay or should he go?
After all the hoo-ha about whether he could compete in the World Indoor Championships a while ago, there’s now even more hoo-ha about whether Dwain Chambers should be able to compete in the Olympics.
It comes down to a British Olympic Committee (BOC) rule that anyone who has been banned from sport for taking drugs cannot compete for the UK in the Olympics. It’s a rule that’s been in place since the early 90’s and was apparently introduced with the full backing of athletes (although possibly without the full backing of legality). Dwain Chambers was fully aware of this rule before he committed his offence.
The problem is that both the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the International Amateur Athletics Federation (IAAF) say that when an athlete has served his ban, he can compete in all competitions. Of course, the BOC were hoping that Chambers would not meet their qualifying criteria so there would be no problem. Trouble is, he ran rings round everyone else and qualified easily.
Pretty much everyone in UK sport seems to be against Chambers competing because of his past record. But he served his ban and he’s come back better than ever and is beating everyone. If you’re not going to allow athletes to serve their time and rehabilitate, then why not just ban them for life? No chance of parole.
To my mind, the Olympics are run by the IOC so their rules should apply. That means that Chambers can run. Whether the BOC rule is legal or not is a question that will be argued back and forth for quite some time to come; in the meantime we don’t have so many great athletes that we can afford to put barriers in place to stop them competing.
Wolfs Helpers
