Usain Bolt can have his final sporting wish granted at World Athletics Championships

Agencies
August 12, 2017

London, Aug 12: He had demanded that the world write one last headline about him - "Unbeatable. Unstoppable." - and at the World Athletics Championships on Saturday, Usain St Leo Bolt can still have his final sporting wish granted.

Those quicksilver feet which always dealt in gold have another chance to obey his command as he seeks to bring down the curtain on his matchless sprint career and land a 20th global championship title in the 4 x 100 metres relay.

There may never have been an anti-climax in sport quite as deflating as Saturday's 100 metres final when Bolt, in his last solo race, proved both beatable and stoppable, defeated by the two-time doping offender Justin Gatlin.

It seemed the greatest entertainer that athletics -- and maybe even the whole panoply of sport -- has known had run out of magic, betrayed by a creaking start from the blocks.

Even as he posed for all the selfies afterwards, demonstrating a grace and sportsmanship that proved him just as big a winner in rare defeat, it still felt wrong, a desperately downbeat way to depart for a sportsman who has brought so much joy to all.

So, to the good news. Delightfully, there are now two last spins for the road. There was supposed to be only one, the 4 x 100 metres relay final on Saturday night, but Bolt has offered us an extra treat by opting to run the heats too earlier that morning.

Saturday night will, he promises us, be the last time we ever see him flowing down a track, with that unique ground-devouring stride that used to make other fine sprinters appear like shrimps wallowing in treacle.

No worries about having to haul himself stiffly out of the blocks here; he'll take the baton on the anchor leg and fly. He always did look his most imperious with a rolling start and he still holds the fastest 100m relay leg time, an unreal 8.65 seconds.

UNTOUCHABLE LANDMARKS

But then all the records are his. He departs with landmarks that feel for the moment untouchable, especially that 100 metres milestone of 9.58 seconds -- nobody has come within a tenth of a second of that one -- and the 200m mark of 19.19.

Since he first ran the blue riband shorter event in 2007, he has run 54 100m races, excluding heats, and won all but six. Of his 200 metres races since his breakthrough 2008 season, he's lost, astonishingly, just one of 30.

The statistics tell of a longevity of domination that the fickle world of sprinting had never seen before. Yet no athlete could be defined less by cold, emotionless figures.

With Bolt, the pleasure, the gasps of incredulous laughter, always came with just watching him make the impossible look workaday.

When he leaves us, perhaps with one fitting final gold and one last daft 'Lightning Bolt' pose, it will feel like a light illuminating world sport has just been switched off.

Then where will athletics be? It is hard to imagine a sport that needed a figurehead more than it needed Bolt. Mired in doping scandals, strangled by disinterest and treated with increasing public cynicism, Bolt was its joyous bolthole.

His farewell championships have given a glimpse of athletics life without him.

LIFELONG FANS

We had a 100m winner Gatlin booed to the rafters and a 200m victor Ramil Guliyev, whose winning time was nearly a second slower than Bolt`s best and who ended up being interrogated in the victory press conference about his adopted country Turkey`s doping record.

Then, Bolt`s supposed successor as the sport`s main attraction, Wayde van Niekerk, wept over suggestions of IAAF 'sabotage' from a rival Isaac Makwala who was not allowed to run the 400 metres because of a virus he claimed he didn't have.

It was never like that when Bolt was doing his thing. Bolt brought a pure, clear simplicity to the sport, rich in entertainment, delivered with a smile -- and on a diet of chicken nuggets.

The world did not just love Bolt, smiling with him as he made winning look preposterously easy; athletics trusted Bolt in an era when the sport was engulfed by disenchantment.

When Sebastian Coe, the IAAF President, watched his farewell to Jamaican athletics in Kingston this year, he told Reuters: "He's connected with young people, with people that didn't even think they liked track and field, he's turned them into lifelong fans.

"I'm not just saying that as the president of the world sport, I`m saying this as a fan."

Because Bolt made us all his fans. He was athletics` Muhammad Ali and Pele rolled into one.

If anyone else had declared, as he did after his 200m triumph at London 2012, "I am a living legend. Bask in my glory!", he would have appeared an appalling braggart. Not Bolt; he just made it seem like a bit of fun.

And that was, ultimately, his crowning glory. Not just that he was the fastest man in the world but that he so obviously loved every hundredth of a second of us enjoying him. Let's bask in his glory one last time.

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News Network
May 8,2020

New Delhi, May 8: India skipper Virat Kohli believes cricket in empty stadiums is a real possibility in post COVID-19 world and though it is unlikely to have a bearing on the intensity of players, he feels the magic would certainly go missing.

Cricket Boards across the globe are exploring the option of resuming the sport in empty stadiums. There is speculation that fans could be kept away from stadiums in a bid to salvage the T20 World Cup in Australia, which is currently under threat due to the global health crisis.

"It's quite a possible situation, it might happen, I honestly don't know how everyone is going to take that because we all are used to playing in front of so many passionate fans," Kohli said in Star Sports' show 'Cricket Connected'.

"I know it will be played at a very good intensity but that feeling of the crowd connecting with the players and the tension of the game where everyone goes through it in the stadium, those emotions are very difficult to recreate," he added.

Kohli said the many moments which are created because of the passion brought in by fans, would be missing.

"Things will still go on, but I doubt that one will feel that magic happening inside because of the atmosphere that was created.

"We will play sports how it is supposed to be played, but those magical moments will be difficult to come by," he said.

Cricketers such as Ben Stokes, Jason Roy, Jos Buttler and Pat Cummins have backed the idea of playing behind closed doors.

However, legendary Australian Allan Border has said it would defy belief to host a World Cup without spectators.

Another Australian all-rounder Glenn Maxwell and some other cricketers have also expressed similar sentiments.

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Agencies
January 11,2020

London, Jan 11: Former cricketer Sachin Tendulkar's famous lap around the Wankhede Stadium after the World Cup 2011 win has been nominated in Laureas's list for the most inspiring sporting event in the last twenty years.

The moment featuring Tendulkar has been described as "Carried on the shoulders by a nation".

On his sixth attempt at the World Cup and with India not having won the competition since 1983, Tendulkar finally became a part of the team that lifted the coveted trophy. Carried on the shoulders of the Indian team, he made a lap of honour, shedding tears of joy after the victory was sealed in his home city.

The 2011 World Cup was also the first time, in which a host nation ended up winning the trophy.

Apart from Tendulkar, England's Andrew Flintoff is the only other cricketer to feature in the list. In 2005, England managed to defeat Australia in an Ashes Test, but Flintoff chose to first shake hands with Brett Lee rather than celebrate with his side.

Matthias Steiner (weightlifting), Natalie du Toit (swimming), Sky Brown (skateboarding), Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee (triathlon), Xia Boyu (mountaineering) have been nominated in the list.

Female tennis stars also feature in the list for coming up with an equal play, equal pay campaign. After pressure from Venus Williams and others, Wimbledon announced that female tennis players would receive prize money equal to the men's.

German international footballer Miroslav Klose was playing for Lazio in Italy's Serie A in 2012 against Napoli when he rose for a ball in the early moments of the game.

The ball came spiraling off his hand and skirted into the back of the net and a goal was awarded. While most players would carry on as if nothing had happened, Klose was honest with the referee and admitted that he handled the ball.

As a result, he also finds a place on the list.

The Laureus Sporting Moment Award celebrates the moments where the sport has unified people in the most extraordinary way.

This campaign has shortlisted 20 sporting stories from the last 20 years that have left their mark on the world.

The winner will be decided on the basis of public voting. It has already started, and the final date to cast the vote is February 16.

Finally, the result will be declared on February 17.
With three knock-out rounds, the top-20 moments will be whittled down to ten then five, with the top-five moments going head-to-head.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Colombo, Mar 23: Sri Lankan batting great Kumar Sangakkara has said he is currently in self-quarantine, following his government's guidelines for those recently returning from Europe, which has now become the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The authorities are concerned over people returning from the most-affected COVID-19 countries in Europe not registering with the police and practising isolation.

"I have no symptoms or anything like that, but I'm following government guidelines," Sangakkara told News First.

"I arrived from London over a week ago and the first thing was there was a news bulletin saying that anyone who had travelled from within March 1 to 15 should register themselves with the police and undergo self-quarantine. I registered myself with the police."

The former captain said this even as the government confirmed there have been at least three cases of recent returnees attempting to hide the novel coronavirus symptoms from authorities.

Both Sangakkara and his former teammate Mahela Jayawardene have been active on social media, urging Sri Lankans to avoid panic and to exercise proper social distancing, as the country went into curfew on Friday evening.

Sri Lanka has so far reported more than 80 active COVID-19 positive cases in the country.

Across the world, the number of infected has crossed three lakh besides a death toll of more than 14,000 people.

Meanwhile, former Australia pacer Jason Gillespie has also gone into a two-week isolation after returning from the United Kingdom.

Gillespie, who is the head coach at Sussex, had been in Cape Town with the team for a pre-season tour, which was cut short as a result of the coronavirus outbreak.

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