Sporty Blog - The Sport Blog

So apparently the King of the Tour’s reign is now officially over… As Lance Armstrong, riding in his final Tour de France, the only rider to ever have won the storied event a record Seven times, has seen his Swansong go from bad to worse. Having previously fallen on some Slippery liquids to puncturing a tyre on the Cobblestones, the Texan has now uncharacteristically faltered in what was once his Domain, known as the arduous Mountains portion of the Tour…

Thus it was on Stage 8 that the Austin native fell an amazing three times and unceremoniously finished a dismal 61st, putting him some eleven minutes behind the Tour’s leader. Yet Armstrong’s demise wasn’t his alone, as the Tuesday’s Stage 9 Tour leader Cattle Evans of Australia grimaced his way to the finish with a previously undisclosed shattered elbow, after Monday’s Rest-day, leaving Luxemburg’s Andy Schleck to seemingly battle reigning and Two time tour winner Alberto Contador for the overall victory. As the two riders will continue to go head-to-head thru the grueling Pyrenees Mountains, while Armstrong rebounded to 18th place overall, but fell further back, some 13+ minutes adrift of the Tour’s new Yellow Jersey (leader) rider Schleck, after the completion of Stage 9.

Yet perhaps Lance’s luck has turned the corner? As it was Team RadioShack claiming its Tour’s first Stage win on nine other then Bastille Day, when Team rider Sergio Paulinho of Portugal ccaptured victory in Stage 10 on Wednesday, July 14th.

But will it be Schleck claiming his first Tour or will Spaniard Contador Join the select company of Three-time Tour de France winners, giving Espana a World Cup and Tour Double? And will Armstrong’s RadioShack Team rider Levi Leipheimer manage to claim the tour’s final Podium step by finishing in Third-place? We’ll soon know when the Tour wraps-up this year’s daunting grind in Paris on July 25th…

And it seems such a long time ago I was watching and rooting for Japan to progress beyond the Quarter Finals when they were beat One-Nil (1-0) in a bitterly disheartening Sudden-death Shootout. After having played Paraguay to a scoreless 90 minutes, then a further 30mins of Overtime, Japan would lose on the basis of one missed shot, defeated 5-4 in penalty kicks…

And thus the round of Sixteen became Eight, with one Team looking nearly unbeatable? As Germany simply rolled over first England 4-1, albeit a controversial Goal that would have seen the match tied at 2-2 just before Halftime’s call was blown by the Referees! Germany next crushed Wildman Diego Maradona’s Argentina squad 4-1, although German Striker Thomas Muller seemingly received a bogus Yellow-card for an inadvertent Handball, thus giving him a second Yellow-card and eliminating him from playing in the all important Semi-final against Spain.

Meanwhile the other side’s bracket saw the Netherlands shockingly defeat the Tournament’s favourites Brazil 2-1, having come back in the second half after trailing 1-0, as this unexpected loss saw Brazil’s Coach fired upon the Team’s arrival back home from South Africa. Then the Orange Crush, Err Holland defeated Uruguay 3-1 in its Semi-final, becoming the first Team to clinch its birth in the World Cup Finals, as Uruguay was forced to await the outcome of Germany vs. Spain to determine who it would play for the less coveted title of Third-place.

Yet once again, Spain played its methodical game of mesmerizing footwork and fancy passing to defeat Germany One-nil and advance to their inaugural World Cup Finals berth, facing the Netherlands, who were making their third appearance, having lost twice previously in 1974 and 1978, thus ensuring a first time winner of the Finals.

And after playing a scoreless 90mins, a further 15mins was played to a draw, before Spain’s Andres Iniesta scored the winning Goal in the 112th minute of this exceedingly tense 120 minute Football match held at soccer City, seeing Espana hang-on to its somewhat precarious lead to notch its Country’s very first ever World Cup victory, becoming only the eighth Nation to achieve this feat.

And having added insult-to-injury, a German Octopus named Paul had previously predicted that Spain would defeat Germany, causing Death Threats on the Octopus, demanding it be cooked after choosing Spain! Yet Paul-the-Octopus gained some respect by correctly choosing his Home team over Uruguay, in what was a thriller, seeing Germany narrowly defeat Uruguay 3-2…

Can you feel the excitement? As today King James, a.k.a. Lebron James will wine ‘N dine us with a Made-for-TV 1hr special just to announce who he’s going to play for in the NBA…

Prior to the start of this year’s Tour de France bicycle race, Seven Times Tour winner Lance Armstrong “tweeted” this would be his final Tour de France bicycle race, at the tender age of 38yrs old.

And so far this year’s Tour hasn’t been exactly kind to the Texan from Austin, as he and about half of his fellow competitors went down hard on Stage 2 just minutes after a motorcycle had crashed and laid down oil upon the wet pavement! Then during the Stage 3 ride billed as a “Wildcard” stage with several patches of Cobblestones for the riders to endure, Lance unfortunately popped a tire on the bumps, losing 45 precious seconds to change it as the race went on and slipped down the order to 18th place overall, some two-plus minutes behind, as the Tour will finish on July 25th in Paris…

So I have to admit that originally I was just a casual fan towards this year’s World Cup Football Tournament being played out in South Africa, as the whole thing seems a bit drawn out to me, as the round robin play of the Group matches commenced for fifteen days, before proceeding to Round Two’s select sixteen.

And even though we missed out on the LA Galaxy Dust-up between teammates Landon Donovan and David Beckham, you’d have to say that the whole of Britain was mightily let down by the 1-1 draw in the Group C match between England and USA.

Oh, in case you haven’t guessed by now, I’m talking about what us Yanks call Soccer on this side of the Atlantic, and not that Pigskin game known as National League Football.

Yet, after having expected USA to lose to England, I managed to tune-in for Game 2 of USA vs. Slovenia just prior to Michael Bradley’s tying Goal at 2-2 after being behind 2-0 in the first half. And I assume everybody knows by now how the USA was robbed of its go-ahead third Goal.

So I found myself going to a sleepy little Sportsbar at 6AM in order to get seats for the final Group C match between USA and Algeria, which was an epic duel before Donovan scored the game winner of a shocking last gasp One-Nil victory in the 91st minute of play, one minute into the four minutes of stoppage time added…

Then one day after Team USA’s great win, 12 of the 16 Nations advancing to the round (Round 2) of Sixteen had been determined with Argentina, England, Ghana, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, Paraguay, Slovakia, South Korea, Uruguay and USA having all survived the opening round robin Group matches, while Brazil, Chile, Portugal and Spain all clinched their Round 2 berths on Friday, the final day of Group play.

Yet its been a very interesting Tournament with many twists and turns along the way, as the defending (2006) Champions Italy were sent packing after the Group play, while the French made a mockery of themselves with uninspired play, a player F-Bombing his Coach during Halftime and the Team refusing to practice the following day… Definitely the disgrace of the World Cup Tournament, as at least England got its shenanigans out of the way prior to the World Cup commencing.

And there was North Korea allowing its country a rare chanced to watch their Team play live on television before being drubbed 7-0, having the telecast turned off and telling everybody to get back to wirk! As rival’s South Korea advanced to the round of sixteen…

Not to mention Switzerland’s stunner of defeating Spain 1-0 on apparently what was set-up by the Seattle Sounders FC’s newest player Blaise N’Kufo.

Thus it was off to another Pub early Saturday morning to catch what was to be another devastating defeat for Team USA vs. Ghana, who won 2-1 after scoring early in the first half of the 30 minutes Overtime. As ironically it was the very same African Team who knocked us out by the very same score four years ago, with Round Two’s most “Hyped” match-up surely being England vs. Germany. While the Japanese lost heartbreakingly in the Tourney’s first Sudden Death shootout 5-4 after playing 120 scoreless minutes against Paraguay.

The following teams have advanced to the Quarter Finals with Argentina, Brazil, Ghana, Germany, Netherlands, Paraguay, Spain and Uruguay playing this weekend in hopes of advancing to the Semi-finals…