SportsKenya: Weekend that was

Monday 14 May 2007

Weekend that was

Over the weekend a number of sporting events were on;
Football:

First the end of the English Premier League. This saw Man U end the season on a low with a loss over Tevez-fired revival West Ham 1-0 hence the latter's survival. Chelsea also drew with Everton and Drogba came to the rescue as usual. Arsenal summed up their woes with a disappointing 0-0 draw over Portsmouth. Wigan managed to beat Sheffield United to stay in the Premier league.
Further analysis of the League in later posts.
In Spain, Real Madrid hold a joint top position with Barcelona with 66 points to go as the Primera Liga enters its final stages, with four games each to go. It ain't over yet with the title likely to go either Barca's, Sevilla or Real Madrid's way !
In Germany, Stuggart went top of the league after a win as Schalke lost and Werder Bremen had another disappointing weekend.It's a tricky one too to call with 3 games left for each team in the Bundesliga.
Italian football saw Roma seal second position with AC Milan & Lazio fighting for 3rd position. Juventus look certain to be promoted back to Serie A with a win over the weekend.

Rugby:
Kenya's Shujaa team -Seven-a-side team lost 12-17 to Morocco in the Plate semi-final of the African Rugby Confederation held in Tangiers, Morocco. This was after losing in the main Cup to Zimbabwe 0-19. Some of the members will join the Sevens team scheduled to play in the last 2 rounds of the IRB Sevens circuit in London and Edinburgh in the coming weeks. There is also the Tusker Safari Sevens which hopes to be included in the circuit soon.

Volleyball:

Kenya Pipeline pipped KCB 3-2 sets to win the East and Central Africa Club Championships (women). This was a foregone conclusion as the Kenyan teams continued their dominance over the game in the region. Most of the members of these teams however were using this to prepare for the All-Africa Games which are scheduled to be held in Algiers, Algeria in July.

Motorsport:

The F1 results from the Spanish Grand Prix had Felipe Massa-Ferrari win this over Lewis Hamilton-McLaren who now takes the Championships lead by two points over team-mate Fernando Alonso. This is bound to be an interesting season for the young drivers rival each other for the title fight which is likely to go down to the wire. This was Massa's second 1st position finish of the year.

Basketball:
From the local scene, confusion reigned this weekend as some of the fixtures had to be rescheduled following the dissolution of Ulinzi men's team and Telkom women's team. However Co-op Bank continued their good start to the League in the men's Premier League. Sprite Storms also look good to challenge for the top slot in the women's top flight league.

While in the NBA Play-offs, Chicago Bulls pulled one back to fight a sweep by the Detroit Pistons by winning 102-87 in game 4 of the best of 7 series of the Eastern Conference semi-finals. Utah Jazz in the other game showed why they ought to be a challenger for the NBA Finals by beating Golden State Warriors 115-101 to take the lead 3-1 in the Western Conference.

Boxing:
Thomas ‘Black Rhino’ Okusi clinched the East and Central Africa heavyweight boxing title through a technical knockout when he floored Ahmed Eddie Dyle of Tanzania in the first round.
It was disappointment for the fans as the non -title fight which was the curtain-raiser for the other fight,turned out to be a mismatch .This was the fight Conjestina Achieng and Jalala Salum of Tanzania . The Tanzanian was worse than a novice boxer and it was no surprise that she lost.

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Profile of a Kenyan Sports Personality

This is a look at a Kenyan personality who may have influenced and continues to affect sports in Kenya and inspires all and sundry in sports. It is our hope that you shall reflect on this, take a moment to appreciate the sacrifices and efforts these heroes made. We do take a bow and wave our hats as we cheer true Kenyan patriots in sport!

This one takes a different twist. Having seen individuals grace this column, we have sought to recognize a team of individuals who did some exemplary work and set what has been an unbeatable national and indeed continental effort.

Kenya has never been a major power in shorter races 400m downwards. Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s, this was a different script especially with the more exciting relay races. It is in 1968 when Kenya’s dominance came into play and with it a retinue of athletes who would become legends of their era.

The 4x400m races are usually the climax in the athletics calendar of events and in Mexico ’68, Kenya’s team including Charles Asati, Naftali Bon, Munyoro Nyamau and Daniel Rudisha ( the latter being the father to David Rudisha - current World and African champion in 800m) had other ideas coming 2^nd to USA.

In 1972, the 4 x 400m team was tweaked a bit and the final race was run by Charles Asati, Munyoro Nyamau, Robert Ouko and Julius Sang blazing the track to come up with the only other Gold medal from the Munich Games. But for this unprecedented move and none that has been done before by any other African nation, we salute our compatriots making them the Kenyan sprint legends!

Know your Sport

Swimming

Recently at some social setting we were engaged in a club quiz and one of the questions was about swimming. This sought to know which stroke was not among the competitive ones till 1956. One of our team-mates (we were 6 said that it was back-stroke while I argued it was butterfly, and the majority thought the former ….guess we should have stuck with my answer though!)

All the same, this sport has become one of the most competitive sports in any major sporting extravaganza in the form of the All-Africa Games, Commonwealth or indeed the Olympic Games. Kenya has lately featured in this very involving and energy-sapping sport. Thanks to the exploits of the Dunford brothers who have shone the spotlight on the country away from traditional sports in athletics, football, boxing and rugby. But what do you understand from the sport? Here’s a brief of it from different sources;

According to Wikipedia, swimming is based on the human act of swimming, that is, locomotion in water by self propulsion, with the goal of completing a given distance in the shortest amount of time. Swimming is distinguished from other aquatic sports (such as diving, synchronized swimming, and water polo) that involve swimming but the goal is neither speed nor endurance.

Competitive swimming consists of four strokes: butterfly, breaststroke, freestyle (or front crawl), and backstroke. When all four strokes are done during a race, it is called medley swimming (otherwise known as the individual medley, or I.M.). It is governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation Amateur (FINA).

The goal of competitive swimming is usually to have the fastest time to complete a given distance. Competitive swimming became popular in the nineteenth century. Swimming is an event at the Summer Olympic Games, where male and female athletes compete in 13 of the recognized events each. Olympic events are held in a 50 meter pool (long course).

There are 36 officially recognized individual swimming events – 18 male events and 18 female events; however the International Olympic Committee only recognizes 34 of them – 17 male and 17 female. Most swimming sport events are held in special competition swimming pools, which are either long course pools such as those used in the Olympic Games (50 m) or short course pools such as those used in the FINA World Swimming Championships (25 m) (25 yards or 25 m). Competition pools have starting blocks from which the competitor can dive in, and possibly also touch-sensitive pads to electronically record the swimming time of each competitor.

In most competitions, the competitors are required to wear swimwear/swimsuits to adequately cover their bodies for the dip. However some suits have created controversies which have seen FINA coming up with standards to adhere to ensure competitors do not have undue advantage over each other.

The sport can also be pursued for personal fitness and is considered by fitness enthusiasts as one of the few that does an all-round job body of keeping the body in shape. It also requires healthy diets and rehydration (yes even if your body’s dipped in water)! Famous names in the sport include Mark Spitz – 7-gold medals winner 1972 Olympics and Michael Phelps – 8 gold medals - Beijing 2008.
For more info, check www.fina.org

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Monday 14 May 2007

Weekend that was

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