SportsKenya: Weekend Cocktail

Saturday 7 July 2007

Weekend Cocktail

Weekend Cocktail

This ought to be a great weekend for all you sporting enthusiasts. There is enough on offer to keep warm and cheerful in the house as this chilly weather continues in Nairobi. Let's see what's being served ;
Football:
The Copa America continues as the matches reach the quarter-final stages.
Saturday :
Venezuela v Uruguay and Chile v Brazil
Sunday: July 8, 2007
Mexico v Paraguay
Argentina v Peru
The Asian Cup which is being hosted by 4 countries,Indonesia,Thailand,Malaysia and Vietnam will start and continue for the next 23 days. This is a great frontier for the football game which has grown in leaps and bounds in the Asian sub-continent especially after hosting the 2002 World Cup. Japan will look to retain the Cup with Australia and South Korea all out to topple them.

Tennis:
The penultimate stages of the Wimbledon tourney with Finals being played. Venus Williams wants to show why she is still no push-over in women's tennis while battle for supremacy looks almost certain between Nadal and Federer for the men's game.

Motorsport:
The British Grand Prix is held at Silverstone with Lewis Hamilton shooting from the word go. The pole positions will be decided today with the race proper taking place on Sunday. Ferrari will try be hot on the heels for the 2nd victory this season over McLaren.

Cycling:
The most famous bicycle riding race in the world starts in London. Interesting since it's called Tour de France . But it traverses through more than one European country before the finish down the streets of Paris with a grand entry at the Champs Elysee. The race will hope to erase last year's link with drugs where the winner Landis ended up with links to drug usage. Another favourite Italian Danilo di Luca is under investigation while Ivan Basso was banned for 2 years. Michael Pettachi will be missing from this year's Tour too. New kids on the block will hope to get the yellow jersey which was Lance Armstrong's for the taking for 7 consecutive years 1999-2005.

Rugby:
Tri-Nations has Australia tackling South Africa as the teams get warmed up for the World Cup in September.

Cricket:
England plays West Indies.

Basketball:
Kenya Basketball continues with a few ties for Premier and Division One Leagues.

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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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Saturday 7 July 2007

Weekend Cocktail

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