Sports fans have had a bumper week
Bafana in the doldrums, Dolphins scoop world star, Lewis Hamilton put in reverse gear after winning the Belgian Grand Prix, Roger Federer King of New York again, Oscar Pistorius takes gold. Yes, it's been that kind of sporting week which gives us hacks plenty to write about on the field of play, not to mention the other smutty stuff about rugby coaches allegedly caught having sex on video tape. No thanks, we'll leave that to the front pages.
But before discussing the above-mentioned subjects, we sports nuts also have a Saturday afternoon to savour this weekend. Come noon and most of us will be glued to SuperSport watching the All Blacks and Wallabies battle it out for Tri-Nations glory. As soon as that is over, it will be a quick switch to the big game of English Premier League - Manchester United v Liverpool, with United hopefully showing off their new signing, Dimitar Berbatov.
That should finish some time after 3pm which will give all of us a chance to race down to Absa Stadium and prepare to watch the Sharks canter home against the Cheetahs and thus cement a home semi-final in the Currie Cup. Let's all hope that this year the Sharks will not flatter only to deceive because I am getting tired of them losing in the semi-finals and finals of the big tournaments. But all that is before us.
My highlight of the week was probably a tie between Pistorius's amazing win in the 100m in the Paralympics on Tuesday morning and Federer's glorious triumph in the US Open.
Our offices here at the Daily News came to a standstill as we hovered around the TV set to watch our boy come from behind and snatch victory and a gold medal. What a performance with more hopefully to come in the 200 and 400m.
On a more personal level, I was thrilled to see Federer answer his many doubters (myself included) as he crushed Andy Murray to take his fifth US Open title in a row. I know some people will say he did not have to beat Rafael Nadal, who was put out by Murray in the semis, but that is the nature of tennis. Often you don't have to beat the best in the world to win a tournament - somebody else does it for you.
Acknowledged
I think Nadal is a great player, but Roger has always been my man, probably because of the South African connection, plus the fact that he is universally acknowledged as one of the finest gentlemen among all the sports stars of the world. A real example of how a sporting great should conduct himself on and off the court.
On the cricketing front, I was happy to hear that the Dolphins have finally come out and spent some money on the world's best players and I can't wait to get down to Kingsmead to watch Sanath Jayasuriya in action. That stadium is like a ghost town these days for inter-provincial matches so let's hope the Sri Lankan master-blaster can pack in the fans, just like in the old days.
My lowlight of the past week was watching Bafana botch it up against Nigeria and thus eliminate themselves from the 2009 African Cup of Nations. Even more depressing was Joel Santana's ridiculous quotes about playing well and building for 2010. He repeated those inane remarks after losing again to Guinea on Tuesday. How Safa could employ such a dud is beyond me. They should have just given the job to Gordon Igesund, a proven winner in this country and not some foreigner who does not have a clue what is going on.
And my final gripe was the stewards who slapped Hamilton with a 25 second suspension. When somebody like Niki Lauda, a former Ferrari and McLaren legend, says it was the worst decision ever in F1 history, you know it must be bad.