The Sunday Stroll: 6 Feb, 2011

The week in sport, as seen through the eyes of The Sunday Stroll…

The January transfer window went crazy in England with Chelsea splashing the cash around as if it was going out of fashion. Chelsea spent £23m on Benfica’s David Luiz and a further £50m to prise Fernando Torres from Liverpool,who duly spent €26.5m on Luis Suárez and £35m on Andy Carroll from Newcastle. We had already seen Darren Bent fetch (up to) £24m and Edin Dzeko move to Citeh for the princely sum of £27m. Silly money really. Still, in keeping with tradition for when a once-loved legend departs a club in slightly-acrimonious circumstances, Newcastle fans indulged themselves with a spot of CARROLL 9 shirt-burning. Sadly for them – amusingly for us, obviously – they were left with a rather foolish ‘fail’ tagged to their efforts…

Former Tour de France winner and suspected drug-cheat Alberto Contador will appeal his ban from racing, stating ‘I can say it openly and clearly and with my head held high, I consider myself an example of cleanliness.’ Here is a stark fact, but when you add 2007 and 2009 Tour winner Contador’s ban to original 2006 Tour winnner Floyd Landis’s admission he has used drugs for most of his career, the accusations surrounding seven-time Tour winner Lance Armstrong, and the various admissions and cases made against 1998 winner Marco Pantani, 1997 winner Jan Ullrich, and 1996 winner Bjarne Riis, that would mean that doping scandals have enveloped the winner of thirteen of the last fifteen Tours. You can check with Andy Gray and Richard Keys on this one, but we’re pretty sure that qualifies as ‘bad press’…

Numerous F1 teams finally launched their 2011 cars (see McLaren’s launch above [no sound]), with Renault’s side-exiting exhausts and a few striking additions to the McLaren car attracting particular attention. The teams then proceded to get stuck into the first pre-season test of the year, with last year’s champ Seb Vettel topping the day one timings in his Red Bull, before Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso topped the pile on day two. Renault’s Robert Kubica turned a few heads by setting the fastest time on day three, albeit without Alonso or Vettel running. Unfortunately for fans of the sport, Kubica was involved in a heavy crash whilst rallying this weekend, suffering multiple fractures to his right leg, arm, and hand. As we write he is undergoing an operation as – in the words of his manager Daniele Morelli – surgeons attempt to ‘re-establish the functionality of his right hand.’ We wish the affable Polish driver all the best and hope he makes a full and speedy recovery.

The 2011 Six Nations kicked off in earnest on Friday evening with England earning a hard-fought 26-19 victory away to Wales – their first triumph on the road against the Welsh since 2003. On Saturday, Ireland were indebted to Ronan O’Gara for a late drop-goal that saw them scrape past Italy 13-11 in Rome, whilst the French saw off Scotland in Paris with an entertaining 34-21 victory at the Stade de France. And whilst still in rugby, you can bet your bottom dollar that this ref (George Clancy) wishes he had positioned himself slightly better for this recent scrum in the match between London Irish and Ospreys a week or so ago…

Whilst the Superbowl will undoubtedly catch most of the British public’s attention this weekend as far as American sport goes, we unearthed this gem of a clip from a recent basketball game. A young chap goes for the slam-dunk and succeeds. Big time. He dunks himself too. Quite an impressive feat we think… worth five points surely??

Fans of goalkeeping blunders: this one is for you…

And that’s about it folks. Thanks for reading. All the best, SB…