The 49-year-old was brought to Real Madrid to end Barcelona's stranglehold on domestic and European football. He finished his first season with a Copa del Rey success while Barcelona won a league and Champions League double; his second season ends with Madrid reclaiming the league title after a four-year wait and a second semi-final exit in Europe. Cristiano Ronaldo yesterday insisted that there was a "change of cycle" in Spain.
Real's announcement brings stability and identity to a club that lacked it and strengthens Mourinho's hand. He has demanded greater responsibility and control at all levels. Of the nine men who preceded him as coach, only one made it into a second year whereas Mourinho will now embark on his third at the club.
There have been significant moments of tension this season in which it had appeared that Mourinho was preparing for a departure. The season began with his clash with the Barcelona No2 Toto Vilanova – the man who will be in sole charge at the Catalan club next season. At the end of the Spanish Super Cup, Mourinho poked Vilanova in the eye during a melee on the touchline. Mourinho refused to apologise for that episode and there have been other moments in which his behaviour has been criticised.
Strategic leaks from his camp in the new year suggested that he wanted to leave Spain and return to the Premier League. There had been some tension with Spanish players and Mourinho's relationship with the media had deteriorated. So much so that at the end of the season he stopped appearing at press conferences, sending his No2 Aitor Karanka out in his place.
There had been intense speculation over Mourinho's future. The leaks in the new year were followed by a much-reported trip to London. Those events can be reinterpreted now as a negotiating tool in conversations with Madrid and as part of a process in which his camp drew out possible interest from English clubs. There were discussions with Chelsea.
Ultimately, though, Mourinho was not convinced by the range of options open to him. He was, by contrast, increasingly convinced by the change in direction at Real Madrid as he is granted greater authority than any of his predecessors. Madrid, he has noted, are moving in the right direction. They will move forward with Mourinho.
• Ivory Coast striker leaves Chelsea after eight years at the club • 'A difficult decision but I'm very proud of what we've achieved'
Didier Drogba finally brought down the curtain on his glorious Chelsea career on Tuesday. The striker confirmed that he is leaving the club when his contract runs out at the end of June.
The 34-year-old Ivory Coast international has spent eight years at Chelsea, scoring 157 goals in 341 appearances, and helped the Blues to win 10 titles.
One of those titles, of course, was the Champions League victory over Bayern Munich on Saturday, when Drogba scored a late equaliser in normal time and then netted the winning kick in the penalty shootout.
He said: "I wanted to put an end to all the speculation and confirm that I am leaving Chelsea. It has been a very difficult decision for me to make, but I am very proud of what we have achieved. As a team we have accomplished so much, and have won every single trophy possible. Saturday was a very special moment for everyone at the club and for all the fans, and I am very proud to have played my part in bringing many trophies to this club which has been my home for the last eight years.
"I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone at the club especially Roman [Abramovich], and my team-mates, many of whom have become very close friends and will be my friends for life. I would also like to say a very special thank you to the Chelsea fans, who have shown me so much love and support over the years.
"I wish the club all the best and continued success for the future – you will always be in my heart."
Chelsea, meanwhile, praised the striker's contribution to the most successful era of the club's history. The chief executive, Ron Gourlay, said: "Didier is undoubtedly a Chelsea legend and will always be part of the Chelsea family. He is certainly leaving on a high after Saturday night but he feels the time is right for a new challenge.
"Of course Didier has contributed so much to all of Chelsea's recent successes. He has been a consummate professional during his entire time here and as one of the natural leaders in our squad he has been an inspiration to a lot of our younger players.
"We have known for some time that this outcome was likely but Didier and the club only made a final decision on that in the last couple of days, because for obvious reasons neither Didier nor the club wanted to distract focus away from the Champions League final. The talks were amicable all the way through and we wish him all the best for the future. He is welcome back to Stamford Bridge at any time – either as a player or as a guest of ours."
Drogba leaves Chelsea having scored 157 goals in 341 appearances. He is the club's fourth all-time highest scorer, his 34 goals in European competition is a Chelsea record by 10 goals and managed nine strikes in nine cup finals.
He won three Premier League titles, four FA Cups, two Carling Cups and, finally, the Champions League. He has been named Chelsea's Player of the Year and Players' Player of the Year and won the Premier League golden boot twice.
• 'It's imperative for him to keep beating up puddings' • Haye camp claims no response from Klitstchko
They might never swap a punch in the ring but David Haye and Vitali Klitschko continue to exchange tedious claims about who is dodging whom.
Klitschko, the WBC heavyweight champion, resumed verbal hostilities when he arrived in London for the premiere of Klitschko, the excellent documentary about himself and his brother, Wladimir, claiming again that Haye had turned down an offer to fight him in September.
Haye, who lost to Wladimir on a poor night last July then retired, insists a fight against Vitali is all that keeps him interested in a comeback – although £3m to take on Dereck Chisora at Upton Park on 14 July is incentive enough to stay in shape.
"It makes absolutely no sense for me to turn down a fight I desperately want," said Haye. "The whole idea behind going ahead with this Chisora fight was that a victory may then lead to a fight with Vitali Klitschko. That was my plan, my reason for returning to the ring. I want to fight on 14 July and then again in September, and have been telling people this for months now."
Haye's trainer and manager, Adam Booth, said: "A few weeks ago I received a first draft contract from K2/KMG [the Klitschkos' management company], as a formal offer for the fight between David and Vitali.
"Once we'd announced the Chisora fight I left a message for [Klitschko's adviser] Shelly Finkel, in which I informed him we were ready to move to completion of the agreement for Vitali versus David. However, since that message was sent to Finkel, I have received no reply.
"Today I read that Herr [Bernd] Boente [Klitschko's manager] claims David 'turned the fight down' and 'does not want to fight Vitali'. Both of these claims are completely false. If Vitali wants to fight David in September, we are here and happy to accept. If not, no worries or sadness from our side.
"Maybe K2 realised during Vitali's fight with Chisora in February that their precious champion was drastically slowing down and didn't fancy going up against anyone too quick in the future. Whatever their reasoning, if Herr Boente is happy to spin the lines he feeds people, good for him.
"It's bizarre just how much hatred with agenda the Haye versus Chisora fight has attracted. Maybe Bernd Boente has short-term memory issues. A quick look back at the video of that infamous Munich press conference clearly shows Bernd agreeing with Frank Warren that Haye and Chisora should fight for the right to challenge Vitali."
Haye added: "What is clear to me is that K2 are now happy to protect an ageing Vitali and usher him towards politics as soon as possible [he will run for office in Kiev for the third time in October]. Politics is about popularity, and Vitali's popularity in Ukraine would take a massive hit if he were to get knocked out by me before retiring. It's imperative for him to keep winning and beating up puddings en route to retirement, as that sets him up nicely for a career in politics.
"At this advanced stage in his career, the last thing on Vitali's mind are tough challenges in the ring. He's essentially semi-retired, which is fine, so long as he comes clean about it. Don't go stringing everybody along – fighters and fans – when some of us know the truth.
"Unfortunately, Vitali will probably now look to fight some no-hoper while telling the boxing world I turned down the fight. I will never turn down a fight with Vitali.
"They can call my fight against Chisora a freak show as much as they like, but we all know that the so-called freak show will have more people interested in it than either of the Klitschkos' next fights."
Wladimir, meanwhile, defends his versions of the heavyweight title on 7 July in Berne against the American Tony Thompson, whom he stopped four years ago.
"Who wants to see Wladimir fight Thompson again?" Haye said. "Even Thompson doesn't want to see that again. Their first fight was horrible enough. Also, anybody with an ounce of intelligence would know that Boente and the Klitschkos were only name-dropping and ridiculing my fight with Chisora to raise some publicity over here for the Klitschko film, which they happened to be in London promoting on Monday night."
• Winter Test series to begin on 15 November in Ahmedabad • Two Twenty20 matches also included on England's itinerary
England are giving their four-Test tour of India this winter the Ashes treatment, having arranged three warm‑up matches in an effort to be more prepared for a trial by spin than they were against Pakistan last winter.
The England management have conceded that going into that series in the United Arab Emirates with two low-key three-day fixtures was a gamble that backfired, as they were caught cold by Saeed Ajmal in the first Test in Dubai and never really recovered, succumbing to a 3-0 whitewash.
For the India series, in which the hosts will be determined to gain revenge for the 4-0 drubbing they suffered in England last summer, they have reverted to preparation similar to that which served them so well in Australia in the winter of 2010-11. They will start with a training camp in Dubai before playing a pair of three-day matches in Mumbai and then a four-day match in Ahmedabad, the venue for the first Test starting on 15 November.
They then return to Mumbai for the second Test at the Wankhede Stadium before moving on to Kolkata, and a first Test at Eden Gardens since Graham Gooch's team were crushed by an innings in January 1993, and finally Nagpur.
It will be England's longest series in India since David Gower's team won a five-Test rubber in the winter of 1984‑85. Since then they have played three‑Test series in 1993, 2001 and 2006, and two Tests on their last visit in 2008.
The first and longest part of the tour is concluded by a pair of Twenty20 internationals in Pune and Mumbai in December, allowing the players to return home for Christmas. A five‑match 50‑over series begins in Rajkot on 11 January, when England can only improve on the 5‑0 thrashing they suffered on a brief trip to India last autumn.
They are then due to conclude a busy winter with a three-Test series in New Zealand in February and March, before returning to face the same opposition at home, and then to defend the Ashes.
Hugh Morris, England's managing director of cricket, said: "This will be England's first full tour of India since 2008 and I am sure that cricket fans in both countries will be eagerly anticipating an exciting series of contests in all three formats of the game."
South Africa have revealed that their captain, Graeme Smith, is likely to return home between the first and second Tests of their series in England in the second half of this summer to be with his wife for the birth of their first child.
Against a backdrop of violence, the Belfast pentathlete defeated age and the home favourite to briefly unite Northern Ireland
"Mary Peters is a protestant and has won a medal for Britain. An attempt will be made on her life and it will be blamed on the IRA ... Her home will be going up in the near future." The death threat came just after her victory, phoned into the BBC in Munich by a man with an Irish accent. Most people would heed such a threat to their life. Peters was different. "Bollocks," she replied. "I'm going straight to Belfast."
The Olympics in Munich had been billed as "the Games of peace and joy" but neither of these were to be found in abundance in Belfast in 1972.
Just 44 days before Peters' performance in the pentathlon at Munich, the Provisional IRA detonated 22 bombs in 75 terror-filled minutes that shook Belfast and Northern Ireland to its core. "People walking in the streets around 2.30pm seemed to hear a bomb a minute and in the city centre some women became shocked and hysterical and had to be treated ... Few events in the past awful year have so appalled people," reported the Irish Times.
On the day that came to be known as Bloody Friday, nine people were killed but many more were mutilated, injured or scarred, mentally and physically. This was Belfast in 1972; this was Northern Ireland in 1972. This was where Peters was so desperate to return to.
Peters was born in Liverpool in 1939 but moved to Ballymena and then Belfast when her father's job was relocated to Northern Ireland. When she was first told of the move she reacted with tears. "One day he came back and I remember sitting on the stairs and hearing him tell my mother that we were all going to live in Northern Ireland. I went to bed and sobbed my heart out," she said. But it was in Northern Ireland that Peters' journey towards Olympic gold first took shape. Her first family holiday in her new home was spent at the seaside resort of Portrush, country Antrim and there, among the reeds and the rushes, Peters, racing her brother John up and down the dunes, discovered her love for athletics.
The family holidays came to an end when her mother died of cancer a few years later. After that, athletics became Peters' escape, and she began to see it as more than just a hobby. To help her on her way, her ambitious father gave her two tonnes of sand as a 16th birthday present and built a pit in a neighbouring field for her to practise long jump. Her next birthday present was a lorry load of cement to make a shot put circle.
Peters qualified first as a teacher and then as an Olympian. In Tokyo in 1964, she finished in a respectable fourth place; in Mexico in 1968, a disappointing ninth – "I don't think I was as committed as I should have been at that stage in my career". But that all changed with the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1970. Peters won the shot put and the pentathlon and discovered that she liked the feeling of success: "For the first time in my career I wanted to win. I'd always had the fear that if I was successful people would be jealous and their attitude to me would change. I never felt I really gave 100%. This time I did and ... I realised it was wonderful to be an achiever."
At 33 years of age, Peters was all too aware that the Games in Munich would be her last shot at Olympic glory but her initial preparations were far from ideal. Despite working full-time, she didn't have a car and so had to drag her shot and starting blocks through a two-bus journey to reach the dilapidated running track at Queen's University, "often having to turn back because there were bombs going off". Luckily, her success in Edinburgh meant she won a scholarship to train for six weeks in California.
A new climate and a new environment paid immediate dividends and she soon believed that "if everything went right in Munich" she could win. Conscious of events back home, Peters was motivated by the desire "to make people at home happy in some small way" and once there, she became even more bullish about her medal prospects: "I was so focused on winning. No way was I going home without a gold medal." With some civilized preparation and her aversion to winning conquered, the last thing standing between Peters and gold was the competition. Her main rival was a 26-year-old local woman and hotly tipped favourite, Heide Rosendahl.
The women's pentathlon was divided into two days and Peters had the perfect opening. She was drawn in lane seven for the 100m hurdles but still managed to equal her personal best. Spurred on by the attention of the large crowd at the Olympic Stadium – "it was the first time in my life and career I had a real audience and I performed for them" – she repeated the feat in both the shot put and high jump. By the end of the first day, she had an impressive 300-point lead over the West German.
That night, she could not sleep. "Every time I looked at my watch it seemed the hands had moved backwards." She was anxious and had every right to be. The second day consisted of Rosendahl's two strongest events and Peters' two weakest events – the long jump and the 200m. The West German, who had already been crowned Olympic long jump champion, leapt 6.83m to land within a single centimetre of her then world record. Peters could not even get past the 6m barrier, landing at 5.95m. Her lead had been cut to just 47 points and there was still one event to go. If Peters wanted gold, she would have to run faster than she had ever done before.
Both athletes started well in the 200m, and after the first bend, Peters was still within touching distance of Rosendahl. She was urged on by the BBC commentator – "Come on Mary, you need the run of your life now" – but could not match the West German for pace. In the final 80m, Rosendahl accelerated to finish in a time of 22.96sec. Peters finished fourth, 10m and 1.12sec behind her. It looked like she had blown it.
After the race, the athletes, crowded by photographers, stared anxiously at the scoreboard, waiting for the results. Arms were folded, lips were bitten. Rosendahl, head bowed, paced nervously up and down; Peters stood behind another competitor and peeked out from behind her hands. It was not until the West German came over and shook her hand that Peters realised she had won the gold medal – by 10 points – setting a new world record in the process.
When the death threat was made in the wake of her victory, Peters' father – now living in Australia and who had made a surprise visit to see her in action – wanted her to return to Australia with him. But she refused: "My home was in Belfast, my life was there and the people I loved were there."
She was greeted at the barbwire-wrapped Belfast airport with fans carrying flowers, a gold Rolls-Royce, a band playing Congratulations and an open-top lorry that ferried her through the thronged streets of Belfast, those same streets that had been ripped to shreds by the IRA bombs just two months previously. "It was the first time people were on the streets with happy faces for a long while," Peters said.
Those smiling faces belonged to both sides of the great divide and for a short time, during the bloodiest year the Troubles would serve up, the two communities of Northern Ireland rejoiced as one, celebrating their 33-year-old hero who had conquered age and a home favourite to win Olympic gold. After her success, Peters was offered jobs in the US and Australia but she refused: "I wouldn't have been happy. My family is the Northern Ireland people".
What happened next?
Peters was not allowed back in her flat for three months. She was appointed an MBE that year, a CBE in 1990 and made a Dame in 2000. She set up the Mary Peters Trust to help young people with sport throughout Northern Ireland, and the running track on the outskirts of Belfast is called the Mary Peters track. She is the current Lord Lieutenant of Belfast and lives in Lisburn, country Antrim.
What the Guardian said
Everything seemed to move at world record pace in the Olympic Stadium here yesterday. Lasse Viren put Finland back again at the top of the 10,000 metre running when he beat Ron Clarke's world record by 1sec, with a time of 27min 38.4sec. The Bavarians cramming the stadium fell in love with Mary Peters who won the gold medal in the pentathlon and set a world record points score of 4,801 points; and Hildegard Falck, another attractive blonde, broke the Olympic record for the 800 metres with 1min. 58.6sec, a bare tenth of a second outside her own world record.
Miss Peters has been delighting the crowd for the past two days. She began her pentathlon as one of those within reach of a medal. She started with 100 metres hurdles performance in 13.29sec for 960 points. She then put the shot 53ft 1½in and, as the stadium lights went up on Saturday evening, she went higher and higher in the high jump, finishing with a personal best of 5ft 10½in. Every time she Fosbury-flopped over the bar to a new height she leapt from the landing area to acknowledge immediately the cheers of the crowd.
They began a soccer-like chant of her name and she finished the day with a points score of 2,969 which was 97 more than Burglinde Pollack of East Germany. But the real danger was Heide Rosendahl, of West Germany, who was 300 points behind but who is the gold medal holder in the long jump and an excellent sprinter, which were the last two events.
Miss Peters achieved personal best performances in four out of the five events and in the long jump she was only 2in short of her best marks. She told me afterwards that she had no intention of retiring and hopes to compete in this event at the Commonwealth Games in two years' time.
Miss Peters went to bed realising that, while the Bavarians have a striking nationalistic fervour, she had won their hearts and when she competed this morning there were shouts of "Mary Mary" all over the stadium.
Miss Rosendahl gave quick notice that she was not content with one gold medal at the Games, for she long-jumped 22ft 5in – half an inch behind her own world record. Miss Peters managed a jump of 19ft 7½in and so the points score had been whittled away. There was some lunchtime juggling with times and pentathlon table scores and, for the final event, the balance was such that if Miss Rosendahl achieved her best performance of 23.1sec and Miss Peters was up to the same level (24.2sec in her case) the gold medal would go to Britain. They were drawn in the same heat which Miss Rosendahl won in 22.9, but Miss Peters went faster than was needed, 24.08sec, this bringing her a total of 4,081 points.
Miss Peters has made a long and valuable contribution to British Athletics. She was fourth in this event in Tokyo and ninth in Mexico and she is Britain's leading shot putter. But while these are achievements of the arena her personality, her effervescence, her delightful smile and her attitude of genuine warmth and friendliness has many times raised the spirits of athletic team members and those who travel with them. This has been her most difficult year for she lives in the Antrim Road, Belfast, amid the explosions and strife of that city.
Organisers warn people trying to buy last batch of tickets to the Games on general sale that they face half-hour wait
London 2012 organisers have warned that customers are likely to be held in virtual queues for more than half an hour when the last remaining Olympic tickets go on general sale on Wednesay.
Following a sales phase in which those who missed out in the initial ballot last spring were offered the chance to get their hands on 928,000 remaining tickets, those that are left will be put on general sale on Wednesday at 11am. There are around 500,000 left, plus a further 1.4m football tickets.
Organisers released a long list of sports that have sold out, including events in the aquatics centre, the main stadium and the velodrome.
The full list of sold out sports are: athletics, canoe slalom, all cycling events, all equestrian events, rhythmic gymnastics, modern pentathlon, swimming, marathon swimming, synchronised swimming, tennis, triathlon and the opening and closing ceremonies.
Aside from paying for a hospitality ticket or one bundled with a short break from Thomas Cook, the only way to see those sports will be to try to secure one of a final batch of between 150,000 and 200,000 tickets that will be released for sale through public box offices when the final seat configurations are decided.
Locog, which has come under fire for its ticketing policy in the face of huge demand for the 6.6m tickets available to the general public, said there were still £20 tickets remaining in the following sports: boxing, fencing, football, table tennis, taekwondo, volleyball, weightlifting and, with limited availability, in judo and wrestling.
There is "good availability" in the following sports, but at higher price points from £45 to £450: archery, badminton, basketball, beach volleyball, canoe sprint, diving, handball, hockey.
There is limited availability and only at higher prices for the race walk, mountain biking, artistic gymnastics, rowing, sailing and water polo. There is a handful of tickets left for shooting and trampolining at £40 to £185.
General entry tickets for the Olympic Park, put on sale at £10 towards the end of the last sales phase, will also be available. Organisers have launched the website today in order to allow prospective purchasers to see what is available, before the scramble for tickets begins at 11am on Wednesday.
As the first opportunity for those who didn't enter the initial ballot to purchase tickets on a first come, first served basis the general sales window will be a severe test for ticketing partner Ticketmaster, which has had technical issues in the past.
"Our priority has been to get as many people who missed out in the sales process last year to the Games. We have delivered on our promise and now another 150,000 people have successfully purchased up to four tickets each," said Locog commercial director Chris Townsend.
"We are now putting the remaining tickets back on general sale. Wednesday's sale is a live sale, and, like other high-demand events including pop concerts, we expect the website to be very busy and customers may well be held in queues for over 30 minutes at peak times."
• Sale of over 20% of stake gives F1 valuation of at least $7bn • F1's initial public offering due to be made public in June
The private equity firm CVC Capital has sold a $1.6bn (£1bn) stake in Formula One to three investors including the asset and investment management group BlackRock ahead of the motor racing company's intended $3bn initial public offering (IPO) flotation in Singapore, sources revealed on Tuesday.
The deal sets a benchmark valuation of at least $7bn for Formula One, as financial advisers begin to target potential investors during the pre-marketing process of the IPO. The shares are expected to be put on offer in June.
The pre-IPO deal cuts CVC's stake in Formula One to about 40% from 63.4%, one of the sources said. The two other investors are the asset manager Waddell & Reed and Norway's Norges Bank Investment Management, the asset management unit of the Norwegian central bank, known as Norges Bank.
"It raises some capital, which may be required, and it gives the IPO a little bit more credibility if some well-known investment houses come on board pre-IPO," said Peter Elston, head of Asia-Pacific strategy and asset allocation at Aberdeen Asset Management's Asian unit.
Finance Asia said the transaction gives Formula One a value of about $9.1bn including $7.2bn of equity and $1.9bn of debt.
"We view this [pre-IPO deal] as a validation of the company's valuation," the source said, ahead of the actual flotation, which is set to be priced before the end of June after the company and its bankers meet investors and fund managers to gauge demand for the offering.
"I don't think it's going to be priced cheaply," said Roger Tan, chief executive of SIAS Research. "There's a brand premium to it."
A source close to the Formula One deal had said this month that the IPO could be delayed because of ongoing market jitters.
Celebrating the superhuman feats of disabled people at the Games is the best riposte to Atos Healthcare's 'arrogant' deal
I love the Olympics. One of my earliest memories is of the entire family setting alarms for 4am to watch Robin Cousins win gold in the ice skating. We always watched every event, from archery to synchronised swimming. I love the superhuman excellence, the sheer grit and determination on the faces of the athletes. The dedication to perfection, the sacrifice that meant nothing – nothing – was more important in their lives than that finish line or target.
I clearly remember the first time the Paralympics came on to my radar. I watched, literally open-mouthed as Tanni Grey-Thompson set her eyes on a distant prize, gritted her teeth, shut out the thunderous noise of the crowds, then hurtled down the track with such speed and grace, it was hard to believe she had any kind of disability at all. I was similarly awestruck by my first glimpse of the seemingly bionic Oscar Pistorius. As he raced down the track on those incredible prosthetics, I could hardly believe my eyes. Did I enjoy his achievement more because he was disabled? I think I did a little. That same sense of overcoming great challenges that I had always so admired in traditional Olympians, magnified 100 times in a man determined to be the best, whatever the odds.
When I heard that the UK had won its bid to host the 2012 Olympic Games, I was thrilled. I saw it as an honour, a wonderful chance to show these superhuman athletes the respect and honour they deserved. To celebrate their achievements and, though I was ill myself by then, to actually have the chance to go to some events! I told my children about how wonderful it would be, described the atmosphere, saved every penny I could.
My first disappointment was the price of the tickets. I'd saved £1,000, determined my children would get to take part in this historic, once in a lifetime event. But I wanted them to follow an event through some heats and a flagship final. Even my £1,000 wasn't enough, and even if it had been, the finals were all way too late in the evening for small boys. Soon, accounts of corporate favouritism emerged. Most of the best tickets would go to dignitaries or corporate sponsors. I was heartbroken.
Soon, the Games' budget raged out of control, mocking austerity Britain: More security, drones above the stadium … a London more evocative of the Gaza strip.
But as a disability campaigner, the greatest injustice had to be the day we heard that Atos would be sponsoring the Paralympics – the very company charged with denying disability on a national scale, through the government's flawed and dangerous "work capability assessments". As hundreds of thousands of "everyday" disabled people were hounded and humiliated into poverty, told they were fit for work with kidney failure, paraplegia or MS, the same company had the cheek to buy a slice of this very "superhuman" image of disability. It seemed utterly symptomatic of a corporate culture out of touch and out of control.
Some have called for a boycott of the Paralympics until Atos pulls out. Personally, I think this is the worst possible thing we could do. Do the athletes who gave their every waking moment to be the best deserve to have that taken away from them by a company already associated with the suffering of so many sick and disabled people? Is there any greater contrast to the arrogance and greed of the corporate sponsors than the selfless dedication of human beings who simply want to be the best they can be?
These same companies will try to tell us that these paragons of disability prove that anyone can do it. This is no more true for disabled people than it is for the able-bodied. Very, very few of us are born to be the fastest or the best. But we are born to try, to strive, to overcome and to achieve our own greatness. May the incredible feats of our finest athletes – whether disabled or able bodied – remind our corrupt elite of what it is to be truly brave and decent.
• Outstanding chaser leads jump racing's golden age • Sprinter Sacre rated highest novice for 13 years
Kauto Star, who was pulled up in the early stages of the Gold Cup at Cheltenham in March, still emerged as the champion staying chaser in the 2011-12 season when the Anglo-Irish National Hunt end-of-season ratings were published in London on Tuesday. It was the seventh time the outstanding chaser of the last 25 years had been named as the champion in one of the three chasing divisions.
Kauto Star was rated 180, 2lb ahead of Long Run, who finished third behind Synchronised in the Gold Cup. Synchronised, who was killed in the Grand National four weeks later, was third among the staying chasers on 168, alongside the National winner Neptune Collonges, who is now retired.
There is a sense of a golden era for chasing drawing to a close in the latest jumps ratings, since Kauto Star is far from certain to run again and his stable companion Master Minded, who was the top-rated two-and-a-half-mile chaser on 174, has already been retired. The main hope for the future is Sprinter Sacre, the Arkle Trophy winner, whose mark of 169 makes him the highest-rated novice in the 13-year history of the rankings.
"Kauto Star is undoubtedly the best chaser we've had on these shores for many a long year," Phil Smith, the British Horseracing Authority's head of handicapping, said. "We have him down as recording 22 performances of 170-plus over his career, which is stunning. Apart from his level of ability, his consistency is fantastic and he had the ability to be a champion at two miles, two and a half miles and three miles-plus in the same year. It's amazing to have a horse who is so consistent and so versatile.
"I have to say that I thought his win at Haydock [in the Betfair Chase in November] was going to be his last hurrah. He was fit to run for his life that day, while Long Run [who finished second] was sketchy at his jumps and it didn't look as if the track suited him.
"I fully expected Long Run to get revenge [in the King George VI Chase] at Kempton, so when Kauto Star won and the two of them put something like 17 lengths between themselves and Captain Chris [in third], there's no question that it was another 180-plus performance."
Even if Kauto Star remains in training, he will be 13 by the time of next year's Cheltenham Festival and the handicappers will look to the season's leading novice chasers to try to fill the void at the top if, as expected, Kauto Star has already run in his last Gold Cup.
Irish novices are top of the pile, with Flemenstar, who missed the Cheltenham Festival but won the Powers Gold Cup at Fairyhouse in April, rated 163, 1lb ahead of Sir Des Champs, who won the Jewson Novices' Chase at Cheltenham. Both ratings were recorded in the two-and-a-half-mile division, with Bobs Worth, the RSA Chase winner, the top-rated novice in the three miles-plus division on 160.
"Nothing that I saw at Fairyhouse makes me worry that Flemenstar is not going to get the Gold Cup trip," Noel O'Brien, Ireland's senior handicapper, said, "and I think Sir Des Champs is crying out for a trip. In recent years there has been a dearth of good Irish staying chasers, partly due to injury, but hope springs eternal. I think we are blessed with a very strong bunch of novices this year and we are coming into a time where the staying chasers are in flux. Kauto Star may or may not retire and Long Run has not been running to the level he has in the past."
Smith emphasised the leap that will be required, not by just one but several of the best novices, if the staying chase division in 2012-13 is to come anywhere near the quality of recent years.
"It's a huge vacuum where the novice chasers can come and stake a claim," he said, "but over the last four or five years the novice chasers have not been good enough to do that.
"To be a top champion, you've have got to be rated in the mid-170s. Best Mate, for instance, was generally rated 175 or 176. We've had a number in recent years who were significantly better than that, but now, apart from Long Run, they are way down and a whole lot of them have to step up to the plate to have anything like the quality we've had for the last three years.
"I will be very surprised if I see another horse as versatile, consistent and outstanding as Kauto Star. They don't come along every two or three years, you're looking at every 25-30 years for a horse with all three qualities."
Sprinter Sacre was already rated ahead of Gloria Victis (166) the previous top-rated novice, before his victory at Cheltenham, while Sanctuaire, who did not run at the Festival, equalled Gloria Victis's mark to offer the prospect of an outstanding season of competition in the two-mile chasing division when the current campaign hits its stride in the autumn.
Finian's Rainbow (173) and Sizing Europe (172), first and second in an unsatisfactory Queen Mother Champion Chase in which the final fence was bypassed, set the standard at which Sprinter Sacre and Sanctuaire will now take aim.
"It was an unusual year in that Sprinter Sacre [who won the Game Spirit at Newbury] and Sanctuaire [who took the Celebration Chase at Sandown] weren't raced entirely against novices," Smith said. "But we would want to see them against top-quality older chasers before we rate them any higher than we have them now."
Hurricane Fly and Rock On Ruby, the winners of the 2011 and 2012 Champion Hurdle respectively, were joint-rated as the top two-mile hurdlers on 170, while Big Buck's, who won the World Hurdle at Cheltenham for the fourth year running, is the top-rated hurdler at any distance for the fourth year in a row on 174.
"Big Buck's is remarkable," Martin Greenwood, the handicapper responsible for staying hurdlers, said. "Short of kidnapping him, he's basically unbeatable."
• Procedure is believed to have been succesful • Comeback remains on course for next season
Jack Wilshere had a minor operation on his left knee on Tuesday afternoon. The midfielder underwent the procedure in Sweden and it is reported to have been a success.
Wilshere will return to Arsenal in the next few days to continue his rehabilitation and is expected to ready return to first-team action at the start of next season.
The 20-year-old tweeted: "Surgery went well.....one problem, I'm STARVING! Get me a pizza now........." and followed it later with: "Thanks for your messages tweeps....up and about already!"
Anne Keothavong failed to build on a good start against Mirjana Lucic as she was knocked out in the first round of the Strasbourg International.
Keothavong won the first set against Lucic, who is ranked 119 in the world – 43 places below the British No2 – but the Croatian battled back to win 2-6, 7-5, 6-4.
• Redman to return after junior world championships • Strong work ethic expected from former academy coach
The Rugby Football Union's elite coach development manager, Nigel Redman, has been appointed as Worcester's new forwards coach.
Redman, 47, will return to Sixways, where he was previously Worcester's academy manager, after working with the England U20s at the junior world championships next month.
"It was a tough decision to make but I'm passionate about coaching people and I'm excited about what is happening at Worcester and want to be part of that process," Redman said. "It's a brilliant move for me and I'm looking forward to it.
"I have enjoyed my time at the RFU fully, but I have always had a soft spot for Worcester and I'm really looking forward to coming back and working with the team at Sixways."
It is understood Wasps' forwards coach, Trevor Woodman, was among those considered for the position, which was left vacant when Phil Davies left to become director of rugby at Cardiff Blues.
However, Worcester's director of rugby, Richard Hill, believes Redman, his former Bath and England team-mate, is the perfect man to implement his vision for the Warriors.
"Nigel is one of the leading coaches in the English game and so we know he will be a success in this crucial role with the Warriors," Hill said. "He knows the very latest modern training techniques and developments in the international arena. He is bang up to date with the way forward and knowledge.
"Nigel is the sort of coach who is technically exceptional and he has a lot of time for individual work with players. I like coaches like that and he will really challenge all the players here and ask questions of them.
"His work ethic as a player was tireless and he is the same as a coach, he will put the work in and he demands that of the players. I want a huge work ethic next season and the players I have recruited have that, and Nigel coming in will reinforce that.
"We will make sure that this team works harder than any other with real attention to detail. He feels he has unfinished business here and by coming back he can achieve those ambitions."
Redman initially joined the RFU from Worcester in 2004 as an academy coach before leading the U20s to a Six Nations grand slam and the 2008 junior world championship final.
The former Bath and England lock is an RFU level‑five qualified coach – the same as Stuart Lancaster – and a graduate of the UK Sport elite coach programme.
The Fiver likes Joe Cole for the simple reason that while most English players seem to have about as much desire for expanding their footballing horizons abroad as an atephobic does for a trip to Pompeii, he happily packed his bags and headed off to Lille with little more than a French phrasebook and a penchant for baked cheese dishes. And he posed for the above photo, which brings to mind a cakeless James Richardson.
But the France Football-reading midfield twinkler has gone down in our estimation today. The Fiver, of course, is nothing if not a stickler for historical accuracy. And this simply does not cut the mustard. "I can see why people say (joining Liverpool) is a culture shock," Cole said. "It is a small place but it has this great buzz. How can there not be in a city that has produced five prime ministers and the Beatles?"
We'll give him the Beatles, but five prime ministers? Liverpool-born William Gladstone was PM four times (as the Fiver obviously knew before looking it up on Wikipedia just to make absolutely sure) but that hardly counts, does it? A good job Cole admits to being "startled" when he signed for the Reds, thus winning back brownie points by conjuring up images of a wide-eyed Cole poised to flee into the nearest thicket when handed the contract and pen.
His future, though, remains up in the air. "There is still a part of me that would really love to make it work there and I don't want to have a bad spell at Anfield on my CV," he added, desperately slamming shut the door as Old Neddy gallops away over the nearest hillock. "But it is out of my hands now. At the minute I can't rule anything in or out. We have got to speak to Liverpool and see what happens there."
Meanwhile, Liverpool fans' group and outrage specialists Spirit of Shankly have issued an open letter questioning the running of the club. "From the outside where supporters find themselves once again, it looks like a football club in disarray," they shriek. "Confusion and chaos seems to reign and no one is coming out of this with much credit." No, they're not.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"I can't be all soccer - go, go, go, go - I need a social life. I need a life outside of soccer. I very much welcome, you know, new love interests and dating … I've had marriage proposals, invitations to military balls and even a few prom offers from 18-year-old boys. In New York City after the World Cup, this kid literally got on his knees in the middle of the street and asked me to prom ... I told him he could ask me again in 10 years" - having staggeringly failed to land a boyfriend after posing nude for ESPN last year, USA! USA!! USA!!! women's soccerball goalkeeper Hope Solo spells it out on a relationship site that she is open to offers. But just not from $exually repressed tea-timely emails or their readers.
FIVER LETTERS
"I unreservedly withdraw my incorrectly spelt and wrongly categorised nomination for Liverpool manager in favour of John Myles's suggestion (yesterday's letters) and look forward to the club filling some of their other backroom vacancies with Dietmar Hamann, Didier Drogba and Didier Deschamps. Imagine how tickled FSG will be when they hear that Ken Dodd required the Diddy Men to work for free" - Dermot McDermott.
"Regarding Chelsea's success in Europe making them one-fifth as good as Liverpool (yesterday's Fiver), in tribute to the late great Brian Clough let's not forget it also makes the overpaid prima donnas half as good as Championship side Nottingham Forest" - Mark Brookes.
"If Frank de Boer didn't want the Liverpool job why didn't he accept it and send his brother to do it. He could stay at Ajax. Liverpool bosses wouldn't have had a clue" - Geoff Saunders.
Former striker Fernando Torres could yet become current striker Fernando Torres after Didier Drogba confirmed he will leave Chelsea this summer. "It has been a very difficult decision for me to make and I am very proud of what we have achieved but the time is right for a new challenge," Drogba warbled.
Former midfielder Owen Hargreaves remains former midfielder Owen Hargreaves after the knee-knacked 31-year-old was released by Manchester City.
Jose Mourinho has signed a new contract that will keep him at Real Madrid until 2016 (or until he wins Big Cup, proclaims himself God and struts off to manage a team on Mars).
Ryan Giggs, 78, has said he wants to take part in Big Games, which - if David Beckham and Paul Scholes played - would give Team GB's Under-23 squad a wrinkle-tastic average age of 137, or something.
And Bolton have offered Jussi Jaaskelainen and Zat Knight new contracts to remain at the relegated club. "Watch this space, we're still waiting for replies from them," said chairman Phil Gartside, before removing a cobweb from his left ear.
And finally, for no other reason than the Fiver's post-season well is running dry, why not sign up for our roll-up smoking, real-ale-drinking, willow-wielding cousin, the Spin, for a weekly take on all things cricket.
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• 29-year-old often left out in favour of Emmanuel Adebayor • 'As a forward you just want to get some sort of rhythm'
Jermain Defoe does not want to leave Tottenham Hotspur, but the England striker admits he has to start playing regular football again.
The 29-year-old scored 11 goals for Spurs in 23 appearances last season, which was enough to earn himself a call‑up into Roy Hodgson's Euro 2012 squad. Nevertheless, Defoe has slipped down the pecking order at White Hart Lane, with the on-loan Emmanuel Adebayor deployed as a lone frontman supported by Rafael van der Vaart. Defoe believes he is in a dilemma.
"It is a difficult one. I have never said I want to leave the club, all I have just said is I want to play," Defoe told TalkSport. "As a forward you just want to get some sort of rhythm and a run in the team. That wasn't the case towards the end of the season.
"I am going to concentrate on England and go to the Euros, then see what happens. The most important thing for me is scoring goals and that is when I am at my happiest."
Spurs finished fourth in the Premier League, having eventually been overhauled by their north London rivals Arsenal. After Chelsea won the Champions League in dramatic fashion in Munich on Saturday night, however, it meant Harry Redknapp's men will now head into the Europa League instead. It is scant reward for a campaign which for so long had promised so much.
"The main aim of the season was to finish in the top four, and we have done that. What happened with Chelsea was out of our hands and was just unfortunate," said Defoe, who is in his second spell at Spurs having been signed by Redknapp at Portsmouth in January 2008. "There have been lots of ups and downs, but we all stuck together and still performed."
The loss of Champions League football for another campaign has again cast doubt over the future of some of Spurs' key men. The Wales winger Gareth Bale is said to be on the wanted list of a string of top European clubs, while the Croatia playmaker Luka Modric has previously been strongly linked with a move to Chelsea, with Manchester United also potential suitors for the 26-year-old.
Spurs are also understood to be in talks with Adebayor over making his loan move from Manchester City permanent, although the transfer fee and wages of the former Arsenal frontman could well prove a stumbling block. Defoe believes the White Hart Lane hierarchy must look to take the squad forwards with the current group.
"In football you never know what is going to happen, but it is always important to keep hold of your top players. Some players like Luka Modric and Gareth Bale are players you cannot replace, so it is important to keep them."
• Australia, Pakistan, Spain, South Africa also in group • GB women play Holland, Japan, South Korea, Belgium, China
The Great Britain men's hockey team will open their London 2012 campaign against Argentina on 30 July at the Riverbank Arena in the Olympic Park.
The South Americans were at the centre of a political storm this month because of a TV advert which showed their defender Fernando Zylberberg training on the Falklands Islands' Great War Memorial.
Zylberberg has been left out of the Argentina squad to play in the Sultan Azlan Shah Cup in Malaysia, which starts on Friday and also features Great Britain.
Jason Lee's GB side, ranked No4 in the world, will also play South Africa, Pakistan, Australia and Spain at the Olympics. Australia are ranked No1 but lost the final of the Olympic test event to Germany this month.
The British women's squad, which has already been selected, open their campaign against Japan on 29 July with further matches against South Korea, Belgium and China before taking on the world No1 Holland in their final group match. Great Britain are ranked fourth in the world but won the Olympic test event, defeating Argentina in the final.
New Zealand's women face Australia in the opening game of the Olympic hockey programme, starting at 8.30am on 29 July.
• Tu'ipulotu returns to Newcastle from Japan • More new signings are to follow, say club
Newcastle have re-signed centre Tane Tu'ipulotu on a two-year deal from the Japanese club Yamaha Jubilo. The former Junior All Black is the Falcons' fourth signing this week following the arrivals of Rory Lawson, Carlo del Fava and Scott MacLeod.
The club's immediate future remains uncertain, as they wait for the outcome of the Championship final to discover whether they will be relegated. But Tu'ipulotu, who played for the Falcons between 2008-2011, is excited by the prospect of playing under Dean Richards, the new director of rugby. "I am truly grateful for the opportunity to join the Falcons again," Tu'ipulotu told the Falcons' official website.
"When I initially left the Falcons for Japan it was a very hard decision for me and my family to make. During my time away Semore Kurdi has taken over the club, and it is great to see the progress that has been made under his leadership, especially with the appointment of Dean Richards as director of rugby.
"I am looking forward to being part of a team that strives to perform to the expectations of its loyal supporters."
Newcastle have said that more signings are set to be announced.
• Given injured in training but should be fit for match on Saturday • John O'Shea likely to miss Bosnia game with ankle injury
The Republic of Ireland goalkeeper Shay Given has given Giovanni Trapattoni a scare after having to undergo a scan on a knee injury, ahead of the side's friendly against Bosnia on Saturday.
The 121-times-capped goalkeeper was sent for tests after hurting the knee in training on Monday and is expected to sit out two to three days of this week's preparations in Malahide.
A spokesman for the Football Association of Ireland said: "Shay Given picked up a minor knee injury in training yesterday. After undergoing a scan, it was concluded that Shay should sit out training for the next two to three days for precautionary measures."
The Republic play Bosnia at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday afternoon before heading off for their pre-Euro 2012 training camp in Italy on Sunday.
However, while the 36-year-old Given may still appear in that game, the defender John O'Shea is unlikely to as he continues to battle an ankle injury. The 31-year-old has not trained fully since joining up with his team-mates as a result of the problem he aggravated in Sunderland's final game of the season against former club Manchester United.
However, Trapattoni remains confident he will be fit for the tournament, which begins for the Republic against Croatia in Poznan on 10 June.
The spokesman added: "Giovanni Trapattoni has also decided that John O'Shea may not partake in Saturday's game against Bosnia for precautionary measures, but has confirmed that John will be fit in time for Euro 2012. John is undergoing rehabilitative treatment this week on his ankle."
There was better news for the manager, however, when the captain, Robbie Keane, joined his team-mates on the training pitch in Malahide for the first time on Tuesday morning.
The 31-year-old striker flew in from Los Angeles on Monday afternoon and was among the squad for the early part of the first session of the day.
Keane, who is recovering from a minor hamstring strain, left early to return to the team hotel, but Trapattoni will be delighted to finally have him with the rest of the squad.
Speaking after his release from prison, Liam Stacey describes his abuse of the collapsed Bolton footballer as 'disgusting'
A student jailed for posting offensive and racist comments on Twitter following footballer Fabrice Muamba's on-pitch collapse has been banned from university for the rest of the year.
Liam Stacey, who has been released from prison after serving half of his 56-day sentence, was told not to return to Swansea University's campus.
Speaking after leaving prison, 21-year-old Stacey expressed deep sorrow for what he had done, saying he had been drunk, and spoke of his shock that his abuse had gone "nationwide". He said his comments had been "disgusting".
Stacey sparked an outcry following Muamba's cardiac arrest in March when he tweeted: "LOL, Fuck Muamba. He's dead." Other Twitter users immediately criticised Stacey, prompting him to post further offensive and racist comments. He branded some people who censured him as "wogs" and told one to "go pick some cotton". Stacey was quickly traced by police, arrested and jailed by magistrates in Swansea.
He was also suspended from university, where he was a final-year biology student. The university has now imposed a full suspension until the end of the academic year. Stacey, from Pontypridd, south Wales, will be allowed to sit his final exams as an external candidate next year. But even if successful he will not be invited to the graduation ceremony.
A university spokesman said: "We take the actions of this student very seriously, which is why he is no longer part of our campus community."
In an interview with BBC Wales's Week In Week Out programme, which is being broadcast on Tuesday, Stacey said he was "massively sorry" for what he had done.
He said he heard about the collapse of the Bolton Wanderers midfielder during a day of heavy drinking as he watched the climax of the Six Nations rugby on television.
Stacey said: "I had had a lot to drink. I don't know why, I decided to tweet about it. Then about half hour, hour later I was getting responses back and I wasn't in the right frame of mind to think what was going on. It just got all out of hand then. I didn't intend being a racist when I got up that morning, I just wanted to go out and have a good time with my friends and watch the rugby. Within about an hour, two hours, everything escalated."
Stacey said he hit back when other Twitter users criticised him. "I was retaliating to what they said about me. I realised about an hour later it had gone nationwide and it was like a witch-hunt on Twitter for me. I didn't realise what I had done, the enormity of it, it was huge, across Great Britain. I was on the phone to my mother then, on the phone to one of my mates, crying.
"I didn't know what was going to happen to me. There were threats towards me and my family. I was kind of defending myself but the way I did it was disgusting. It was stupid, disgusting. If I could turn back the clocks I would, 100%."
He also told the programme: "What I struggle to get my head around was the week or two before I was just a normal kid getting on with my work in university, getting on with life, playing rugby with all my mates, then a week or two later I was just going to prison, everything had been turned upside down."
Stacey pleaded guilty to an offence under the Public Order Act 1986. He admitted that he used threatening, abusive or insulting words with intent to cause harassment, alarm or distress. He also accepted that his offence was racially aggravated.
Los Angeles Lakers and Clippers eliminated, setting up a Oklahoma City Thunder vs San Antonio Spurs final in the West; Boston Celtics and Philadelphia 76ers could head to Game 7, as could the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers
The NBA Playoffs will continue without Los Angeles. On back-to-back nights, the Oklahoma City Thunder and the San Antonio Spurs, the two best teams in the West and possibly in the NBA, both dispatched their L.A.-based opponents on route to what could be a brilliant Western Conference Finals. Nothing is settled in the East, however, as the Boston Celtics continue to struggle with the pesky Philadelphia 76ers, and the series between the Miami Heat and the Indiana Pacers is tied up at 2-2. Of course, considering how well the Spurs and Thunder are playing, there's a possibility that all four teams in the Eastern Conference are merely fighting for the honor of losing in the Finals.
1. The Oklahoma City Thunder drained the Los Angeles Lakers
The Oklahoma City Thunder knocked off the Los Angeles Lakers on Monday night, pulling away in the last quarter and beating them by a score of 106-90. Although the Lakers played the Thunder close most of the game, Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook spurred their team to the next level in the fourth, ensuring there would be no last minute drama in this fifth and final game. Now, Oklahoma City is advancing to the Western Conference Finals, leaving behind a Lakers team that may be headed for some major offseason changes.
Russell Westbrook made the defining play of the game, perhaps of the Playoffs, when he stole the ball late and made an impossible shot in the process of being fouled. Westbrook's "and one" play was a momentum shifter that energized the home crowd and provided visual shorthand for how the Thunder were about to treat the Lakers.
Meanwhile, Kobe Bryant finished the game with a very Kobe Bryant line where he scored 42 points without earning a single assist. To be fair, it wasn't as if Bryant's teammates gave him much reason to be confident in them. Pau Gasol had a 5 from 14 shooting night, while center Andrew Bynum had a grand total of 10 points (4-for-10 shooting from the field) and four rebounds. One imagines that that it will be a difficult homecoming for this Lakers squad:
(Setting: Tuesday evening at a certain Los Angeles bar, well frequented by NBA players. The jukebox is playing mournful saxophone-heavy heavy smooth jazz. Lakers scout CHAZ THE BARTENDER is behind the bar, nervously checking his watch. KOBE BRYANT, PAU GASOL, ANDREW BYNUM and METTA WORLD PEACE are sitting glumly at the bar. Kobe has four glasses full of beer in front of him.) Pau: You've been hoarding those glasses for several minutes now, aren't you going to pass one to any of us? (Kobe just glares at Pau.) Metta: Yeah, all we ask for you is to pass at least one. What kind of team player are you? Chaz: (Smiles at his watch.) LAST CALL everyone! You don't have to go home, but… No actually you all do have to go home. Kobe Bryant: LAST CALL? That's a BS call, I know for a fact that this clock is fast, we still have at least fifteen more minutes! Chaz: You can complain about the call all you want but this is your last chance to take a shot. Hey, where's the coach? Kobe: What are you talking about? I'm right here. Pau: He means Mike Brown Andrew: Wait, Phil Jackson isn't the coach anymore? (Kobe glares at Andrew.) Chaz: Does anyone want to make an order? Pau: Why? It's not like Kobe will let us have anything. Kobe: (Kobe glares at Pau.) You just need to be more aggressive! Metta: I'll have a park bench. Chaz: I don't know that drink. Metta: No, I want an actual park bench. Do you sell those here? Chaz: (Sighs.) We're all out of park benches, Mr. World Peace, we just have drinks left. Metta: Drinks, eh? So, can I have a... park bench… on the rocks? Kobe: So, you're part of the scouting department Chaz, how do you think the Lakers organization is going to fix things? Chaz: Well, certainly there will be some big changes to be made. I doubt that all four of you will be back here next season. Pau: Hey, I still want to play in Los Angeles. We all want to keep playing in Los Angeles, right guys. (Kobe glares at Pau.) Andrew: (Shrugs.) I'll play wherever. I don't care. I mean, I really don't care. Kobe: We know. Chaz: Okay, listen, it's closing time, boys. See you guys next season, or at least some of you guys. (The music suddenly stops. The players head for the exits.) Andrew: So what time's the game tomorrow? Kobe: (Shakes head. Grabs phone and begins to make a call.) Dwight, yeah it's Kobe… Tell your boys in Orlando that we might need to make a deal… (The players exit, leaving behind only Chaz.) Chaz: (Stares at floor.) What a mess these NBA guys leave. At least when Duncan and Parker were here they had the decency to sweep.
2. The San Antonio Spurs ended the Los Angeles Clippers' season
It looked like the Los Angeles Clippers were going to pull off a victory, but the San Antonio Spurs were not going to be denied their 18th straight win, defeating the Clippers 102-99. The Clippers gave the Spurs the toughest challenge of the Playoffs in the series' game four, but they learned that playing the Spurs close isn't the same as playing the Memphis Grizzlies close. As soon as the Clippers lost a six point lead late, a Spurs win seemed inevitable. Even when they shaved the Spurs' lead to a single point in the game's closing minutes, it felt more like the Clippers were down double-digits. The series might have gone differently had Chris Paul, who had 23 points and 11 assists but missed his two final shots, been fully healthy. The series might have gone differently if Blake Griffin hadn't suffered a variety of injuries throughout the playoffs, or had Designated Veteran Presence Chauncey Billups been available or had someone other than Vinny del Negro been coaching the team. But who knows? Considering how good San Antonio has been paying this postseason, the best case scenario for the Clippers might have been a game six.
Beyond del Negro's pretty much inevitable firing, the future of the Clippers franchise is murky. If Blake Griffin decides not to sign an extension with the team, he will be a free agent after next season. Meanwhile, Chris Paul, despite having nixed an opt-out clause for next season after the New Orleans Hornets traded him to L.A., still could also conceivably be gone as early as 2013. If the Clippers want to add pieces from free agency to win in the short or long term, they not only have to compete with the Lakers but also owner Donald Sterling's beyond ugly reputation. Worst case scenario, Lob City could shortly become a ghost town.
Meanwhile, the unlikely Juggernaut that is the San Antonio Spurs marches on to face the Oklahoma City Thunder in the Western Conference Finals on Sunday. It's difficult to predict which teams will win the series, but if it's a long one then the NBA will be the clear winner.
Wait, we have to wait until SUNDAY until the series starts? No fair.
3. Boston Celtics have pushed Philadelphia 76ers to the brink
Monday night, after one of the worst playoff performances of the season, Brandon Bass exploded with a 27 point effort to carry the Boston Celtics to a 101-85 victory over the Philadelphia 76ers. The Celtics, who struggled early while playing without the defense of the injured Avery Bradley, now have two games to put away the 76ers, not that this seems likely considering how difficult Boston likes to make things for itself.
Of course it wouldn't be Rondo or KG or the Truth who would come through for the C's, but the Bass-O-Matic, because this is the 2012 NBA Playoffs and the Eastern Conference's new motto is "Nothing Makes Sense Anymore". The Celtics tried to run the offense through Bass in game two, only for Bass to have a "in school in your underwear" nightmare of a performance, missing nine out of ten shots at one point. So, of course, he went on to have an epic game five performance that puts the Celtics a win away from the Western Conference Finals. Bass wasn't alone in the unlikely hero category. Greg Stiemsma, the big man whose position with the team has varied throughout the season from unknown quantity to inside joke to reliable contributor, had a five-for-five night including a thunderous dunk courtesy of Rajon Rondo.
Things seem bleak for the Philadelphia 76ers, having to win their next two games to survive, but they know that the Celtics have a notorious history when it comes to close out games. Under Doc Rivers, Boston is only 2-10 on the road in games where they could put away a series, a fact that Rivers reluctantly acknowledged in his post-game conference. When Philadelphia's Elton Brand told a Celtics ball-boy that he'd see him Saturday, essentially guaranteeing a 76ers win in Philly Wednesday night, Brand might not have just been being cocky. History suggests that a game seven might be close to inevitable.
4. The Miami Heat evened up their series with the Indiana Pacers
It seems so long ago now, but there was a moment Sunday afternoon when, in the words of Warren Zevon, "that the righteous might just, might just, might just come". The Indiana Pacers had already shocked the basketball world by taking a 2-1 series lead against the hated Miami Heat and built up a ten point lead at home seeking to put their opponent one game away from a shocking elimination. Then LeBron James and Dwyane Wade took over, and the Miami Heat won 101-93 to even up the series.
In retrospect, it seems kind of foolish to think that Wade and James wouldn't take over at least one game in this series like they did on Sunday afternoon when they combined for 70 points. It almost feels as if basketball fans everywhere were trying to will the Pacers into being that classic underdog team, the David to the Heat's Goliath. The wishing didn't work, of course it didn't, giants don't fall that quickly or that easily. In winning game four on the road, the Heat have regained home court advantage. If Indiana is going to win this series, which resumes Tuesday night in Miami, they will have to steal at least one game on the road. Good luck with that.
No, seriously, good luck with that. Pretty much all of us want to see you win, Indiana.
5. Other Things We've Learned
• Opposite of Shocking News Department: the Orlando Dwight Howards have dismissed head coach Stan Van Gundy. Hey, major networks, he's now available! Feel free to jettison anyone for him, even Shaq. We'll get by without Shaq, we promise.
At the end of a long season the coaches are attempting to keep their players fresh for a hard and sunny HQ
It was interesting to listen to Richard Cockerill's training plans ahead of Leicester's eighth successive Premiership final. "We're going to be simple and boring and have a standard week," said the Tigers' director of rugby, fully aware Harlequins flew out to Abu Dhabi to prepare last week. "Last year, in hindsight, we probably did too much work in advance and we've learned our lesson from that. Going to Abu Dhabi is not really our thing."
Even driving up the road to Melton Mowbray, he could have added, is not Leicester's thing if it deviates from their familiar routine. The rationale is easy enough to justify. Leicester have been finishing the season like a runaway locomotive and they see little value in doing anything to disrupt that momentum. "The lads are away from home enough and, with a lot of players going on tour, there didn't seem any point in them spending another four or five days out of the country," said Cockerill.
Few, frankly, have had more experience of this delicate balancing act than Leicester, whose season ticket for the final tends to be renewed annually without fuss. Perhaps you might expect them to have a better record than three wins in seven finals. Wasps (twice), Sale and Saracens have upset them on the big day.
Which brings us to Conor O'Shea, Cockerill's opposite number. Quins have been front-running since September but ploughing the same old furrow is not necessarily guaranteed to yield the peak of performance they need to win a final against such hardy opponents. They need something extra and O'Shea has been relentlessly in pursuit of it. He sent his captain, Chris Robshaw, away on holiday following the Six Nations and, way in advance of the Abu Dhabi trip, has deliberately tailored his players' training to replicate the more intense knockout environment. Wasps used to do something similar and won three Premiership grand finals on the trot.
As long ago as March, O'Shea was planning for this week, sending his players off for a week of netball, handball and rock-climbing to ensure they stayed fresh for the closing furlongs. "You have to take a view of how the season is going to pan out. We have to keep the players physically and mentally fresh until 26 May. Saracens, Northampton and Leicester have been at the top for a long time and where we are now is where we want to be every season. We are learning about the pressures of competing at the top. It's all about peaking at the right time. I'm pretty confident we can do that."
Two contrasting methods, only one possible winner. The defending champions Saracens, like Quins, have also favoured unorthodox mental stimulation – remember their trips to the Oktoberfest and the heavyweight title fight last year between Wladimir Klitschko and David Haye? – as an aid to performance. On this occasion Test calls and a rising injury toll have scuppered their normal late-season surge but they recognised that an all-or-nothing Twickenham final, particularly in warm, fast conditions, demands different qualities from back-to-back league games at Newcastle and Sale in the January slush.
Leicester, in that respect, will miss Tom Croft, who provides a different dimension on such occasions. They remain ultimate fighters but if their teenage fly-half George Ford starts it will be a serious test of his precocious ability. The memory of Bath's similarly youthful No10 Tom Heathcote being shouldered out of a March league game at the Stoop by the onrushing Maurie Fa'asavalu has not entirely faded and Quins now possess a harder edge than some appreciate. They also have Nick Evans, a fly-half who seldom disappoints on days like these.
This, perhaps, is the area Cup final pundits can underestimate. Certain players raise the bar when the stadium is full and the stakes are at their highest. Leinster are a good example; how often do Jonathan Sexton, Brian O'Driscoll, Rob Kearney or Isa Nacewa under-perform for their province when it really matters? They aim high and never settle for dreary mediocrity.
If there were two performances by English clubs that really stood out in the Heineken Cup this season they were the victories by Harlequins and Gloucester over Toulouse. Both dared to play, both took the half-chances their sense of adventure created and both were spectacularly rewarded. Quins can now play it tight as well as expansive, but you suspect they will try to run Leicester around. Beneath a bright sun on a hard Twickenham track they should not be underestimated.
Fast forward
Talking of fast rugby, the International Rugby Board's latest law trials all have a common theme: doing away with the slack periods of a game teams are increasingly happy to exploit. Get your stopwatch out this weekend and see how many goalkickers in the two finals, the Aviva Premiership and the RaboDirect Pro12, get the ball over the posts within 90 seconds of a try being scored, as they will have to do in future.
Check out the scrum-halves taking an age at the back of a ruck to prepare for their next box-kick and console yourself they will soon have just five seconds to do so. Even "Crouch, Touch, Pause, Engage" has been concertinaed to "Crouch, Touch, Set". I'd have preferred "Ready, Steady, Go" (less fussy, understandable to all ages and intellects) but anything that de-clutters the scrum process – currently 56 seconds per scrum at Tier One level – has to be a step forward. Players are not getting any smaller but reducing the forwards' recovery time should theoretically free up more space for backs to exploit.
Worth watching this week
The grand finals. Harlequins v Leicester and Leinster v Ospreys feature the leading two clubs from the respective domestic campaigns. Both games will have a host of international players about to head off on tour to the southern hemisphere. A couple of thunderclap contests would be the perfect send-off for all concerned.
Olympic bob skeleton gold medallist Amy Williams kicks off day four of London 2012 torch relay from Taunton to Bristol
There was a more tranquil start to day four of the Olympic flame's circuitous tour of the UK as torchbearers, including the bob skeleton gold medallist Amy Williams, plodded through Somerset in glorious sunshine.
Following Monday's drama, when the flame briefly went out and bearers came in for criticism for auctioning off their torches, the London 2012 organising committee must have been pleased at the respite.
Williams said carrying the torch – through Yeovil – was an "amazing feeling" and had made her "very proud to be British". She received huge cheers from the crowd as she walked past, waving and smiling broadly.
The athlete announced her retirement from her sporting discipline earlier this month, bringing an end to a career that culminated in a gold medal at the Vancouver Winter Olympics in 2010. She was Great Britain's first individual female gold medallist at a winter games for 58 years.
Hundreds of people from Taunton, Glastonbury, Bath, Bristol and across Wiltshire turned out to watch dozens of less celebrated individuals have their moment in the spotlight.
Ninety-one-year-old Doris Whiting, who was to carry the flame through Shepton Mallet, was one of the oldest of the 8,000 people taking part in the relay. She was nominated for her 30 years of community work.
Carrying the torch in Frome was Sergeant Gavin Harvey, 31, a soldier who lost both legs while serving in Afghanistan in 2009.
Richard Harrison, who became a marathon runner after losing 14 stone in 18 months, was taking his turn in Bath. "I've completely turned my life around. I'm healthy, active and happy. I'm so excited about the future," he said.
The organising committee will hope there is no repeat of the burner "malfunction" when the flame went out in Devon on day three. It was quickly relit from the "mother flame" that is carried around as part of the relay convoy.
But the issue of bearers selling off their torches via eBay rumbled on as it emerged that a £150,000 bid for Sarah Milner Simonds's torch could be a hoax.
Milner Simonds, who was planning to give the proceeds to charity, said the winning bidder had not yet been in touch and she feared it could have been a cruel joke. "The buyer seems to have disappeared," she said.
England win first cricket Test; Sharapova and Nadal prevail in Rome tennis; Colsaerts takes World Match Play golf cheque
After nine years, $1.6bn, seven managers and countless nights spent frowning in his executive box, Roman Abramovich's grand Euro-dream was realised as Chelsea beat Bayern Munich to win the Champions' League. Didier Drogba's late equaliser dragged the match into extra-time, before Petr Cech saved two Bayern penalties in the shoot-out. Chelsea pocketed $80m, small change compared with English Championship playoff winners West Ham, who beat Blackpool to take a Premier League place worth $142m.
England cook up victory
Just as the stage looked set for a classic England batting collapse, Alistair Cook and Ian Bell eased them to a five-wicket victory over West Indies in the first cricket Test at Lord's. For a while England's much-trumpeted world No 1 ranking looked precarious as West Indies, supposedly a rabble, provided heartening resistance. The unyielding Shiv Chanderpaul batted for 625 minutes, defying the dank, chilly weather and an 11-wicket haul for Stuart Broad. Elsewhere, ex-Australia international Adam Gilchrist played his final match after five years spent mostly in the venerable pantomime of the Indian Premier League. Gilchrist announced his retirement after Kings XI Punjab's exit from the interminable play-offs, a soft-pedalled goodbye from a boisterously talented all-time great.
Sharapova wheezes back
The most daintily styled raging bull in recent tennis memory, Maria Sharapova continued to heave and wheeze her way towards a renewed mid-career ascendancy. In Rome Sharapova beat Li Na in the Italian Open final, her 26th career title. "It was a crazy match. There really is no loser," Sharapova gushed, incorrectly. In the men's tournament Rafael Nadal prevailed 7-5, 6-4 over Novak Djokovic, reclaiming the world No 2 ranking in the bargain.
Colsaerts cashes in
Europe may be in the throes of collapse, but golf will always be there. Belgian Nicolas Colsaerts beat Graeme McDowell in the final of the World Match Play in AndalucÃa to take the $900,000 prize (Note to Nicolas: bank it now, but maybe get over the border first). Earlier in the week an airport mix-up saw Brandt Snedeker beat Thomas Bjorn in the first round playing with a set of borrowed clubs, including a putter bought for $130 from the club shop.
While Stuart Broad was lighting up Lord's on Sunday, England's one-time top bowler was sitting in the shadows at The Oval
While England were hacksawing their way through some steely West Indies resistance on the Sunday of the Lord's Test, the Spin was across London at The Oval watching Surrey play Durham in the CB40 competition. In fact when news filtered through of Stuart Broad's career-best 11 for 165, the Spin was actually out under the lights on the hallowed Oval turf playing impromptu plastic-ball cricket with a group of small boys during the break between innings. It is a lovely thing that you're still allowed to do this at many grounds, albeit at The Oval there was something alarming about watching a bunch of seven-year-olds swishing away in the midst of the Surrey bowlers' warm-ups, which in the case of the bicep-rippling Stuart Meaker seems to involve hurling a medicine ball into the skies over his shoulder like an ancient Greek warrior ripping the head off a Cyclops.
Away from the frolics, though, a lone figure could be seen lurking, hands in tracksuit pockets, stretching a hamstring, loitering with an air of eminent exile. That rolling walk. The height. The rueful diffidence.
It's ... Actually it took a while to register that it was Steve Harmison.
Grievous Bodily Harmison! England's white West Indian, one-time No1 ranked bowler in the world, and a man who for a period of about eight months in 2003-04 reached peaks of superlative accurate hostility unwitnessed in an England bowler ... well, for quite some time anyway. For a moment, watching Harmison stalk the fringes, the Spin imagined one of its youthful charges stopping and asking: "Who's that old-timer over there?" At which point the Spin, in rueful close-up, would sigh. "Him? Why ... He's ... He's nobody son", before rather sadly going back to being repeatedly leg before to a succession of searing junior yorkers.
Until today's County Championship match against Somerset, Harmison had yet to play for Durham this year. He has been steadily regaining his pace and rhythm - it is now Durham not England who must worry about when Harmy is going to "click" - in the second XI. But for an ankle injury in pre-season he might even have already been playing regularly, although this is far from certain. Late-period Harmison has been a stuttering affair. The last time the Spin saw him in the flesh was at the wretched Titans of Cricket extravaganza at the O2 last year. Harmison sat on a sofa for three hours, eventually bowling a single delivery right at the end. No one seemed to mind.
There was, though, something salutary about this glimpse of England's most distinctive new-ball spearhead of the last decade; coming as it did just as Broad - seven years younger, the same height, the same build - took the bowling honours at Lord's. It would be standard practice here to formulate a comparison between bowlers and indeed attacks. The 2005 pace quartet of Harmison-Hoggard-Flintoff-Jones was rightly lionised, as is the current three-man-plus-back-up.
The more meaningful comparison, though, is not one of quality, but of texture and tone. There is a divergence of personality here that tells us much more about the way this current team is put together, and also about Broad himself, who is now English cricket's most rapidly-improving player, a cricketer reaching up before our eyes towards the ceiling of his considerable talent.
If comparisons must be made, Jimmy Anderson would presumably be the Matthew Hoggard, albeit he is a more varied bowler now. Tim Bresnan would be Simon Jones, the reverse-swing beefcake. But who would Broad be? For a while he did seem to be trying to recreate some of Harmison's missing menace, notably during the ill-fated Enforcer period, albeit this was more short-lived than is often suggested. Broad has also at times been Andrew Flintoff-esque, showing steadiness without penetration, a go-to miser with bounce and height and stamina.
Right now he's a bit of both: able to bowl long accurate spells but also penetrative (Broad has five five-wicket hauls in 46 Tests to Flintoff's three in 79). More than that he is a key peg in what is a strangulating, suffocating attack. Where the 2005 bunch were more obviously hostile (Harmison's opening spell to Justin Langer at Lord's was notably brutal) and perhaps more likely to provide something briefly explosive from their mixed bag of tricks, this lot are sharp and shrewd and unrelenting and essentially carved in the same flinty style as their head coach, Andy Flower. And if Broad is any kind of Harmison, it is simply that in between his steadiness he seems best equipped to provide explosive wicket-taking spells, those moments where his length rather than his brain "clicks" and an opposition can be scattered.
He is also statistically a better bowler as each series passes. Current debates about who is the best in the world tend to circle around Dale Steyn (who is the best) and Anderson. Maybe by the end of the summer it will be Broad's turn. Just look at those figures! In the year since his return, looking a little lost after injury against Sri Lanka last summer, he has taken 59 wickets at 21.54 in Tests, while remaining a very good bowler in one-day cricket and a Twenty20 marvel. Plus what he seems to do well is very simple and therefore repeatable, not beholden to conditions or the caprices of the "click". A full accurate length, bounce, seam-nibble, occasional late swing: these are portable virtues.
It is only really injuries that seem likely to derail a career that should see him take more Test wickets than any of the short-lived Fab Four and more even than Anderson who leads the way among England's post-Botham bowlers. That and any suggestion of trying to do or be too much. Simplicity has been the key for Broad, just as Harmison's own complexity - the rather overplayed moments of big-stage implosion, the slow retreat from that brief untouchable period, into a chugging sputtering thoroughbred - came to define his own career. This current England attack may end up more effective than the 2005 breed. But the Harmy bunch were perhaps a bit more zany, a bit more fun in their relative unevenness, the dizzy surprise of those glorious peaks.
This is an extract from the Spin, the Guardian's free weekly cricket email. To sign up, click here.
• Hip complaint forces Leamy to call time on rugby career • Back-row player thanks colleagues from Munster and Ireland
Denis Leamy has become the third Munster player this season to announce an early retirement due to injury.
The 30-year-old Ireland international, capped 57 times, was plagued by a hip complaint, which has limited him to playing just three RaboDirect Pro12 games and Munster's four opening games in the Heineken Cup following his return from the World Cup.
He had signed a two-year contract extension in February but now joins the experienced duo Jerry Flannery and David Wallace in calling an early end to his career in this campaign.
Leamy made the first of his 144 Munster appearances in September 2001 and went on to represent the province in both the 2006 and 2008 Heineken Cup finals while he also had an illustrious international career for Ireland. A member of the 2009 grand slam-winning side, he was also twice winner of the triple crown and played in two World Cup tournaments.
He said: "I find it hard to put into words how much it has meant to me to play for Munster and Ireland. It was a dream come true and I was very lucky to play with some of the greatest players ever to wear the jerseys and feel blessed that I was part of winning teams.
"I've had a great career, wish it had gone on a little longer but I'd like to thank all the coaches, players, medical staff and management who have helped me over the past decade.
"It's been a great honour to be involved with such an outstanding group of people.
"I'd also like to thank the fans most sincerely. I fully appreciate the sacrifices they've made, spending their hard‑earned cash to cheer us on, be it Munster or Ireland, at home games and all over Europe. Their support has been truly fantastic and a memory I'll carry forever."
The Munster chief executive, Garrett Fitzgerald, said: "We are obviously very disappointed that Denis has been forced to call it a day particularly when he is in the prime of his career.
"An outstanding back-row player throughout his career, I believe his contribution to Munster and Irish rugby has been inestimable.
"His fierce determination on the field was mirrored by his work ethic off it and he leaves Munster rugby with our gratitude and best wishes for the future."
With no festival to organise this year, Emily Eavis joins the crowds as the Olympic flame passes through Wells
The sun's out and all the children have the morning off school. Parking is free and there's great excitement in the air. It's almost as if the Glastonbury festival circus has rolled into Somerset a year ahead of time (2012 is a "year off" for us – although we are already very busy planning new things for our return next summer).
From the earliest days of my childhood, the festival has had much the same rhythm. First, all the stress of the licence and the booking, pretty much from the end of the event right through the autumn and winter. Then it gets a bit warmer and the first workers begin to move on to the farm, all the familiar faces. After that it gets quite a lot warmer and everyone starts arriving …
But this time, instead of packed cars and trains streaming into Glastonbury and Castle Cary for a week-long revel, Glastonbury and nearby Wells are all-too-brief hosts to the Olympic flame on the fourth day of the marathon torch relay.
I do like the way festival culture has added something to these big, very British, public celebrations (some of our top creative talents at the festival are working on great shows in London for the Olympics and the Paralympics). There is a bit of rebellion and humour in the air to line up against all the sponsorship and branding. And thousands of young kids screaming at anyone coming past – police, ambulance, stewards …
We worked out a long time ago that we would benefit from natural breaks in our festival schedule; fallow years where we have the time and the energy to move the festival up a gear. And we also decided a long time ago to leave the path clear for the Olympics this summer.
The building excitement is all-too evident on my doorstep in Wells. I can see yellow roadblock signs, while police vans and ambulances are discreetly parked in side streets. Outside broadcast vans are filling the waiting time in our sunny market place by blasting out dedications, traffic updates and requests.
The rolling convoy has also gone Royal – a patriotic overlay to the sponsors' signs. Bunting for next week's Diamond Jubilee is already in place, while every outrider seems to be equipped with some kind of clip-on union flag. This is as much of a set dress for the old cathedral city as there was for the filming of Hot Fuzz, directed by one of Wells's former Blue School pupils, Edgar Wright. Another day, another bit of history.
The birthplace of more than one great Olympian, Wells has a permanent marker plaque in the market square to remind everyone of the first: Mary (Bignal) Rand, whose triple medal winning feat at the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo, included gold for a world record breaking 6.76-metre long jump. A year later, at Buckingham Palace to receive her MBE, Mary was nominated by Mick Jagger in one newspaper as the woman he would most like to date.
In the time it takes my son to toddle the full 22ft 2.1in of Mary's trailblazing jump marked out in the square, the torch and its cavalcade has passed down Sadler Street and on down the High Street, bound for the open countryside.
Mary will finally be back in Wells in July to receive the freedom of the city, alongside fellow Olympic gold medallist from 1976, the modern pentathlete Danny Nightingale. The children, meanwhile, are all safely back in school by noon for lunch.
Team Sky's Michael Barry talks us through the final climb on stage 17 of the Giro d'Italia as well as the ensuing descent, where riders will reach speeds of up 130kph
European championships in Montpelier will show how far men's team has progressed since the Beijing Olympics
Four years ago few would have tipped British men's gymnastics to be among the best in the world and pushing for medals at the London Olympics. As little as two years ago Britain's men had never qualified for the team final at the European championships.
How things have changed. the men's European championships begin in Montpellier and even without Daniel Keatings, the injured world all-around silver medallist and European pommels champion, Great Britain is expected to impress. Five senior gymnasts will be hoping to make their mark on the competition that forms an important staging post on the journey to the Olympic Games. Germany and Russia are the favourites to take the team title, but after Great Britain's silver medal finish in 2010 the nation now expect to be in the running for a podium place.
What has been the transformative factor in their success? Team dynamics, says Louis Smith, who captained the team to Olympic qualification at the test event held in London this year. "We cry and bleed together, which is what you need in terms of a team," says Smith. "Well, some people cry – but pretty much all of us bleeds."
Smith, the first individual British gymnast to win an Olympic medal in 80 years when he took bronze on the pommel horse in Beijing, has witnessed the change over the past four years. In Beijing, the 23-year-old admits, the competition was a lonely experience with just two British men qualifying for the individual finals. "Even before that we'd go to a Europeans [as a team] and we knew we were going to come 10th, and we knew we weren't going to make any finals apart from me on pommels, so it was nerve-racking knowing a lot of it depended on me. Now it's very different. We've got everyone making finals and everyone doing very well. It's very positive, we're all taking steps in the right direction."
"The belief is there that we can do well. We now know that we're contestants on a world stage at the top level, with that belief everyone's improving and because everyone's improving it's harder to get into the team, the standard is so high now. It's made life a lot more difficult for people trying to qualify and get into the team but that's good. We want to have a selection of 10 guys instead of four."
There are at least seven world-class Britons in a squad of 12 competing for five places in the men's team, announced on 4 July, at the Olympics. One of those set to make a name for himself in London is 21-year-old Daniel Purvis who took bronze on the floor at the world championships in 2010. He was ranked No1 in the world last year after a series of impressive World Cup performances and finished fourth in the world championships last October.
"The main priority at the Europeans is the team," said Purvis. "We came second in Birmingham in 2010 so if we can do the same again or even get the gold that would be awesome. Individually it will be about apparatus finals – if I can make the floor and P-bar finals that would be great.
"This is the last big competition ahead of the Olympics so if we can do well it might help put the idea in the judges' minds where we could be placed. It is important."
"In terms of what it means for the Olympics, everyone's fighting for a place on the team. The Europeans are going to be a good benchmark to see who's in the team. There's a bit of pressure for everyone."
• Drinkhall is joined by Liam Pitchford and Andrew Baggaley • Joanna Parker, Kelly Sibley and Na Liu make up women's team
Paul Drinkhall heads a group of six athletes selected by the British Olympic Association to represent Team GB in the London 2012 table tennis competition.
The Middlesbrough-born 22-year-old recently broke into the world's top 100 having enjoyed success at junior level, including three European junior titles and a silver medal at the World Junior Championships.
Drinkhall is joined by the 18-year-old Liam Pitchford, who won two medals at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi. Pitchford demonstrated his potential at the European Championships, where he beat four players ranked in the world top 100 including the world No9 Vladimir Samsonov and No20 Alexey Smirnov.
The men's squad is completed by the experienced Andrew Baggaley, 29, who has won five Commonwealth Games medals and is a three-times English singles national champion.
Drinkhall said: "It's a great achievement to be selected for Team GB. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to play in a home Games. I can only guess how it will feel, but it's a fantastic opportunity."
The women's team includes the English national champion Joanna Parker, 25. Joining her is Kelly Sibley, who celebrated her 24th birthday on Monday.
Sibley is also a national champion and won 10 matches in a row at the 2011 European Championships in Poland to help the women's team to promotion to the top tier. The team is completed by Na Liu, 29, who is a regular competitor on the ITTF Pro Tour.
The Team GB chef de mission Andy Hunt said: "Both the male and female teams include a good balance of youth and experience. The likes of Paul Drinkhall and Liam Pitchford have demonstrated great potential at junior level, which bodes well for the future of British table tennis."
• Nsekera is president of the Burundi Football Association • Appointment to be finalised at Fifa congress on Friday
Fifa has appointed a first female member of its executive committee.
Lydia Nsekera, president of the Burundi Football Association, has been co-opted on to the executive committee of the world game's governing body and will be formally installed at the Fifa congress in Budapest on Friday.
Nsekera is a member of several Fifa committees – for women's football, the women's World Cup and the organising committee for the Olympic football tournaments.
The executive committee has also proposed the Swiss industrialist Domenico Scala to chair a new audit committee. The 208-member countries must finalise the appointments at the congress on Friday.
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