No drug pedalling
It’s not a great time to be a professional cyclist, but try telling that
to Geraint Thomas. “I don’t care what people say about this sport
being full of drugs,” he told RedHanded. “For me this is a dream
that’s about to come true.” The Cardiff-born racer is, of course,
talking about the Olympic Games in which he is hot favourite to win gold in
the team pursuit. Not that you’d know it. “Pretty much no one in
Britain knows who I am,” he says. It’s the kind of situation a
22-year-old, with a CV including last year’s Tour de France and two World
Championship titles, might resent. “Not at all,” he says. “Half
the interviews I do at home just ask about drugs. I’m happy to be anonymous,
get on with my training and win gold. I’d like it if everyone wasn’t
so suspicious - it’s not impossible to win gold and be clean at the same
time.” Unfortunately, it’s a message all too many participants
and spectators refuse to believe.
Pitch Perfect
It’s amazing that Google Earth has kept up with all the changes to the
Welsh sporting landscape over the last decade. Since the Millennium Stadium went
up in 1999, we’ve had Olympic-sized pools and football arenas built in
Swansea and Cardiff, a national velodrome in Newport and a Ryder Cup golf course
off the M4. Now, with the completion of the stunning SWALEC Stadium, even more
world-class sport is coming to the country.
With a capacity of 16,000 and state of the art facilities Glamorgan County Cricket
Club has a home to be proud of and recent results show real promise, only narrowly
missing out on a Twenty20 quarter-final slot thanks to bad weather. But the big
news is the imminent arrival of international cricket. SWALEC is slated to host
a One Day International between England (and Wales to be precise) and South Africa
on September 3, as well as, the first Test of the 2009 Ashes series next July.
After England’s convincing performance against New Zealand it promises
to be a great spectacle (especially if Simon Jones and Freddie Flintoff are back
in the team).
Tickets are still available for the South Africa game, but if you want to ensure
automatic entitlement to watch England slug it out with the Aussies for the Ashes
then your best bet is to join Glamorgan County Cricket Club as a member. Whatever
you plump for there’s nothing quite like the sound of leather on willow,
a warm pint of beer and the Barmy Army on a summer’s day.
www.glamorgancricket.com or call 0871 282 3400 for info.
New balls please! Richie McGowan serves up all the latest sports news