Junior Johnson not teaming with Jimmie Johnson any time soon

Posted on 10:58 AM No Comments Labels:

Ah, those tired old formula questions that journalists ask drivers. "How did it feel when you almost won the race?" is one of my favorites. Seems the retired drivers are not immune from this treatment; they just get different questions. For example: "If you were building a team right now, what current driver would you choose?"

Racing legend Junior Johnson, who won fifty races as a driver and six Championships as an owner, gets this kind of thing fairly regularly. In 2008, a reporter for ESPN asked him to choose between Jimmie Johnson, Kyle Busch, and Carl Edwards. Johnson had three championships, Carl had a great season and the cover of Men's Fitness, and Kyle had 8 Cup wins that season, and an attitude.

And the winner was... drumroll please... Kyle Busch. (Insert record-scratch sound effect here.) "I like his hell-bent driving style," Johnson was quoted as saying. "He's going to do what he needs to do. You've just got to polish him a little." (A little?)

Asked a similar question just a few days ago, Junior Johnson would choose ... Tony Stewart. Not four-time champion Jimmie Johnson. "I like Tony Stewart's kind of driving; and Jimmie Johnson's a great race driver, there's no question about it, but he's got one of the greatest mechanics I've ever seen come along, and I've had some great ones," Johnson said Sunday. (I hear his crew chief's nothing to sneeze at either.) But, Johnson continued, "I just think Tony, I would take Tony over the rest of them." ALL of them? Really? Wow.

Which leaves me wondering what kind of a quandary Junior would be in if he were asked to choose between, say, Kyle Busch and Brad Keselowski?

(source)
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Why does Apolo Anton Ohno yawn before his races?

Posted on 10:51 AM No Comments Labels:

VANCOUVER, British Columbia – Seconds before the biggest moment of his career, the excitement and adrenaline were finally too much for Apolo Anton Ohno. He couldn't hold it in any longer.

He yawned.

Television viewers were stunned by the American's apparently lackadaisical approach to the race, which would determine whether he would become the Winter Olympian with the most medals in U.S. history. (He did, with a bronze.)

British Open golf champion Stewart Cink even Tweeted that Ohno's action made him yawn, too, as he watched on TV.

Yet some sneaky investigation by Yahoo! Sports revealed there is madness behind Ohno's moribundity.

A friend of Ohno's – who asked not to be named because, er, "Apolo might not like it" – revealed that the yawning lets extra oxygen into his lungs in the seconds before bursting across the ice.

Or maybe he's just bored.
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History-maker Messi seeks first Club World Cup

Posted on 8:54 AM No Comments Labels: ,


ABU DHABI (AFP) - Barcelona will go into the FIFA Club World Cup as favourites to win the competition for the first time, but winger Lionel Messi says they must learn the lessons from their last involvement.

The Club World Cup is the only international honour missing from Barcelona's well-stocked trophy cabinet after their previous attempt to win it, in 2006, ended in a 1-0 defeat to Brazilian side Internacional.

"I think the most important lesson we've learned is not to be over-confident and to get to know our opponents in depth," said Messi, in an interview with the FIFA website on the eve of the December 9-19 tournament here.

"The last time we maybe thought that the other sides were a bit below us and that's something we can't afford to let happen again if we want to be champions."

Victory in the tournament would crown a remarkable year for current Spanish league leaders Barcelona, who last season won the Champions League, Spanish league and King's Cup to claim an unprecedented treble.

It has also been an unforgettable 12 months for Messi, who last week became the first Argentine player to be named European Footballer of the Year when he was awarded the prestigious Ballon d'Or by France Football magazine.

"It's one title the club has never won and it's one title that?s eluded most of the players at Barca," said Messi.

"It's also the last competition of what's been a historic 2009 and we want to end the year in style. On a personal level, I'm really looking forward to it because it will help me keep on developing."

Barcelona's strongest challenge is likely to come from Messi's homeland, with South American champions Estudiantes set to enter the competition at the semi-final stage alongside the Catalan club.

Estudiantes won the Intercontinental Cup, the precursor to the current competition, by beating Manchester United in 1968 and finished runners-up in the two years afterwards.

Their participation in Abu Dhabi marks a return to the event after a 39-year absence, but a strand of continuity running between the sides can be found in the shape of Estudiantes midfielder Juan Sebastian Veron, whose father Juan Ramon starred in the 1968 victory over United.

"It's an enriching experience for all of us, for the older players, who will be leading the way, and the younger ones, who'll be taking up the baton in the future," said Veron.

"You have to make them aware of what it means to be there, how fantastic it is. It's also important that nobody sits back and says 'I've made it now'. With a tournament like this you have to want to come back and experience it again."

The competition's other teams cannot boast players with reputations to match Messi or Veron, but all - with the exception of host club Al-Hahli - are continental champions.

South Korean side Pohang Steelers (Asia), Congolese outfit Tout Puissant Mazembe (Africa) and Mexico's Atlante (CONCACAF) will provide the biggest threat to the two heavyweights.

Auckland, who play Al-Hahli in the tournament's opening game on Wednesday, are the reigning champions from the Oceania region.

"We didn?t score a single goal in 2006 and that was a big disappointment for us," said Auckland captain Ivan Vicelich.

"We've prepared well this year though, and we're going to score a lot of goals. We've been talking about this match for weeks now and we need to go out and execute our gameplan."

The winners of the match between Al-Hahli and Auckland will join TP Mazembe, Atlante and Pohang Steelers in the quarter-finals, where a potential meeting with Pep Guardiola's Catalan conquerors Barcelona will be at stake.
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Panathinaikos fires coach over after league slip

Posted on 8:49 AM No Comments Labels: ,
ATHENS, Greece (AP)—Panathinaikos has fired Dutch coach Henk Ten Cate after the club lost its lead in Greek championship to rival Olympiakos.

In a statement Tuesday, the club named Nikos Nioplias as his replacement. Nioplias is currently the coach of Greece’s under-21 national team.

Olympiakos took the lead in the Greek title race after beating Panathinaikos 2-0 on Nov. 29. It leads the standings with 33 points from 13 games, one point ahead of Panathinaikos.

The 54-year-old Ten Cate, a former Chelsea assistant manager, took over in Athens last season but failed to break the dominance of Olympiakos which has won every league title but one since 1997.
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History of Golf & Golf Equipment

Posted on 8:42 AM No Comments Labels: ,
Golf originated during the 15th century.

Golf originated from a game played on the coast of Scotland during the 15th century. Golfers would hit a pebble instead of a ball around the sand dunes using a stick or club. After 1750, golf evolved into the sport as we recognize it today. In 1774, Edinburgh golfers wrote the first standardized rules for the game of golf.

Golf Balls
Golfers soon tired of hitting pebbles and tried other things. The earliest man-made golf balls included thin leather bags stuffed with feathers (they did not fly very far).

The gutta-percha ball was invented in 1848 by Reverend Adam Paterson. Made from the sap of the Gutta tree, this ball could be hit a maximum distance of 225 yards and was very similar to its modern counterpart.

In 1898, Coburn Haskell introduced the first one-piece rubber cored, when professionally hit these balls reached distances approaching 430 yards.

According to "The Dimpled Golf Ball" by Vincent Mallette during the early days of golf the balls were smooth. Players noticed that as balls became old and scarred, they traveled farther. After a while players would take new balls and intentionally pit them.

In 1905, golf ball manufacturer William Taylor was the first to add the dimple pattern using the Coburn Haskell ball. Golf balls had now taken on their modern form.

Golf Clubs
Golf clubs have evolved from wooden shaft clubs to today's sets of woods and irons with durability, weight distribution and graduation utility. The evolution of clubs went hand in hand with the evolution of golf balls that were able to withstand harder whacks.

Carrying & Caddies
During the 1880s, golf bags first came into use. "The beast of burden" is an old nickname for the caddie who carried golfers' equipment for them. The first powered golf car appeared around 1962 and was invented by Merlin L. Halvorson.

Golf Tees
The word "tee" as it relates to the game of golf originated as the name for the area where a golfer played. In 1889, the first documented portable golf tee was patented by Scottish golfers William Bloxsom and Arthur Douglas. This golf tee was made from rubber and had three vertical rubber prongs that held the ball in place. However, it lay on the ground and did not piece (or pegged) the ground like modern golf tees.

In 1892, a British patent was granted to Percy Ellis for his "Perfectum" tee that did piece (pegged) the ground. It was a rubber tee with a metal spike. The 1897 "Victor" tee was similar and included a cup-shaped top to better hold the golf ball. The Vicktor was patented by Scotsmen PM Matthews.

American patents for golf tees include: the first American patent issued to Scotsmen David Dalziel in 1895, the 1895 patent issued to American Prosper Senat, and the 1899 patent for an improved golf tee issued to George Grant.

In 1774, the first standardized rules of golf were written and used for the first golf championship, which was won by Doctor John Rattray on 2nd April 1744 in Edinburgh, Scotland.

1. You must tee your ball within one club's length of the hole.

2. Your tee must be on the ground.

3. You are not to change the ball which you strike off the tee.

4. You are not to remove stones, bones or any break club for the sake of playing your ball, except on the fair green, and that only within a club's length of your ball.

5. If your ball comes among water, or any watery filth, you are at liberty to take out your ball and bringing it behind the hazard and teeing it, you may play it with any club and allow your adversary a stroke for so getting out your ball.

6. If your balls be found anywhere touching one another you are to lift the first ball till you play the last.

7. At holeing you are to play your ball honestly for the hole, and not to play upon your adversary's ball, not lying in your way to the hole.

8. If you should lose your ball, by its being taken up, or any other way, you are to go back to the spot where you struck last and drop another ball and allow your adversary a stroke for the misfortune.

9. No man at holeing his ball is to be allowed to mark his way to the hold with his club or anything else.

10. If a ball be stopp'd by any person, horse or dog, or anything else, the ball so stopp'd must be played where it lyes.

11. If you draw your club in order to strike and proceed so far in the stroke as to be bringing down your club; if then your club shall break in any way, it is to be accounted a stroke.

12. He who whose ball lyes farthest from the hole is obliged to play first.

13. Neither trench, ditch or dyke made for the preservation of the links, nor the Scholar's Holes or the soldier's lines shall be accounted a hazard but the ball is to be taken out, teed and play'd with any iron club. Read More......
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