Sport

And then there were four. If Andy Murray’s accomplishments still make him the least of the great quartet ruling tennis in this golden age that’s about as useful a comment as remarking that Roberto Duran was outshone by Sugar Ray Leonard, Marvin Hagler and Tommy Hearns. It may be true but it doesn’t matter very much. There have been other great eras in tennis – Borg, McEnroe and Connors for one – but there’s never been a quartet quite like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, Novak Djokovic and, yes, Andy Murray. Consider this: eight men shared the ten Grand Slam tournaments preceding Roger Federer’s first Grand Slam victory (Wimbledon 2003). The

In one sense, I have some sympathy for Lance Armstrong. He has been hounded by the American anti-doping agency USADA who, like other federal agencies, are remorseless foes. Once they have their hooks in you they never let go. The usefulness of their investigations is another matter. Even so, Armstrong’s declaration that enough is enough and that he will no longer bother to defend himself against doping charges will doubtless be seen as a capitulation. Most people, I suspect, will take his silence as an admission of guilt. So it really wasn’t just about the bike, was it? Apparently not. The evidence against Armstrong may still – as far as

There’s a glass case in the hall of Number 10 at the moment which contains a large sports bag with two shiny Olympic medals poking out. This wasn’t left behind by a Team GB athlete: it’s actually an enormous, elaborate cake, complete with icing zips. Downing Street staffers are looking forward to eating this part of the Olympic legacy soon. A considerably less tasty leftover from the Games is the row over school sports provision. During the Olympics, I argued that the Prime Minister’s interventions on the matter were largely unhelpful, but as Fraser and Matthew d’Ancona have pointed out, schools selling off old tennis courts to pay for new

And then there was one.  Of the four princes who made India the world’s best side to watch in the first decade of the 21st century, only Sachin Tendulkar – the first and greatest of them – remains. Saurav Ganguly, the tiger of Bengal, was first to leave the arena. Rahul Dravid, the classicist, departed last year. Now Vangipurappu Venkata Sai Laxman, the most artistic member of India’s most formidable quartet, has announced his retirement from international cricket. As Cardus (who else?) wrote of Ranji, Laxman distributed his runs as largesse delivered in silk purses. If he could not claim Ranji’s aristocratic lineage, he was still, even in his own

If you’re a minister, or even the Prime Minister, and you take to the airwaves holding a page of figures aloft, it’s always a good idea to make sure the figures are actually correct before you enter the studio. When David Cameron read out a break down of playing field sales on LBC radio during the Olympics, he was trying to crush reports that under this government, schools are continuing to reduce their sports facilities in return for money. You can watch the film of Cameron with his sheet of paper here. The problem is that this sheet of paper wasn’t actually correct when it said there were only 21

Reader TT asks a good question: given your (self-appointed) role as the Spectator’s unofficial darts correspondent, why haven’t you written anything on the death of Sid Waddell? What can I say? Grief moves one in mysterious ways. Few people can claim to have created a sport, yet that was Waddell’s achievement and only nit-pickers and other churls would mock the fact that the sport Waddell created was darts. Before Sid there was nothing and the darts universe is his creation. As he might almost have put it, “God took six days to create his world, Phil Taylor needed just three hours to build his. And Taylor never rests on the

The Chinese have excelled at London 2012, much to the annoyance of their Western rivals. In this week’s issue of the Spectator, Ross Clark argues that the claims against swimmer Ye Shiwen reflect irrational suspicion of her country. Here is an edited version of Ross’s article (you can read the full version here): The story of London 2012 has been that of a country which was once an underachiever in the Olympics but which, through sheer hard work on the part of its athletes, has hauled itself to the top of the medals tables, producing in the process one of the most dramatic world records in Olympic history. I refer,

The genius of Mo Farah was only underscored by the plodding stupidity of Downing Street’s statements about the “All Must Have Prizes” culture this weekend. If this is the culture which produced Mo Farah then surely we should be celebrating it. But the truth is that it doesn’t exist and never has done. How does David Cameron think we managed to get 28 gold medals if not through the promotion of competitive sport in schools? Mo Farah attended an inner city comprehensive his talent was spotted and encouraged. What’s wrong with that? Considering the scale of the success of London 2012, it’s no surprise that there have been attempts from

David Cameron made a spirited defence of school sport this morning when he appeared on LBC radio. Waving a sheet of paper triumphantly, the Prime Minister argued that the 20 school playing field sales that Michael Gove had signed off were actually schools that had closed, surplus fields and ‘surplus marginal school land’. He also defended the decision to remove a compulsory target for all children to take part in two hours of sport a week: Well, look, we haven’t done that, you know, sport is part of the national curriculum and we want schools to deliver sport and I think that’s very important, but frankly, and we’re putting a

Back from holiday and it seems just about the only “controversy” at these splendid* Olympic Games lies in Danny Boyle’s exhuberant opening ceremony. According to its critics it was multi-cultural crap or pap or something. And, of course, in one sense it was a hymn to multi-cultural Britain. Why else would Boyle have begun with choirs in Northern Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England (spliced with rugby footage) if not to remind the audience (in London and further afield) that the United Kingdom is not quite the same thing as England. Of course, that’s not what the critics of multi-culturalism really mean when they sneer at “multi-culti” tripe and political correctness