Will this be a British year in France?

With all eyes on London for the 2012 Olympics, British sports fans could be forgiven for thinking that they should look no further than their own shores for the chance to cheer on British sporting success this summer. However, just before the Olympics gets underway there is the small matter of Cyclings greatest priza; the Tour de France.

It is only very recently that this was even of interest in Britain. Usually cycling was reserved for continental Europe, however Greg leMonde & Lance Armstrong made sure that American's took note of 'le Tour', and last year Cadel Evans became the 1st Australian to wear the Yellow Jersey into Paris. However in the last few years British success on the track has finally transferred to success on the roads.

Now I don't claim to be the biggest cycling expert, but it seems Britain are slightly handicapped even before the Tour gets underway. The reason is that the two best hopes for success, Mark Cavendish and Bradley Wiggins, are in the same team - Sky.

While Mark Cavendish will look to collect sprint points for the Green Jersery, Wiggins is interested in the main prize of winning the General Classification - i.e. quickest man round the whole 3,469.9 km route. Cavendish will be defending his Green Jersey from last year while Wiggins best result was a 4th place finish in 2009.

So they are going for the different prizes, why should them being in the same team be such a hindrance? Well this is simply down to how competitive and gruelling the average Tour de France is.

Sprinters win points on flat stages. Usually there is a breakaway during the stage and the main sprinters team will all push up the pace to catch the breakaway - allowing their man to go for glory in the bunch sprint. Cavendish is such a ruthless sprinter that most other teams don't even bother to help reel in the breakaway as they feel it is not worth the energy given that, barring a crash, Cavendish will win any sprints. This means Team Sky will have to expend quite a bit of energy putting Cav in position to win stages and points towards the Green jersey.

As far as Wiggins in the GC goes. A GC rider will need a good time trial to put themselves in position, then make sure no one takes any time out of them on any mountain stages - or that no other GC contenders get into a breakaway group to take time from the field. The main GC contender cannot expend any energy that he doesn't need to. i.e. for 99% of the time he is sitting in the pack behind a few of his buddy's and it's only on Time Trial stages or big mountain stages that he has to work for his money.

So will a team of 7 support riders and 2 main competitors manage to put Cav in position to win enough points for a Green jersey, while supporting Wiggins energy levels enough to give him a chance of the Yellow jersey?

My feeling is that if Wiggins gets into contention for the Yellow jersey, Cav's interests will be secondary and he and Bernie Eisel will be left to their own devices to scrap for what points they can. That still leaves 6 support riders for Wiggins. If Wiggins is good enough, there is a chance those guys can provide enough support - but it is still 2 fewer support riders than the other main contenders will have.

Whatever the case I'm sure Sky manager, Dave Brailsford, will have to field endless questions about how he is going to get two guys round in the same team without compromising either of their chances. The bottom line is that both Cav and Wiggins chances are compromised by being in the same team and the only way both of them can win is by being that much better than the rest of the field. Cav probably is, but only time will tell if Wiggins form can continue into July and he can become the 1st British Tour de France winner.

Royal Troon to host Open in 2016

Today, it was announced that Royal Troon will host the Open Championship in 2016. Not entirely unexpected, but nice to know the oldest professional golf tournament will be just a short hop down the Ayrshire coast in 4 years time.

The current schedule is as follows;
2012 - Royal Lytham and St Annes
2013 - Muirfield
2014 - Royal Liverpool
2015 - St Andrews
2016 - Royal Troon.

Other courses in the rota, with no Championships scheduled include; Royal St Georges (2011), Turnberry (2009), Birkdale (2008) and Carnoustie (2007). Year in bracket of last year it hosted Open.

This is not a terribly exciting blog, but just brining it up as I love links golf and am greatful that the RandA are so committed to hosting the Open on a Links course. The Open has always been hosted on such a course and it is written in the rules that this must be so.

Most Links venues are tucked away, miles from motorways or airports; they were designed 100 years ago and are not terribly long, or exactly suitable for 140 players, and 25,000 spectators to take part in a golf tournament. If it wasn't for the RandA being so committed to holding the Open at these venues - I'm sure there wouldn't be too much tournament golf played on the Links any more.

We now have the Scottish Open (held at Castle Stuart) and the Irish Open (held at Royal Portrush) as other big events held on Links courses in the summer months.. Also the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship is held over 3 courses in September each year (Carnoustie, Kings Barns and the Old Course). This is great for the traditions of the game.

Golf first started being played on the dry sandy grass between the beach and farming land - the links from the sea to the 'useful' land. This land could not be used for crops or animals and so the sport of golf developed as a past time on this 'spare land'. Lets be thankful that 340 years later - this is still the case.

Will this be the best Euro's Ever?

After 7 days of Euro 2012, I think most football fans would agree it has been pretty bloody excellent. Lots of goals, close games, and not a 0-0 in sight (the closest was a couple of 1-0's in the group of death (B)).

However, with the tournament set to extend from 16 to 24 teams for the next championships (France 2016) is this likely to be the last group stage with so many entertaining games.

As a Scotland fan, I am obviously excited as this should give us a very good opportunity to qualify for a major tournament for the 1st time since 1998. However obviously most of the additional 8 teams who get in will be relatively minor nations (such as Scotland, Estonia, Bulgaria etc) that when faced with the task of playing any of the top nations will look to put two sturdy centre half's with a couple of combative midfeilders in front of them and maybe have a pacy striker playing up front who can latch onto the odd long ball / clearance.

While I'm sure the fans of these countries will be happy to give this a go - it seems unlikely that there will be as many attractive matches in France as their has been in Poland / Ukraine.

That said - both Greece and Denmark have won European Championships (2004 & 1992 respectively) and neither of these sides are what you would call 'elite' nations who qualify for every tournament. Indeed, Denmark didn't officially qualify for the 1992 tournament in Sweden, and were only entered when a civil war broke out in Yugoslavia (who had qualified ahead of them). Therefore - we can say that it is possible for a smaller nation, who may not otherwise have qualified, to compete and even be a factor in the larger tournament format.

I do think the extention is a good thing for football in Europe. Scotland used to qualify for tournaments more often than not. Indeed they qualified for 6 out of 7 World Cup's from 1974 to 1998 (incl. 5 in a row, 74-90) as well as both European Championships in the 1990's. Now France 98 remains the last major tournament where a saltire was waved in anger and a generation of children have grown up, not knowing the feeling of running home from school on a sunny June afternoon to watch with a sense of over inflated optimism as Scotland miss out on the group stages on goal difference.

I am looking forward to June 2016 and hopefully seeing Scotland take part in a major tournament once again!