Wow! I'm an old bugger now and can only reminisce about my own sporting prowess, such as it was, so these days I'm a fully fledged and totally committed armchair sports fan and yesterday was truly a day and a half! The World T20 Final, Leicester edging ever closer to the Premiership, Lewis Hamilton blowing yet another pole position, Peter Sagan doing a wheelie across the line in the RVV Tour of Flanders, Lizzie Armistead winning the women's race.......wow and double wow! I can tell you my ass was numb by the end of the day, but it was worth every little tingle!
Starting off with football, I'd been to the local bar on the Saturday evening for El Clasico (Barca - Real) which we all know was won by Real 2-1 with Ronaldo scoring the winner, but to be honest it wasn't a clasico this time. The end result was great for Zidane's new look Madrid and, of course, finally ended Barca's amazing 39 match unbeaten run (a club record - no surprise) on a day that was dedicated to one of the all time greats, the late Johaan Cruyff who sadly passed away last week. But sitting in a Valencia bar, after they'd just lost, again, against Las Palmas probably had something to do with the rather muted atmosphere for the match. Well, that, and the fact that Madrid won (if you're not a Madridista in Spain then you're an anti-Madridista) all contributed to a rather lack-lustre match for me.
In the PL wins for Man City, Chelsea and Arsenal would normally have pissed me off no end, but this year not so much, simply because they're all so far behind a scintillating Leicester side (who I think have the backing of most of the UK now) and so just don't stand a chance of winning the league, which is a huge bonus!! Come on the Foxes!! You can do it!!
But for real drama yesterday, one needed to look no further than the World T20 Final in Kolkata where poor old Ben Stokes got walloped all over the ground by a pumped up Carlos Braithwaite for an amazing climax to what has been an amazing tournament. And I must complement BBC radio for their excellent coverage on radio 5L which brought the atmosphere into my living room like never before.
And then onto Bahrain for the second Grand Prix of the season where once again Nico Rosberg dominated the whole weekend, his only blip being the loss of pole to Lewis Hamilton, but on a track made for overtaking the end result was hardly in doubt, and made all the more probable within 5 seconds of the start when Hamilton's second poor start in a row put paid to his chances before they'd reached turn 1, lap 1. Too much partying Lewis! Time to get your head out the bottle and back in the game I think!
And finally onto cycling where the awesomely talented Peter Sagan raced clear of the peleton in the final kilometres to win (I think) his first Ronde Van Vlaanderen in the Tour of Flanders and to continue what has already been a great season for the current World Road Race Champion. The women's race too was won by Britain's World Champ Lizzie Armistead who seems to be having an even better start to the season than Sagan. With all the big Tours yet to come this years cycling is shaping up to be yet another corker and I, for one, cannot wait for it all to kick off.
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