Brilliancy in Sport, Your favourite moments

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#243
The last Group One horserace of the season! 🙁

Racecard | 14:55 Vertem Futurity Trophy Stakes (Group 1) | Doncaster | Sky Sports Horse Racing

It's a Mile on heavy ground at Doncaster this Saturday. The last 3 winners of this one have gone on to win the 2000 Guineas next year. So we should care.

Hard to see past 7/4 Wembley for this one:

It's an Irish-trained 1-2-3 in a THRILLING renewal of the 2020 Darley Dewhurst Stakes - Racing TV - YouTube

Looked solid and contending.

WHAT A FINISH in the 2020 Goffs Vincent O'Brien National Stakes - Racing TV - YouTube

Amazing kick in that Curragh race to come from backmarker. St. Mark's Basilica, Thunder Moon and Wembley have just scrapped the 1-2-3 this year.
 
#245
Lewis Hamilton,

knows how to drive a car... now world record holder in Formula 1
 

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#246
The explanation of Wembley getting pulled is simple.

The ground was a bog:

Aidan O'Brien said it was a very easy decision to take hot favourite Wembley out of the Vertem Futurity Trophy as Ryan Moore came in after winning an earlier race at Doncaster on Lipizzaner and said it was the worst ground he had encountered all season.
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But I'm still kicking myself. The only horse that beat Wembley this year was Mac Swiney.

Jim Bolger times it right to land Group 1 with Derby contender Mac Swiney | Horse Racing News | Racing Post

Oh well, with just the jumps to entertain us during the winter, we await the 2000 Guineas.
 
#247
I am a bit heartbroken that Wichita had to be put down after fracturing a leg and not recovering. 😱

Wichita: 2,000 Guineas runner-up dies after training injury in Australia - BBC Sport

But a fantastic sporting documentary about winning The Derby.

Aidan O'Brien has won this race 8 times in the last 20 years. Some record, eh?

How to win the Derby - Racing TV visits Ballydoyle and Coolmore to find out - YouTube

An extraordinary moment at 24.50. "Australia" was a genetic freak. It had no fear. No fight or flight response. It just did its thing. 😎
 
#249
As my American advisor on a game I scarcely understand, but tell me the LA Dodgers aren't going to lose tomorrow to tie the World Series with the Rays at 3-3!

Whole thing is a fix. 😕

Guess it's anybody's game. But I have a sentimental attraction for the Dodgers.
 
#252
OK. The brooklXXX Los Angeles Dodgers won game 6 and the series, but some guy with a red beard got a "??" on yesterday's COVID test, they rushed today's sample, he was + and they yanked him off the field near the end of the game (7th inning). Which means teams, staff, family are on tenterhooks for the next 14 days, when they should be out getting drunk and trashing BrookXX L.A.

World Series: Justin Turner tests positive for coronavirus
L.A. Dodgers Win World Series, Justin Turner Pulled After Positive COVID Test
 
#253
How about anti-brilliance?

One of the things I like about women's tennis is how crazily the scores can shift in matches. (Men's tennis is more often a boring affair of the men having a string of tiebreaks — the matches determined by luck more than other factors.)

Sabalenka was trailing 0-6 0-4 in a tournament just completed and was nearly behind 0-6 0-5. Then, she decided to win 12 straight games (the equivalent of a 6-0 6-0 double bagel) to win the match.

So, that's both brilliance and the opposite — in one match.

The classic example is Shvedova, the only winner of a golden set in the open era. And, she nearly had two of them (falling short by just one point, and on her own serve):

Remarkably, the closest any woman had previously come to it had also been Shvedova, who won the first 23 points of her 2006 Memphis second round over Amy Frazier - before double faulting, losing that game and eventually match by a deeply strange 1-6, 6-0, 6-0 scoreline.
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Once in a while men's tennis is surprising but even when the matches are surprising (such as Soderling's defeat of Nadal in Paris) it's usually that someone was edged in 5 sets or something else much more mild. Or, when it's a blowout it's because the player was sick or injured. With women's tennis mentality tends to be more of a wildcard, with players like Sabalenka and Shvedova able to obliterate the opposition one minute or fail feebly the next. It makes for interesting sport (although the giant granny racquets and elimination of carpet and grass have reduced the overall interest level of the game).

One favorite moment is when Evert swept Navratilova 6-0 6-0 at Amelia Island. Navratilova didn't play poorly but Evert was playing at a ridiculous level on clay during her lengthy clay run. I liked watching Borg at his best play on clay for the same reason. They played with machine-like perfection.

Watching a very aged Navratilova finally beat Seles (indoors on carpet, using patience and guile) was fun. Of course, the usual excuses about colds come from Seles fans (just as they did when she finally beat Graf in 1991 at the US Open). She also played brilliantly against Garrison in her last Wimbledon finals victory.

It was neat to see 40-something Kimiko Date, who was in extremely good shape, beat players like Sharapova. It wasn't so nice to see a 19-year-old player cheat with very extended fake injury timeout followed by a very lengthy bathroom break, though. Martinez did a similar thing for the '94 final, the only major she managed to "win".

Worst moment in tennis has to be the stabbing of Seles in Germany.
 
#254
I am very surprised the LA Dodgers managed to pull this one home in 6 games. But a result. 😀

Everybody who knows the Dodgers knows the Dodgers had the best commentator on Sport ever, Vin Scully:

Michael Connelly’s 19th Bosch mystery, The Wrong Side of Goodbye, will be released on Nov. 1, and the author has chosen to dedicate it to a different sort of influence, though one of great importance to not only his life but those of his characters.

“To Vin Scully,” the dedication reads. “With many thanks.”
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Best tennis game I ever saw was Bjorn Borg vs. Vitas Gerulaitis. A mere semi-final at Wimbledon. The room was packed by the 8-6 end. Nobody could leave. We were gripped.

I watched Conchita Martinez's efforts in 1994. She was on fire that tournament. Never did it before, never did it again. In a three set final, I wouldn't call a toilet break cheating. 😀
 
#257
Many years ago, I think in Belgium, pouring down rain. Senna stayed out of slicks and was lapping 2 seconds faster than the field on rains.

Then there was the interview with Mario after he lost Indy to Sullivan. Talking about Danny's spin, " Well I took him too low on the inside and he fell for it" Yea, he lost, but the gleam in his eye of the master teaching the kid a lesson was priceless.
 
#258
If you are thinking of the extremely rainy race which is frequently described as Senna's finest where he took 2 seconds a lap out of Prost I just like to point out that in that race Stefan Bellof who had started dead last was taking 2 seconds plus out of Senna and finished 3rd when the race was abandoned due to conditions. Had it gone the distance Bellof would have taken Prost and probably Senna as well.

Sadly Bellof died in a sportscar in Spa the year after. His lap record of the Nürburg Ring stood for 35 years!
 
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