Melky Cabrera tests positive for stupidity

One of the dilemmas facing any serious professional athlete is "how should I respond when I inevitably test positive for performance-enhancing drugs?" Several tried and tested approaches are available to today's discerning cheats. We like to imagine them perusing a menu along the lines of Pulp Fiction's 50s diner.

First on the list is the depressingly unpopular 'David Millar': admit the offence straight away, accept the sanctions and become an unsanctimonious advocate for clean sport. Picture them rolling their eyes at his naïvety as they skip straight to the 'Carl Lewis': convince your country's feckless governing body that your three positive tests and those of your training partners should be ignored because they were all caused by over-the-counter cold medication, then profit from other cheats being properly punished (though this might be a little outdated now, as it famously didn't work for Alain Baxter in 2002). Those seeking a contemporary twist might therefore be tempted by the 'Alberto Contador' (or simply 'lo de siempre', as it's known among Spanish cyclists): blame contaminated meat and maintain your innocence while persuading your country's governing body to backdate the required ban to allow a quicker return to competition. Mature rich athletes seem to favour the quick and painless 'Manny Ramirez': simply run away (without paying) and retire to avoid any further sanctions. Recreational users, on the other hand, are rather partial to the flamboyant and fruitful 'Richard Gasquet': claim that you only ingested the drug by kissing someone at a party and get off scot free. Finally, there's always the 'Lance Armstrong' twelve-course bullshit banquet: allegedly manufacture a retrospective therapeutic use exemption after a first positive test, allegedly pay your sport's governing body to cover up a second positive test, slag off French cycling to discredit further positive tests from frozen samples, retire twice and switch sports, claim the anti-doping authorities are biased when most of your former teammates, coaches and doctors agree to testify against you, refuse to offer any defence in an 'unfair' forum and flounce off into the Texan sunset relying on credulous wristband cult acolytes to preserve a reputation built on lies while you try to pursue your laughable political ambitions. We imagine most self-respecting athletes would be put off by the health warning attached to that last option: it may prove difficult to swallow, and could take up to 13 years to fully digest.

Needless to say we thought we'd seen it all, but one cheat wasn't happy to follow the well-trodden path of his unscrupulous predecessors: he decided to order 'off menu', as it were. Step forward San Francisco Giants outfielder and forward-thinking doping pioneer Melky Cabrera. 

"Kids: drink milk, take drugs"

Cabrera was traded from the Kansas City Royals to the Giants over the winter. He'd played poorly for the Royals, but 'the Melkman' started to deliver with his new team and quickly established his position as the cream of their line-up. The improvement in his production was stunning - he compiled a ridiculous 51 hits in May alone, breaking Willie Mays' Giants record for that month which had stood for 54 years. Cabrera's batting average of .346 for the season still leads the Major Leagues today. This form saw him picked for the National League All-Star team in July and he won the All-Star Game MVP award by hitting the only home run that night.

On 15 August, to the surprise of absolutely no-one, Cabrera tested positive for an elevated level of testosterone. We're pretty devastated that creatine wasn't his drug of choice, as we'd love to have called him a creative creatine cretin. Even more incidentally, it's worth noting that he was only suspended for 50 games (or roughly two months of regular season baseball) by Major League Baseball under its ludicrously lenient rules, whereas the World Anti-Doping Agency best practice model recommends at least a two-year ban.

So what was Cabrera's response (via his agents) to his positive test? Did they confess his sins and meekly accept the proposed sanction?

No. They bought a website for $10,000 and redesigned it to look like it belonged to a fictitious supplier from whom Cabrera could claim to have bought a made-up supplement spiked with testosterone, so they could appeal his ban on the grounds that he had ingested the substance inadvertently.

While this might seem so stupid as to be a subconscious plea for more severe punishment, we can't help but applaud Team Cabrera's willingness to go the extra mile. Unfortunately, the entire ruse was scuppered within hours when MLB's investigators found that the site's hosting linked straight back to an employee of Cabrera's agents. That employee has since been banned by MLB, but no further sanctions have been levied against either Cabrera or his agents. It's almost as if the administrators were impressed by the scale of the scheme; as if they were handing out style points for artistic impression.

When it comes dodging a drugs ban and keeping yourself in the batter's box, it seems you might as well think outside the box. If nothing else, we salute Melky Cabrera for his ham-fisted accomplishments in light entertainment. A career in vaudeville awaits when his contract expires in November.

Paralympic heroes #5 and #6: Iliesa Delana and Łukasz Mamczarz

In Monday's F42 high jump final, Iliesa Delana and Łukasz Mamczarz cleared 1.74m to earn gold and bronze medals for Fiji and Poland. They each have one leg, and they each cleared the bar by hopping up and somersaulting over it. They won their medals competing against two-legged athletes with equivalent disabilities.

No textbook technique; no bouncy prosthetics. Fuck you Dick Fosbury, and the flop you flopped in on.

F42 is the most severe class of non-visual disability where the high jump is contested. The staggering world record of 1.96m belongs to Canadian legend Arnold Boldt, who also only has one leg and won high jump golds at five consecutive Paralympics (not to mention two more golds and a silver in the long jump). Click here to see Arnie somersault over 1.85m - all the more impressive because he managed to keep his glasses on!

The F42 high jump is absolutely captivating and puts its able-bodied equivalent in the shade - if you missed it, Channel 4's highlights are available here, and we've included some wobbly footage of Delana's winning jump at the bottom of this post. It's completely redefined our frame of reference to the point where we couldn't care less how high able-bodied athletes can jump any more: one-legged somersaulting is where it's at. So change the Olympic programme! Reset the records! Burn effigies of Javier Sotomayor's tibias! Perhaps that's going a touch far, but let's at least give these guys the acclaim and attention they so richly deserve.

Paralympic hero #4: David Wetherill

A British Class 6 table tennis player ranked fifth in the world underperformed and was knocked out in the second round at the Paralympics.

Nothing much to shout about there, you might think. So far, so British. And you'd be right, if David Wetherill hadn't managed to produce THE BEST SHOT EVER IN ANY RACQUET SPORT in the process of losing the decisive fourth game. If you think we're exaggerating, consider this: when was the last time you saw officials and opposing coaches applauding a player during a match? As one-hit wonders go, he's the Joe Dolce of ping pong; the Norman Greenbaum of wiff waff.

Much as we'd love to eulogise, we won't spoil the shot for you just in case you haven't already seen it. Once you've taken a moment to prepare your mind for a good old-fashioned boggling, click play below and get ready to catch your jaw when it drops.

Paralympic hero #3: Matt Stutzman

On paper, Matt Stutzman comes across as a dyed-in-the-flannel redneck. The official London 2012 website lists his hobbies as "cars", and by all accounts he loves nothing (or perhaps more accurately nothin') more than huntin', shootin' and fishin'. His personal website looks like a cry for help from a kidnapped designer circa 1999. He's from Iowa, for crying (cryin') out loud. It's fair to say we weren't expecting - or even expectin' - to be friends.

Then we saw him win a silver medal in compound archery by gripping a bow between his prehensile toes and aiming arrows with his mouth. You see, Matt Stutzman is a double arm amputee. And just like the swimmers we mentioned in our last post, he's competing against and beating rivals with arms, despite only having picked up a bow for the first time two years ago. So while he might be mostly armless, he's positively lethal to bullseyes and bunny rabbits. We just hope he isn't familiar with the plot of the Jonathan Creek pilot…

Sadly we couldn't find any footage of him in action at the Paralympics, but we do rather like the below interview conducted as part of Team USA's preparations for the Games. It starts a little slowly, but don't be deterred by his riveting tales of hole-punch debris and doorknobs - the slow-motion shots capturing his technique are spectacular. By the time he delivers his inspirational closing message, we're sure you'll want to join us in cheering him all the way to gold in Rio.

Paralympic heroes #1 and #2: Zheng Tao and Iaroslav Semenenko

We hate swimming backstroke. It seems unnecessarily awkward and splashy, you can't see where you're going and the timing is tricky.

We have four limbs. With apologies to ZZ Top, we just don't know how to use them.

Double arm amputees Zheng Tao and Iaroslav Semenenko finished first and fourth in the men's S6 100m backstroke final on Thursday evening, competing against swimmers with more limbs whose equivalent disabilities still allowed them to use a much more recognisable backstroke technique. Zheng also broke the world record.

It's well worth checking out the whole race below, despite Barcelona breaststroke bronze medallist Nick Gillingham's discordantly soporific commentary. Zheng is in lane 5, Semenenko in lane 3. Do keep a sympathetic eye on Semenenko as he battles bravely for bronze against a German swimmer whose arms give him a clear advantage at the finish line.

Just thinking about the incredible core strength and balance required to overcome their handicap in this event, not to mention the dedication and tenacity that brought them here, is pretty overwhelming. Zheng and Semenenko's achievements will stick with us as one of the enduring images of London 2012.

The Sporting Owl #7

The seventh podcast from The Sporting Owl is packed with a preponderance of Paralympics ponderings. After bidding a fond farewell to Andrew Strauss, Tom and Ria guide you through some of the exciting events and superstar athletes to watch out for at the BIGGEST PARALYMPICS EVER!

Paralympics sports for dummies, by dummies

We at Owl Towers are looking forward to the forthcoming Paralympics for a veritable plethora of reasons, but primarily because we'll get to feast our beady eyes on some sports we're less familiar with. For those as uneducated as we are, we thought we'd do the public service of providing you with a guide to Paralympics-only sports in ten words or fewer.

BOCCIA - like bowls, teams or individuals throw balls at a jack.

FOOTBALL (FIVE-A-SIDE) - visually-impaired teams in blindfolds try to score. Crowd silent.

FOOTBALL (SEVEN-A-SIDE) - players have cerebral palsy. Teams comprised of varying disability classifications.

GOALBALL - like handball, with visually-impaired teams in blindfolds. Crowd silent.

POWERLIFTING - competitors classified by weight, try to bench-press heaviest barbell.

SITTING VOLLEYBALL - body part between bum and shoulder touches court during shot.

WHEELCHAIR BASKETBALL - five-a-side, must throw/bounce ball after two pushes of wheelchair.

WHEELCHAIR FENCING - wheelchairs fastened to platform, competitors fence foil, sabre or epee.

WHEELCHAIR RUGBY - Murderball. Players must pass/score a try in ten seconds.

WHEELCHAIR TENNIS - Same as tennis, but ball can bounce twice, not once.

If you fancy a more in-depth guide detailing every sport in the Paralympics, check out the Guardian's very informative article here.  Once you've done that, you can make yourself sound like a true expert by boning up on the potential stars of the Games, making you an asset to any Opening Ceremony party.

Wiltshire town renames 200 residents 'Ed McKeever' to commemorate kayak gold

Bradford on Avon was once a Roman settlement and wealthy hotbed of wool production, but (perhaps due to school history funding cuts) is now best known as the home town of Britain's Olympic 200m kayak sprint gold medallist Ed McKeever. To celebrate his achievement, The Sporting Owl can exclusively reveal that the town has renamed 200 residents 'Ed McKeever' through a compulsory lottery.

As town councillor and tourism panjandrum Jonquil Bluffton-Herring explains, "We heard about Keshorn Walcott and his lighthouse over in Trinidad and we thought it pretty much kicked the shit out of Ed's obligatory gold postbox, if you'll pardon my English. But we don't have a lighthouse what with not being on the coast and all (though our canals are delightful and well worth a family visit), so we spent the last fortnight locked in our imposing 14th century tithe barn (open all year round; free entry for the under-8s and infirm) trying to come up with an alternative. We ruled out our historic Saxon church and grade I listed town bridge (fishing permits available at very reasonable rates) straight away because, well, let's face it, and with all due respect to Ed, kayaking in a straight line on a flat lake is barely a real sport and it's almost as boring to watch as he is to talk to. We thought a level crossing or disused quarry might be about right, but it turns out we named the last of those after local rugby flop Phil de Glanville in 2006. Anyway, having run out of landmarks, we decided that the best and coincidentally cheapest way to honour Ed would be to change 200 residents' names to Ed McKeever by deed poll - one for each metre he paddled."

Definitely not the Ed McKeever Bridge

Local historian Ed McKeever (formerly Xerxes Smith) agrees. "I'm sure I'm not just being characteristically pompous and presumptuous when I say on behalf of the entire town that we all feel very proud that Ed calls Bradford on Avon his home. To be perfectly honest this has saved my career by giving me something to write about - literally nothing has happened here since popular beat combo Jesus Jones formed in 1988. So if changing our names shows Ed just how much we care, then it's the very least we can do for our inspiring Olympic hero. And if any initial confusion results from more than 2% of the population now being called Ed McKeever, that's a small price to pay. Just ask lottery winners Ed and Ed McKeever and their delighted children Ed, Ed, Ed, Ed and Ed McKeever (though perhaps not their somewhat less ecstatic and rather confused sibling Jenny Williams)."

As the saying goes in Bradford on Avon, "under the fish and over the water" - perhaps a reference to the Great Troutstorm Rebellion of 1638, but almost certainly a very neat way to finish this report if we knew what it was supposed to mean.

The Sporting Owl #6

Episode 6 of the Sporting Owl takes place in the abyss between Olympics and Paralympics and features a searing riposte on Lance 'drugface' Armstrong, a review of the cake-based crazy golf extravaganza currently occupying the roof of Selfridges, and Ria's debut in the men's 110m hurdles. As you do, if you're a terribly unfit woman.

How I Accidentally Fell In Love With Road Cycling: a personal memoir by Kenny the Nuthatch

As a regular reader I’ve noticed the real dedication to cycling that the leaders at Owl Towers demonstrate, both in terms of track work and the longer road races. Until this summer I was a total sceptic when it came to road cycling, but having previously gone hopelessly crazy for velodrome experiences I knew I wasn’t immune to the appeal of wheels. The ongoing exploits of Victoria Pendleton (and now a large roster of pretty ladycyclists) can’t have undermined the popular appeal of the keirin and the omnium, either, to some parts of the crowd.

However, things like the Tour de France didn’t do much for me. It all just seemed like a lot of skinny men in coloured clothes riding a breathtakingly long way on a bike. But that was before I became trapped in the theatre, tactics and teamwork that characterises this kind of racing. Who were the domestiques? Why did the person who won the most stages not necessarily win the race? Why are there donkeys wearing polka dot jerseys in that field in Provence?

This year, by dint of nothing else being on television one Sunday when it was raining, I tuned into the Tour. I knew vaguely that some British cyclists were doing quite well, but given it was Stage 5 or something I assumed there would be time for someone Belgian to sneak up on the inside and nick it from our boys long before the end. Well, from that point on it was constantly on my mind. I learned that friends are everything in a cycle race, because they’re prepared to completely sacrifice their own races for your sake (voici les domestiques). I learned that looking like you’re winning doesn’t mean that you’re actually winning (tête de la course; poursuivants; groupe maillot jaune). I learned that tactics can change in the blink of an eye. And I learned that good conduct is generally rewarded, and that cheats rarely prosper. This was like test match cricket, Formula One and chess all moulded into one.

As the weeks of the Tour ticked by, my wife and I would genuinely rush home from work to watch the stage highlights. If we’d got wind of something, via Twitter or the BBC, that Vincenzo Nibali or Cadel Evans had experienced some sort of a problem, we rushed home even quicker to see how this affected the overall standings. We were wowed by Peter Sagan’s unlikely skills on the hills (sprint points and King of the Mountains points) and yelled for the Slovenian if it became clear that Mark Cavendish was too far back on a stage. I learned all about the personal history of American-but-Dutch-sounding Tejay van Garderen and was genuinely amazed by the emotion of Pierre Rolland and his team when Rolland won for France on Bastille Day. Suddenly, yet progressively, I finally understood why this daft spectacle was so brilliant. The colours, the cars, the fans, the enthusiasm, the speed, and all the time these scrawny chaps, legs pumping, eating energy gel and drinking isotonic pineapple juice, forcing themselves up yet another mountain, through yet another town. It was fantastic.

And then Bradley Wiggins won, drew the raffle numbers on the Champs-Elysées and it was all over. Until the Olympics, when I watched the men’s road race on someone else’s jerky iPhone footage inside the City of Coventry stadium and screamed Lizzie Armitstead home in the rain sat in my in-laws front room, all of us gathered to watch these incredible athletes. Surely this was it, until the Tour came round again next year?

No – another Sunday, and another poor TV night settles us in front of the team time trial at the Vuelta a Espana. A race I’d never heard of. And here we are once more, thrilling to some of the same chaps all over again and finding new pantomime villains to boo (I’m looking at you, Alberto Contador, and your ludicrously named Saxobank-Tinkoff Bank team). It gets under your skin, road racing, and even though there is no way on Earth I’m getting on a bicycle to follow in their tracks, I will fight to watch Froome, Roche, even Contador as they thrash their way through Spain. See you in the Pyrenees – I’m the one in the Lotto-Belisol shirt next to the small woman cheering Omega-Pharma-Quickstep for no clear reason.

The Gallery Of Beards

We love a good beard here at Owl Towers. A good beard says so much about the wearer - not least that their chin is prone to freezing and needs extra protection from the elements. Several top sportsmen (not to mention prominent religious figures) seem to agree.

With as much fanfare as we can possibly muster, we're delighted to present the first four entrants into The Sporting Owl's Gallery Of Beards. Why four? Well, we felt it was only appropriate to start with a barber's shop quartet of prominent pogonotrophs. Anyway, we're sure you'll agree that they (and their lustrous locks) richly deserve this highly prized accolade. 

South African cricketer Hashim Amla

Oklahoma City Thunder guard James Harden

Pittsburgh Steelers defensive end Brett Keisel

San Francisco Giants closer Brian Wilson

We very much hope that the Gallery Of Beards will one day stand alongside the Halls of Fame that form such an important part of American sporting culture. How anyone could continue to take sport seriously in the absence of an academy of excellence in facial topiary is beyond us.

We need your help to prune and cultivate the Gallery Of Beards. Have YOU seen an incredible sporting beard that deserves a wider audience? Are there any other athletes who have truly earned a place in the pantheon of hirsute wonder? Tell us Facebook or Twitter, or email us your nominations!

The BBC Olympics team: part 2 of our report cards

Yes, it's that time again - time to rate or slate another 10 members of the BBC's formidable team of London 2012 commentators, presenters and analysts. Time, in other words, to preserve the pretence that the Games never ended and protect our rapidly dwindling reserves of post-apocOlympic sanity.

You can still find our first 10 report cards here. If you feel we've made any glaring omissions or desperately want to defend your favourites, do let us know on Twitter or Facebook.

Huw Edwards - F (14%). Less gravit, more ass. Decided that awe-inspiring opening ceremony would best be experienced through filter of half-witted third-hand quarter-baked knobservations. Reading news better than Fiona Bruce about as impressive as competing at high jump without a bar. Contractual obligation to deploy authoritative Welshman should only be fulfilled by Bryn Terfel in future

Rishi Persad - F (11%). What is he for? The Guy Goma of sports broadcasting. Not waving but drowning. Seems desperate to crack his way into horsey fraternity; would be well advised to review their racist entry criteria more carefully, or at least arrange to have teeth surgically enlarged to boost his chances. Brings nothing to the party; just stands in the kitchen accidentally pissing people off by drinking their wine. Time to stage an awkward intervention and book him a one-way taxi to regional news

Hazel Irvine - C (58%). Tries painfully hard to be jovial, but does seem to give at least a scintilla of a shit. Easy to ignore as every word instantly disappears into a infinite void of irrelevance; like protozoa farting into a hurricane. Evening job as cartoon squirrel lookalike could only enhance credibility. Couldn't pick her out of a line-up; may have escaped punishment for countless crimes in Scotland

Hazel Irvine's Day Off: not coming to any cinemas, ever

Michael Johnson - A (97%). Comfortably the best analyst around. Calm, composed and insightful. Talks effortlessly about own incredible achievements without sounding smug or having to downplay them. Strangely squashed face but competence makes it easy to overlook his obvious resemblance to an animatronic allosaurus. Why he works on public sector rations rather than for deep-pocketed American broadcasters might just be the great mystery of the age

Manish Bhasin - E (28%). Proficient autocue reader and fluent in frothy insight-free sportspeak. Seems justifiably confused by career path; looks ready to run on being unmasked as knowledge vacuum. Labouring under misapprehension that varying tone can conceal absence of content. Spends most evenings sitting at home surrounded by fluorescent lights and stapling unwary moths to the walls of his beige bedsit. The Banish Bhasin campaign starts here and is far too neatly named to fail

Ian Thorpe - A (84%). Only docked points for being too good to be true. His failure to qualify enhanced rather than detracting from the Games. Baffling denial of sexuality only makes him more intriguing. Slightly disappointing to see him away from a desk, disproving compelling merman theory. A pleasure to experience Australia's unceremonious splashdown from pool predominance through his withering gaze

Denise Lewis - C (49%). Career based on beating a mediocre field at one competition doesn't come close to justifying unfettered superiority complex. Still, as heptathletes go, at least she's not world-renowned manipulative sulk Kelly Sotherton. Maniacal celebratory dancing certainly some compensation. Best remembered for trying and failing to get Mile End tube station renamed 'Mile End Park', so perhaps better employed as misleading advertising guru

Colin Jackson - D (33%). Great athlete, terrible broadcaster. The least he could do is chuck in the odd bit of dancing. All too easy to imagine him running out of fingers when called on to provide expert analysis of 400m hurdles stride patterns. Seems a thoroughly nice guy destined for slow death in light entertainment or unimaginative clairvoyance

Eddie Butler - D (43%). Did quite a good job of not ruining archery, though could not conceal desolation at absence of Brian Moore. Would prefer to be a slam poet judging by overwrought contributions to montagefest - confirmed by requirement for roll-necks and French cigarettes on now-legendary rider. Fervently believes that Welshmen evolved from dragons; tours principality lighting farts at well-attended functions to prove his point, and now spends most spare time lobbying Nobel committee for recognition

Steve Redgrave - E (23%). The more we see him out of a boat, the less we like him - should be cast adrift with crate of insulin and chocolate bars until he agrees to improve (reality TV gold). Unapologetically advocates cheating and fosters all-consuming irrational hatred for entire nation of Niger. Unconvincing mask of humility well and truly shattered. Predictably demanding and difficult off screen - refuses to sit down unless Matthew Pinsent stays directly behind him spritzing him with salty spittle

An owl's-eye view of the London 2012 men's marathon

In a desperate attempt to cling onto the last dying embers of the Olympic flame, Owl Towers despatched a correspondent to the men's marathon route on the final morning of the 2012 games. Firstly, a big 'hell yes' to the organisers for creating a course of three laps instead of one huge route, thereby enabling viewers to see the runners pass multiple times. We'd travelled a whopping 1.3 miles and spent a bankrupting £0 to catch a glimpse of this event, so we wanted to get our money's worth.

Motivated by a hatred of West London and a suspicion that that way huge crowds lay, coupled with chronic laziness (it was a Sleepday Sunday morning, after all) we aimed to watch the athletes pass at Bank, the 5/13/21 mile mark. Dear readers, this decision paid off bountifully, as we emerged from the Underground to bag a spot on the second row for the first lap, and progressed to the very front when those in front of us left following the passage of the final athlete on his initial circuit.

It was a hot August day; uncomfortable weather for owls and distance runners alike. Undoubtedly this took a greater toll on some athletes than others, as 20 of the 105 starters dropped out at various points throughout the race.

The day's heroes were two athletes in particular: the winner, a young man from Uganda called Stephen Kiprotich who beat two Kenyans into silver and bronze, claiming his country's only medal (and their first gold since 1972) and enabling them to finish joint 50th in the medal table, and the man who finished last, Tsepo Ramonene of Lesotho. He could have given up, but strove to finish despite finishing 10 minutes behind the bloke in front of him and 47 behind the winner. Let's just remember that he still completed a marathon in under three hours AND his personal best is nearly 40 minutes faster than he ran this particular race. This owl got tired just watching the athletes run.

On that note, here's a video of Tsepo approaching the finish line. He may not have won the marathon, but he definitely takes home The Sporting Owl's award for 'Admirable Completion of a Race When Everyone Else Had Gone Home'. Congrats, Tsepo. You've done Lesotho proud.

Our predictions for the new Premier League season

Having stared intently into our crystal ball for your edification, we posted our Premier League predictions on our Twitter feed yesterday afternoon. Just in case you missed them, here's a quick recap.

Arsenal - Arsene Wenger refuses to risk coming out of his meticulously-constructed pillow fort. Nelson Vivas replaces him

Aston Villa - players and fans unable to cope with blinking emergence from ennui cocoon. Rash of suicides hampers cup run. 9th

Chelsea - bench-warmers David Luiz and Frank Lampard develop intuitive bond and tour the world with their knife-throwing act

Everton - clerical error causes David Moyes to be sold to raise funds for Moyes to invest. Moyes buys himself back in January

Fulham - Clint Dempsey unmasked as gruesome serial killer terrorising well-to-do West London. FA suspends him for four games

Liverpool - Brendan Rodgers uses loophole to sell Andy Carroll into slavery between transfer windows. Hailed as masterstroke

Man City - Samir Nasri retires to concentrate on organic honey farming. No-one notices. Nasri: "I love bees. They speak to me"

Man Utd - misunderstanding with Asian marketing strategists sees players' feet bound and Rafael killed to save his brother

Newcastle - the club is nationalised. Consequent overemployment causes controversy as Alan Pardew uses 73 players in one match

Norwich - iconic scenes as Chris Hughton celebrates another "unlucky" sacking. "This is everything I could have hoped for"

QPR - Joey Barton's loan unleashes closet academics. Clint Hill publishes treatise advocating adherence to Hegelian dialectic

Reading - Pavel Pogrebnyak blames addiction to stamp collecting for loss of focus after relegation. "Philately got me nowhere"

Southampton - star Gaston Ramirez emigrates on finding that capybaras are not native to England. "I cannot live without them"

Spurs - hopes of European place dashed after Gareth Bale accidentally reports himself fit to play a qualifying match for Wales 

Stoke - questions asked as Ryan Shawcross eats Ashley Young. Tony Pulis: "It was an accident. He's not that kind of player"

Sunderland - Martin O'Neill improves attacking options by signing a statue of Emile Heskey and a beach ball. League Cup glory

Swansea - Michel Vorm loses focus after being installed as First Minister of Wales in a bloodless coup. Difficult 2nd season

West Brom - new manager Steve Clarke attributes mid-table finish to team spirit generated by vigorous homoerotic calisthenics

West Ham - Sam Allardyce's belief system rocked as world fails to end. "If the Mayans were wrong, maybe we should try passing"

Wigan - Dave Whelan unrepentant as Wigan survive by hiding mines and trapdoors in their pitch. "Home advantage is crucial"

Rocky rollers take the plunge

Jeremy Foley and co-driver Yuri Kouznetsov missed a turn during the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb, rolled their Mitsubishi about 10 times and lived to tell the tale.



More realistic than crash test dummies, and much better publicity. A viral marketing masterclass. Expect to see motor industry executives queuing up to push their products down mountains if Mitsubishi sales spike in Colorado.

Pool's gold: time for change in Olympic swimming

We know you'll find this hard to believe, but it turns out that owls aren't ideally designed for swimming. We're keen to dive in, but our feathers get all wet, the goggles never fit and we always find ourselves crowded by creepy crawlers and flashy splashy butterflies.

Nevertheless, we're huge fans of watching swimming from a safe distance, and an Olympic pool never fails to produce plenty of enjoyable action and memorable moments. But there's a problem, and we think it's become a pretty big one. The sheer number of similar swimming events makes it far easier for a world-beating swimmer to collect multiple Olympic medals than a world-beating athlete in any other sport.

To illustrate our point, we've cropped together the below table from London 2012 website data to show the most successful athletes at the Games listed by the number of medals they won.

As you can see, 29 athletes across all Olympic sports won three or more medals and almost two-thirds of these (19) were swimmers. With a personal haul of four, Russian gymnast Alina Mustafina was the only non-swimmer to win more than three medals. The five most successful athletes at the Games were all swimmers and won 26 medals between them, 14 of which were gold. This is not simply a case of one or two swimmers compiling legendary careers and sweeping all before them - there are dozens of multiple medallists in swimming. We couldn't find equivalent data for previous Games, but this certainly isn't a new phenomenon.

We aren't claiming that it's easy to win swimming medals. Nor are we trying to undermine the achievements of Phelps, Lochte, Franklin and Spitz. Those athletes are great Olympians and swimming is a very competitive and gruelling sport. However, it's important to put their medal collections into context, and we can safely say that any of those athletes would have won far fewer medals had they been equally dominant in any other sport.

To some extent, that's a situation which can't be changed - some sports such as sailing or rowing simply don't afford scope for any athlete to compete for more than one medal at each Olympics. And even if those sports are disregarded, swimming's governing bodies would maintain that there is no problem to fix, on the basis that their champions garner greater coverage, become bigger legends and give the sport a higher profile by breaking prominent records. We disagree for the same reason. The disproportionate bias in swimming's favour is not fair to athletes in other sports.

One option for redressing the balance would be to cut events from the swimming programme. This approach has been taken with other sports - we've mentioned before that the most prestigious events in track cycling have been cut from the Olympics. Swimming would argue that they already have fewer events at the Olympics than at their world championships, with (for example) 50m races in breaststroke, backstroke and butterfly being omitted - though again the same is true for other sports. For different reasons, we agree that cutting events would not be the best approach. Swimming is arguably the second most important Olympic sport behind athletics, both in terms of participation and revenue. Reducing its role might open the door for another modern sport to infiltrate the Games (such as the painfully incongruous BMX), and would represent a move away from the traditional ideals of the Olympics. And, dropping the analysis ball for a second, we enjoy watching it all far too much to start picking favourites. So there.

A better alternative might be to restrict the number of events in which any one swimmer can participate. This could be configured in several different ways - for example, a swimmer could be limited to any five events, or to four individual events and one relay. We think this would place swimming on an equal footing with other Olympic sports. As things stand, an exceptional athlete could only realistically win four medals on the track at one Olympics, but Michael Phelps has shown that an exceptional swimmer can win up to eight medals in the pool. Most multiple swimming medallists will have competed in two or perhaps even three relays where their contribution to a team's success is often minimal, so there's certainly a case for trying to skew participation towards individual events as part of the exercise.

Is any such change likely to happen? Well, no. Not even slightly. American sponsors control the purse strings of the IOC, and American swimmers rule the pool - four of those top five London 2012 athletes mentioned above are American swimmers. Either of the above options would seriously jeopardise America's position at the top of the medal table. So perhaps it's more accurate to say that we're probably stuck with the status quo until either (a) other countries become better than America at swimming, or (b) companies from other countries contribute more to funding the Olympics. Despite these obstacles, we very much hope that athletes from other sports will be able to compete on a level playing field with their wetter teammates sooner rather than later.

Countdown to Rio: your cure for post-Olympics depression

If like us you're struggling to come to terms with the untimely demise of London 2012, you might consider expensive grief counselling.  Or there's always retail therapy, if you're desperate enough to pay SIX POUNDS for a commemorative pin badge.

On the other hand, you could just bookmark our handy countdown clock and keep checking back for the next four years...

The Sporting Owl #5

With Ria away, Tom had to step into the breach and fill thirty-plus minutes with sub-par Olympic waffling.  Did he manage without bursting into floods of tears?  Well, you be the judge (but a very nice fluffy judge who won't tell us if it was borderline unlistenable).

As well as the usual news round-up and a necessarily one-sided game, this episode features reports on our trips to the boxing quarterfinals and a gloriously masochistic eight-hour "morning" session at the Olympic Stadium.

The BBC Olympics team: part 1 of our report cards

It might just be painfully obvious that we've loved every minute of the Olympics, and that's due in no small part to the superb coverage provided by the BBC. Special praise must be reserved for the hundreds of thousands of staff in their world-beating montage department, who've accumulated more exposure to saccharine schmaltz and Eddie Butler than can possibly be safe. All in the name of making people cry with laser-like precision. They have our undying gratitude. Not that we're undead, but… you know. It's a phrase. No-one likes a zombie owl: we get that now, and we've fired those marketing consultants.

Anyway, all things considered, they've done a fabulous job. But our screens and ears (and for the purposes of the rest of this sentence, our figurative fruit bowls) have still been infested with a veritable Tesco Value multipack of bad apples. For every Clare Balding, there's been a Trevor Nelson. Without further ado, here's the first instalment of our report cards on the presenters and commentators we've been subjected to over the past few weeks.

John Inverdale - F (8%). Competent at talking, but what does that achieve when each successive word annoys the bejeezus out of everyone? Smug beyond measure or reason; the personification of a smirk. Does not react appropriately in presence of greatness. Career makes strong case that BBC hiring criteria may begin and end at looking under nearest stone. Mentions own dead-end amateur rugby career far too often. Rarely presents behind a desk these days, perhaps due to discovery of his fondness for touching himself. Adopts editorial line of not giving a flying fuck about achievements of foreigners - nothing has happened until it happens to a Brit. Owns several pith helmets and might have missed vocation as well-funded but ultimately unsuccessful 18th century explorer.

Gary Lineker - F (12%). Cannot pronounce words with mouth. In English, at least - success with other languages as yet untested. Guttural utterances betray fundamental inability to understand sport or people. Based on apparent lack of interest or research, motive for branching out beyond football may be to defile Russian gymnasts. Reads scripted puns like a man trying to unlock a door with a watermelon: he'll get there, but only by throwing it through the window and leaving someone else to clean up the glass. Might be better suited to a role requiring him to deal only with potato-based snacks or inappropriate bowel movements.

Sue Barker - E (27%). Wimbledon yes, Jubilee yes. Anything with an audience beyond landed gentry with life-threatening brain injuries, not so much. Looks and dresses suspiciously like a pekinese - her fake human name should have been better disguised. Upgraded by one mark due to GoCompare mercy killing, though despite having a one-word script she even managed to make that boring. A Question Of Sport akin to being smothered inefficiently with a soiled knock-off cashmere blanket.

Matt Baker - D (43%). Jack-off of all trades now turning his hand to churning out vague gymnastics commentary while usurped experts scrabble around mopping up his slimy trails of bullshit. Smooth like a GI Joe; probably lacks genitalia but no realistic danger of anyone ever trying to find out. Maintains the pretence of having a family by hiring actors and mentioning them too much. Career progressing as if he's been nailed to an unmanned galleon heading inexorably toward wrecking on the rocks of the Antiques Roadshow.

Gabby Logan - E (19%). Failed gymnast and dancer on fast-track to completing career hat-trick. Presents like a golem - shuts down as soon as one unscripted word is called for and always slightly too late in trying to cover with inane laughter. Two unattractive personalities fighting over controls of a nosediving spaceship and rattling around like scared woodlice in an empty bucket. At least the live broadcast experiment seems to be over. Spinning incompetence as light-heartedness might not work forever.

Clare Balding - A (99.4%). Docked an arbitrary 0.6% for ingrained belief that dressage is a justifiable Olympic sport. Otherwise perfect. Intelligent, articulate, interested, passionate: asks sensible questions, enhances viewing experience, not just another identikit media studies graduate. Must be given precedence over her inferior colleagues in future, or BBC may lose her to successful career as owner of intellectual property rights to infectious celebration poses. Would welcome return of skilled ventriloquism act with wooden dummy Willie Carson back on her knee.

Mishal Husain - C (54%). Bland but comprehensible. Distant and cold, but interesting to get her planet's take on unfolding events. Lack of documentary evidence to the contrary suggests she was created in a laboratory three weeks ago. Reports suggest she fades into wallpaper rather than ever leaving studio - somewhat disturbing, but popular with colleagues as declining population of nearby insects cannot be a coincidence.

Trevor Nelson - F (7%). Played golf with a footballer once and sometimes wears hats so seemed ideally suited to put epoch-defining opening ceremony into proper context. Three weeks later, found standing on Haringey street corners offering to name producers of mid-90s R&B hits for pocket change, and still seems out of his depth. Possible route to redemption as grotesque carnival sideshow on MOTD2, but only if used by Machiavellian producer to undermine football's suffocating ubiquity from within.

Jake Humphrey - B (76%). He might not look telegenic or sound remotely interesting, but may yet overcome both handicaps. Listens to guests and reacts unprompted. Uses height to ably apply BBC house style of looking down on everyone. We're taken aback by his sudden improvement: surprisingly wide range of Chinese swimming contacts, so use of performance-enhancing drugs cannot be ruled out. Travels widely - ostensibly to cover fast cars, but cocaine smuggling another possibility. High tolerance for Eddie Jordan an obvious character flaw.

Garry Richardson - F (2%). Unfeasibly pompous. Ends far too many questions with "please" in mistaken belief that this is polite rather than its polar opposite. Dismissive and patronising. Cold, dead eyes; incapable of experiencing or conveying human emotion. Arrogance most likely derived from having killed. Known to arrange offsite interviews in attempt to control subjects' lives and bend them to his will. Sign on dressing room door apparently reads "The Puppetmaster". Query: syphilitic megalomaniac? Impossible to imagine him doing everyday tasks. May need to be forcibly withdrawn from circulation for safety of others.

Pending legal clearance, parts two and three should follow shortly. In the meantime, do let us know if there's anyone else you think deserves to be subjected to the withering scrutiny of our swivelling eyes.

RIP Sid Waddell: the man, the legend, the voice of darts

Sid Waddell has died at the age of 72 after a long battle with cancer. 

To be perfectly honest, and despite knowing about his illness, we're a bit shocked. In terms of enhancing the experience of watching a sport and making it successful, Sid Waddell was unequivocally the greatest commentator who ever lived. Every darts player making a living from the sport owes that to Sid - to his creation of the Indoor League for Yorkshire Television, to his vision in convincing mainstream media to cover a pub pastime, to his passion, to his flawed genius. As I said here when trying to justify my love of darts last year, "fat drunk men throwing pointy things at cork just wouldn't be the same without him." As much as we hate the phrase "national treasure" (and not just because of those bloody Nicolas Cage films), he was one. As trite as it always sounds to say "we'll not see his like again", we won't. He didn't just break the mould, he smashed it to pieces with a carefully calculated 141 checkout to polish off a cheeky nine-darter.

While we catch our breath and collect our thoughts, we've collated some highlights from Sid's commentary career as our way of paying tribute to the great man's work and cheering ourselves up. Do let us know if we've missed any of your favourite quotes.

"That's the greatest comeback since Lazarus"

“It’s just like taking a sausage from a boy in a wheelchair!” 

“He looks about as happy as a penguin in a microwave…”

“Rod now looking like Kevin Costner when told the final cost of Waterworld!” 

“Eat your heart out Harold Pinter, we’ve got drama with a capital D here in Essex!”

“He’s got one foot in the frying pan and the other on thin ice…”

“You couldn’t get more excitement in here if Elvis Presley walked in eating a chip sandwich!”

“They should give his nose an Oscar for animation…”

“His eyes are bulging like the belly of a hungry chaffinch!”

“He’s been burning the midnight oil at both ends!”

"It's the nearest thing to public execution this side of Saudi Arabia."

"His physiognomy is that of a weeping Madonna"

"He's as cool as a prized marrow!"

"Under that heart of stone beat muscles of pure flint"

"It's like Dracula getting out of his grave and asking for a few chips with his stake"

"That lad could throw 180 standing one legged in a hammock"

"This game of darts is twisting like a rattlesnake with a hernia!"

"One hot evening in Egypt, Cleopatra turned to Mark Anthony and said: "There doth stand Colossus." And there stands Phil Taylor at the oche…”

“That was like throwing three pickled onions into a thimble!”

"As they say at the DHSS, we're getting the full benefit here"

"There hasn't been this much excitement since the Romans fed the Christians to the Lions"

"He's like D'Artagnan at the scissor factory"

"He's not just an underdog, he's an underpuppy"

"He’s as slick as minestrone soup"

"When Alexander of Macedonia was 33, he cried salt tears because there were no more worlds to conquer... Eric Bristow is only 27"

"The players are under so much duress, it's like duressic park out there!”

"He's like a Sherman tank on roller skates coming down a mountain!"

"He's playing out of his pie crust!"

"Like they say in that old Canadian-Indian proverb, 'When the squirrels march backwards, the forest is on fire' - and Bristow is ablaze!"

"When this guy concentrates, all the challengers, Jason, and Galileo can go home"

“Steve Beaton - the Adonis of darts - what poise, what elegance - a true Roman gladiator, with plenty of hair wax"

"It’s like when the first caveman heard a meteorite and went out and said 'What’s that?'"

"If you’re round your Auntie's tonight, tell her to stop making the cookies and come through to the living room to watch these two amazing athletes beat the proverbial house out of each other!"

"Even Hypotenuse would have trouble working out these angles"

"These players miss with pinpoint accuracy"

"Yes, he's been at the gorilla biscuits alright"

“He's like a leopard watching a mouse, saying: "shall I eat him with sauce or not?"

"This is the crême de la milk ici en Essex"

"Harrington's not on fire. Memo to boy scouts - take two sticks to Circus Tavern immediately…"

"They won't just have to play out of their skin. They'll have to play out of their ESSENCE!"

Olympics round-up: a few highlights you might have missed

As you might have spotted, the Owl has been terribly busy flitting back and forth to Olympic events over the past few days. Nevertheless, we've kept our swivelling eyes open and picked out a few highlights from London 2012 that you might have missed. If you're struggling to pay attention to the men's 50km mince this morning, these might just keep you going.

Men's high jump - Ivan Ukhov loses his lycra shirt, has to take his next jump in a loose-fitting training t-shirt to avoid being disqualified, still clears the bar and goes on to take gold by a huge margin. How on earth do you manage to lose your kit while wearing it? We can only conclude that this was a subliminal ad for his travelling magic show. Tip for next time, Ivan: set the bar alight and juggle rabbits around it.

Women's 800m - Merve Aydin pulls up injured in her heat but hobbles home to finish the race. She's the new Derek Redmond. And she didn't even need to get THE PATRIARCHY to help her...

Men's 400m hurdles - Felix Sanchez comfortably takes gold for the Dominican Republic despite poor recent form, feigns macho nonchalance at the finish line and completely loses it on the podium. If high-amplitude lip wobbling ever takes its rightful place at the Olympics, he's a shoo-in for gold. We're sorry that the BBC has chosen to upload a clip which (a) is completely ruined by John Inverdale spraying his industrial-grade bullshit all over it and (b) doesn't show the full range of aesthetic elements incorporated into Sanchez's lachrymose routine, but hey - that's intellectual property law!

Men's BMX - to be perfectly honest, we think BMX should stick to the X Games and You've Been Framed. As if to prove our point, here's a passably smirk-inducing clip where some people fall over. Jeremy Beadle must be excitedly writing a cheque for £250 in his grave.

Men's discus - Robert Harting decided to celebrate by putting in an early bid for decathlon gold in Rio. We'll forgive him for using women's hurdles because we're so impressed that he can even lift his colossal legs off the ground.

Finally, we couldn't resist including one highlight that no-one in the world was allowed to miss. Usain Bolt stole a camera from a Swedish journalist and started taking photos of his medal-winning teammates. And everything else. Proof positive that the best way to get the media's attention is to make them part of the story. With apologies to your pretentiously-filtered self-important boundlessly-irrelevant Instagram outpourings, you can find the world's most popular holiday snaps here.

I had an absolute [hand]ball!

Hi, Ria here, with a special Olympic report on handball.  I'll be honest.  Before we applied for tickets many moons ago, I was as familiar with the sport of handball as I am with the concept of choosing to get up early: I know some people do it, but I lack any personal understanding or experience.  But the Olympics is all about embracing the sports we Brits consider obscure, so prior to visiting the Copper Box, I did a bit of homework, skim-read the rules and watched a bit of YouTube handball action.  It looked like a cross between netball, football and boxing, which appealed to my multiple personalities.




The Copper Box (sadly, not constructed entirely of 1p and 2p pieces) was an excellent venue - there were very few empty multicoloured seats and the crowd were the right kind of rowdy.  With the exception of the Norwegians occupying the bulk of one tier along the side and sizeable patches of Swedes, there were a lot of Brits, who I imagine were also feeling the trepidation that comes with spending a significant amount of money on a sport you've never seen before.

We need not have worried, because it was fricking amazing.  Handball is the new BEST THING EVER.  We watched Brazil's women take on Montenegro, followed by a thrilling Scandinavian derby as Norway met Sweden.  For those as unfamiliar with handball as I was pre-Olympics (because I'm obviously an expert now), here's how it works: it's a game of two 30 minute halves, in which the aim is to score as many goals as possible.  Turns out in handball, that's a LOT of goals.  Brazil beat Montenegro 27-25, whilst Norway managed to defeat their local rivals by 24 goals to 21.  Both matches were extremely closely fought, with saves being as celebrated as the goals themselves.  

It was fast-paced, end-to-end stuff, with goals and high-fives galore.  I don't know if it's the same with the men's game, but I've never witnessed sportspeople shoving each other to the ground one minute, then hugging like BFFs the next.  There was no diving, no-one grabbing their right leg like they'd been shot when they'd actually fallen on their left arm, and no arguing with the ref.  It was good, clean, full contact fun.  

As much as I like the fact Britain's an island because I like ferry journeys and the seaside's never all that far away, I feel like this brilliant sport might have made it across the Channel already had it not been full of water.  I checked out the world standings on the International Handball Federation's website; would you like to know who's above us?  EVERYONE, because we don't even rank.  I hope that this sport does start to catch on, because I've got a serious handball crush now.  I'm totally going to put posters up on my wall and write handball's name all over my homework diary.  You should too.

For the nitty gritty of the rules, as well as details on how you can save our nation by getting involved in this epic sport, check out the British Handball website here.

Cuban vaulting pole suffers career-ending injury

Cuban pole vault record-holder and awesome name-haver Lazaro Borges caught a lucky break in this morning's qualification round at the Olympic Stadium.

Borges' pole, already known on the athletics circuit for its attention-seeking antics and melodramatic demeanour, decided to seize its chance for global fame and exploded into three separate pieces. As you can see here, all three pieces missed its owner as he landed safely on the mat.  

The broken pole will be sadly missed - not least by Borges, who failed to qualify for the final when forced to resort to his more stoical and deeply uninspiring stand-in pole. We salute its opportunistic bid for immortality, and can only convey our best wishes for its next incarnation in the arms of a Venetian gondolier.

SPECIAL REPORT: Olympic archery!

Here at Sporting Owl towers, we're trying our very best to keep you abreast of all the action at London 2012.

To that end, we've rounded up the finest writers in the universe and gently cajoled them into reporting back on a range of Olympic sports. In the first of what we hope will be a regular series, here's Kenny the Nuthatch's exclusive and inimitable take on the archery at Lord's.

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So, buoyed by the support of Owl Towers, off I went at Ludicrous O’Clock last Friday morning to Lord’s for the first session of the last day of the men’s archery competition. No-one should arrive at Lord’s at 7:30 in the morning unless they’re playing, and even then that’s a bit debatable. No matter – one of St. John’s Wood’s finest almond croissants in my belly and a short queue to get into the venue. Much banter between Gamesmakers (hello you purple wonderhumans) and into the security queue.  Suddenly perturbed by a soldier from western Scotland asking me in broad Glaswegian to put ‘watches and belts, pal’ into the scanner. Briefly concerned that I am so tired I’ve accidentally ended up in Finland. Thankfully not. Into Lord’s (I know what it looks like) but concerned that half the audience are doing their trousers up given that armed Scotsmen made us all hand over our waist support.

A cup of Olympic Fairtrade coffee (terrible, but better than the slop served at the ‘City of Coventry Stadium’) and then off to find my seat. A nice Gamesmaker points me towards the stand that has been erected on the infield at Lord’s, then I wander across the turf (holiest of all cricketing places, can’t normally get on the field for all the money on Earth, and I’m just titting around on it) and climb very high to my seat.

And then, after the stands fill and a large Korean and Chinese contingent arrive, some archery occurs. It’s pretty rapid, with a match scoring system based on 2 points for having the higher score after 3 arrows each, or 1 point each if scores are tied after 3 arrows. If, after 5 sets, the scores are equal, it comes down to a shoot-off: each archer fires 1 arrow, the one with the highest score wins. Suddenest of sudden death. Though not as sudden as death could have been for the Gamesmakers whose job it is to meander back to the archers with arrows that have been pulled from the targets. Dimly wander in the wrong direction and it’s William Tell O’Clock. Bummer.

Great Britain’s Larry Godfrey (the Kevin Pietersen of archery) shot first, went to a shoot-off and was sadly beaten by an earnest, pleasant man from somewhere east of the Olympic Park (I forget where). Then lots of matches happened very, very fast. Great Australian lad lost gallantly on the last arrow of normal time, then came back after and met all the fans. He was awesome and deserves our support. The 15-year old Moldovan chap who is the future of archery, apparently, was sadly beaten by a slightly overweight Korean gentleman who looked rather embarrassed to have won. Essentially I came away thinking that archery was peculiarly marvellous, but thinking that IOC kimchi rolls would have sold in substantial quantities in the Lord’s catering stands.

To come, a very short introduction to basketball and my gibbering wonder-drool at the utter WONDER of the Olympic Park in Stratford, together with my active concern for a Dizzee Rascal lookalike who continually exhorted me to MAKE SOME NOOIIIIISSSSSSEEEEE. But that’s for another day...