Defining moments 3: Redmond’s three-legged race

An occasional series looking at the defining moments which explain why sport captivates us so much ...

Not all defining moments in sport are about winning; occasionally a glance into the mirror of defeat tells us more about the human spirit than the glory of victory, and provides us with images which are indelibly etched into the memories of those watching.

Sceptical? Well, try this.

Olympic Games, Barcelona, August 1992 – men’s 400 metres semi-final

It is one of the most heart-rending of sporting images, and yet also one of the most heart-warming. Two men hobble over the finish line together, arms around each other like participants in a three-legged race. The other competitors have long since finished, but they are nonetheless given a champion’s reception by the crowd in Barcelona’s Olympic Stadium. One is a finely honed athlete dressed in the red, white and blue of Great Britain, the other a more generously proportioned man dressed in shorts, t-shirt and baseball cap.

This is one of those ineffable moments that television captures brilliantly, but still photographs somehow capture better. Photos of this strange duo crossing the line show the athlete being all but dragged across the line, freely shedding tears of pain and despair.

The pair are joined, not just physically but by ties of blood: Derek Redmond and his father Jim.

Redmond had entered the Olympics in good form, knowing this was his best opportunity to win an individual Olympic medal. The early signs had been good as he ran the fastest time of all in the first round, then won his quarter-final comfortably. Everything was going exactly according to plan, with no hint of trouble.

And so to the semi-final.

As usual, the athletes settle into their blocks for the start, followed by a moment of pin-drop silence and finally the bang of the starter’s gun. Redmond starts well, settling quickly into his stride and asserting his authority. All is going well. Then, about 150 metres into the race, sudden disaster. One moment he’s running smoothly; the next thing he knows his right hamstring has torn and he is tumbling on to the track.

In that instant, he knows it is all over. And so do we.

Redmond lies on the track, watching as the other athletes speed into the distance, still chasing their Olympic dreams. His are shattered.

But although the race is lost, he will not be beaten. He struggles to his feet while his father Jim makes his way on to the track. Together, they slowly make their way towards the finish. Officials attempting to stop them are waved away by a father who insists his son is allowed to finish with dignity.

The standing ovation the Redmonds receive from the 65,000 crowd as they cross the line conveys sympathy, empathy and respect in equal measure. In competitive terms, the victory is a Pyrrhic one; in human terms it is truly Olympian. 

Officially, Derek Redmond was disqualified from his 400 metres semi-final and did not finish. We know better. He may not have won a medal, but he captured the hearts of millions.

Redmond later featured in one of the International Olympic Committee's 'Celebrate Humanity' videos entitled ‘Courage’, and last year he featured in a TV ad for Visa which stated that "he, and his father, finished dead last. But he, and his father, finished."

Derek Redmond's defining moment was, for him, not a happy one. But his reaction to the sudden ending of his Olympic dream - and that of the crowd in Barcelona that day - spoke volumes about the indomitability of the human spirit, and the role which sport can play in revealing that to us.

It's scant consolation and no substitute for an Olympic medal, but Derek Redmond will always be remembered simply because, although he had already lost the race, he refused to be defeated. That should count as a victory in anyone's books.

Semenya's gold highlights shades of grey

It has been a sorry saga. Over the past few weeks it has become clear that the search for clarity has resulted only in muddied waters, and that Caster Semenya has been little more than a pawn in a political machine fuelled by deceit and ambition.

You will know the story of the 18-year-old Semenya by now. How she emerged from nowhere to run world-leading times and dominate the women's 800 metres at last month's World Athletics Championships in Berlin. How the IAAF ham-fistedly asked her to submit to the humiliation of gender verification testing on the afternoon of her final. How Athletics South Africa (ASA) subsequently accused the world's media of racism for their intense speculation about the case.

Late last week, the extent to which ASA president Leonard Chuene and other officials had systematically lied to both the IAAF and the media began to unfold. Having denied the existence of procedures carried out on Semenya prior to Berlin, it now transpires that tests were carried out in Pretoria on August 7th - 12 days before her gold medal-winning run - at the order of the ASA. Worse still, they were conducted without the athlete's knowledge (she was told she was attending a routine drugs check).

The procedure apparently revealed that Semenya has internal testes, of which she herself would have had no knowledge. The assumption is that these produce abnormally high levels of testosterone, contributing towards a masculine physical appearance which offers a significant competitive advantage.

Chuene has since claimed that his motivation for covering up the test and its results was to "protect a child", and not a desire to pursue a gold medal to highlight ASA's achievements on a global stage. (Semenya's was one of only two South African golds in Berlin.) He has also alleged that IAAF officials suggested to him that she should feign injury in the final and pull out to avoid controversy.

Such statements are extraordinary and lack any semblance of credibility. Not even South Africans are convinced by him, least of all his own Sports Ministry, who have been quick to denounce his "lies" and his decision to allow Semenya to run in Berlin.

"Quite clearly, Chuene was putting his quest for medals above everything else. He must resign, he must go."

Helen Zille, leader of the opposition Democratic Alliance

Regardless of Chuene's sensational allegations, the IAAF are not entirely blameless in this affair. For one thing, the decision to make public their request to test Semenya on the day of the final of her event smacked as much of political heavy-handedness as it did massive insensitivity. And, perhaps more importantly in the long term, it has raised the issue of the significant grey area that exists between between an athlete being classified as indisputably male or female. For while Semenya is an unusual case of an athlete who, by virtue of possessing both male and female genitalia, appears to be a person with obvious intersex characteristics, she is by no means unique. Intersex conditions of varying degrees - often subtle - appear in as many as one in a thousand people, and could confer significant physiological advantages.

But how do you draw the line between an athlete who is eligible to compete as a female, and one who is not? It is not simply a case of determining whether an individual has two X chromosomes (nominally indicating female) or one each of X and Y (male). The IAAF has its own regulations and guidelines, but it is neither a precise science nor a straightforward decision. There is no easy formula for navigating the shades of grey in between the two genders, and any dividing line drawn by the IAAF (or indeed any other sporting body) is an arbitrary one.

Sadly, once you strip away the science and the politics, it is Caster Semenya herself who is very much the victim in this case. Although the IAAF has promised that she will retain her gold medal from Berlin, it seems likely that she will meet the IAAF's eligibility requirements for competing in women's events. Falling within the shades of grey, her athletics career may well be over almost before it has begun, and she will suffer the indignity of being looked upon by many as neither man nor woman but 'freak'.

That is the real tragedy here. Never mind her career, Caster Semenya's life may well have been ruined in the pursuit of shiny gold. Was the glory really worth it for Leonard Chuene and the ASA?

Mud sticks

Yesterday, I wrote about the appalling way that Caster Semenya has been treated after the IAAF revealed that she had been asked to undergo gender verification testing, a procedure which is normally kept private until an athlete has ‘failed’ the test, for obvious reasons of sensitivity.

It has led to much wild speculation, much of it dreadfully uninformed, and open accusations from fellow competitors such as the Italian Elisa Piccione, who finished sixth behind Semenya in the 800 metres final: “For me, she is not a woman.” It was a calculated and utterly groundless personal attack based on Semenya’s physical appearance and deep voice – neither of which are unique for a female athlete (think Maria Mutola or Fatima Whitbread, for starters).

What next? Accusing any breakthrough performer of doping just because they’re faster than you? Or deciding that the bloke sitting next to you on the train must be gay because he’s wearing a pink shirt and is well-groomed?

There are two problems with stereotyping. Firstly, while some people may conform to a certain stereotype, we do not all obey them rigidly. A trivial example: my 20-month old son’s favourite colour is currently pink, and I’m not exactly jumping to any conclusions about his sexual orientation.

Secondly, when someone is publicly given a derogatory or accusatory label, mud tends to stick, and becomes impossible to wash off. No doubt Semenya will be dogged by black clouds for the rest of her career (she is still only 18). Just ask former England footballer Graeme Le Saux, who was regularly treated to homophobic abuse - from both fans and, most scandalously, on the field by Robbie Fowler – because, atypically for a footballer, he was educated, read the Guardian, and had an appreciation for the arts. (Le Saux is married with two children, but why let the facts get in the way of an urban myth?)

It is also worth bearing in mind that it is possible for an athlete to be born female - i.e. with two X chromosomes, rather than X and Y – and be completely unaware that they are in fact technically ineligible to compete as a woman (according to the sporting authorities’ arbitrary definition). It is not a case of cheating; more a matter of being deemed to have an ‘unfair competitive advantage’, whatever that is.

For more detail on events surrounding Semenya and the scientific process behind gender verification and ‘intersex conditions’, I would recommend articles in today’s Times by Sports Journalist of the Year Matthew Syed and science editor Mark Henderson.

Syed perhaps says it best in his piece, highlighting the moral and emotional issues behind this needless controversy.

Could [the authorities] not have worked their way through the gender-verification process, only breaking cover if the athlete failed the test? Should this confidentiality not be part and parcel of IAAF procedure? In short, could this not have been handled with infinitely greater sensitivity, given the incalculable trauma that Semenya has now had to endure?

This ought to have been an uplifting story of how an 18-year-old sports science student from Pretoria University, who grew up in Ga-Masehlong, a village near the northern city of Polokwane, became world champion.

It ought to have been an inspirational story of personal triumph against the odds. It ought to have been a story of hope and optimism, only morphing into something different in the event of a failed test. It is difficult to suppress the feeling that, whatever happens hereafter, a young and vulnerable athlete has been cruelly let down by the very authorities that ought to have protected her.

It is saddening to see how both the IAAF and her fellow competitors have treated Semenya in this whole affair; equally, it was gratifying to see that the Berlin crowd applauded her warmly at her medal ceremony yesterday.

Already the counter-whispers of racist and political agendas are starting to emerge, and it is unlikely the doubts will be fully eradicated even when the results of Semenya’s tests are announced. (As Henderson explains in his article, there is often no definitive black-and-white answer in matters of gender verification.)

As I said at the beginning of yesterday’s post, it should be a simple matter. It isn’t.

A breed apart

It is no more than we have come to expect from a man for whom, as the Adidas slogan states, 'impossible is nothing'.

Usain Bolt may have been a fraction below the kind of form he was in last summer in Beijing, due to missing a month's training after writing off his car earlier in the year. He admitted to feeling a bit tired after his exploits in the 100 metres on Sunday. And he was clearly tying up in the last 30 metres of last night's 200 metres final as he struggled against a 0.3 m/s headwind and wearying legs.

Nonetheless, he crossed the line more than five metres ahead of the rest of the field, recording a time of 19.19s and lowering his world record by the same margin - 0.11s - as he had done in the 100 four days earlier. (He now holds three of the five fastest times in history; only two other men - Michael Johnson and Tyson Gay – have run under 19.6s.)

Now imagine what he might do with a full training schedule under his belt, a legal tailwind and the benefit of focussing - as he suggested he may do one day - solely on the 200.

Is the mythical 19 second barrier breakable?

Surely, barring serious injury, it is now a matter of when rather than if?

In the meantime, it's best that we marvel at the superhuman exploits of a man whose races are simultaneously utterly predictable and delightfully mesmerising. Bolt is now the only man ever to concurrently hold both World and Olympic titles at both the 100 and 200. He has broken the world record in the former three times; the latter, twice. And don’t forget that he will also run in the 4x100 metre relay, where he will be odds-on to complete a second major championship hat-trick on Saturday night.

There is no question that Usain Bolt is a freakish, exceptional talent. Despite all the publicised deficiencies and failings in Jamaican drug-testing, I want to believe – make that: I do believe – in the fairy-tale, just as I believe in Lance Armstrong.

Because that’s what sport is all about - the celebration of excellence, and the glorification of the truly exceptional. Lance Armstrong. Michael Schumacher. Sir Steven Redgrave. Usain Bolt.

A breed apart.

The (un)fairer sex?

It should be an easy question, with an easy answer. Is Caster Semenya, the 18-year old South African who became world champion in the women’s 800 metres last night, male or female?

However, the world is not an easy place. In reality, accurate gender verification is somewhat more difficult than asking an athlete to pull down their shorts. It is a complicated, multi-faceted process which looks for any of 20 or more ‘intersex conditions’ in order to determine an athlete’s eligibility to compete in women’s events. For instance, a person might (extremely rarely) be born with female genitalia but male chromosomes, something a simple physical examination would not reveal.

The facts – those we know - are these:

An unknown as recently as three weeks ago, Semenya has burst onto the global scene from nowhere, setting the fastest time in the world this year on July 31st, and then going faster still en route to World Championship gold last night.

That time of 1:55.45 was nine seconds faster than her best last season. It is also 2.39s faster than any other woman has run this season; indeed, only three women in the past 20 years – Maria Mutola, Jolanda Ceplak and Pamela Jelimo - have run faster. However, her improvement can be feasibly explained by better training, form, and the natural leaps in improvement that can occur in passing from 17 to 18. (And Jelimo, also 18 then, recorded not one but six quicker times last season, including a best of 1:54:01 which stands as the fastest time run by any female since 1983, all without a whiff of he/she suspicion.)

There is also no denying that Semenya has a muscular, masculine build. But then so did Mutola, who won one Olympic and three World Championship gold medals in over a decade of superlative middle distance running, again without any serious questions ever being raised.

Those are the facts. Pretty much everything else which has inevitably become the subject of highly publicised speculation since yesterday’s IAAF announcement that it had asked for Semenya to undergo the gender verification process three weeks ago (it takes several weeks to complete) is just that: speculation.

And, of course, the problem with such scandalous rumour-mongering is that, regardless of the actual truth of the matter, mud sticks.

Naturally, the South African athletics federation is defending its athlete, with their general manager Molatelo Malehopo insisting, “She is a female. We are completely sure about that. We would not have entered her into the female competition if we had any doubts." Although, of course, they have no way of knowing for sure, having not conducted any verification procedures themselves; no national federation is obliged to do so.

Due to the sensitive nature of gender verification tests, the IAAF has traditionally not publicised them until an athlete has been declared ineligible by the procedure. Which makes the timing of the announcement yesterday all the more puzzling. At best they considered that the whispers - some of them neither quiet nor subtle – which have been circulating on internet forums and among her fellow competitors for the past three weeks had reached such levels that they felt they had no choice other than to ham-fistedly confirm that action was already being taken. At worst, it was a deliberate, political attempt into embarrassing the South Africans into withdrawing Semenya to avoid further controversy.

Whatever the reason, it hasn’t made things better. And it certainly hasn’t quelled the rumours.

Anyhow, at the risk of ruining a good witch-hunt, let’s be clear that the IAAF’s request is hardly unique, nor is it racist, sexist, or an accusation of deception or cheating or doping. It is nothing more than a test of eligibility, a determination of whether the presence of one or more intersex conditions confers an unfair advantage.

For Semenya to have raced and won last night after public confirmation of her test is, at best, humiliating – even if the test eventually declares her eligible to run as a woman, the whispers will never go away. At worst, there is the example of Indian 800 metre runner Santhi Soundarajan, who was stripped of a silver medal at the 2006 Asian Games after failing a gender testing procedure; she subsequently attempted suicide, unsuccessfully.

In all the hullaballoo, it is easy to forget there is a young human being at the heart of this controversy, and one who is likely blameless of any crime other than being, genetically, a statistical oddity. Unless it is proven that she has deliberately attempted to deceive, Caster Semenya is more deserving of sympathy than suspicion.

Three’s a crowd?

As I sat watching in front of the TV last weekend, I have to say I don’t think I have ever seen anything quite like it. A combination of pace, power and sheer sangfroid equalling the absolute destruction of opponents.

But enough about Arsenal’s 6-1 evisceration of Everton at Goodison Park.

Let’s talk about the unfeasibly appropriately-named Usain Bolt and a headline-stealing night at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

9.58 seconds. That’s less than the time it will have taken you to read to this point. And it was all the time Bolt needed to shatter his own world record. In an event where we are accustomed to seeing the fastest time lowered one or two hard-earned hundredths at a time, Bolt took a barely conscionable 0.11s off the mark he set in Beijing last year. Since that memorable night, many have wondered what time he might have clocked had he not started celebrating 20 metres or more from the line.

Now we know.

In truth, the race was over within the first ten metres, by which time Bolt had already caught the fast-starting Tyson Gay and Asafa Powell. With his long limbs unfurled, the rest was a foregone conclusion. He completed the race in 41 strides compared with 44.5 for Gay, who merely set the third-fastest time ever – quick enough to have won every race in history, except the finals in Beijing and Berlin.

You have to feel sorry for Tyson Gay. In any other era, we would be lauding his incredible rivalry with Asafa Powell; Powell setting the big times, Gay winning the big titles. Instead, he and Powell are little more than the supporting cast, the brilliant fast men whose presence serves only to emphasise the freakish talent of Bolt.

The impact Bolt – who did not post his first sub-10 second time until May last year - has had on athletics’ blue riband event cannot be underestimated. In those 15 months, he has taken 0.16s off Powell’s previous world record of 9.74 (by comparison, it took 16 years to improve the record by 0.16s to 9.74) and run 15 sub-10 races, including four of the seven fastest times ever. He has broken the world record three times, a unique feat in this event; only three others (Powell, Carl Lewis, Jim Hines) have managed it more than once in the modern era.

It shouldn’t be that easy. In the forty or so years since electronic timing was first introduced (allowing times to be accurately recorded to the nearest hundredth of a second), only 69 men have legally broken the 10-second barrier for the 100 metres. 39 of those have happened in the past ten years alone; all but eight in the 20 years since 1989.

Only 19 men have recorded official times under 9.9. And if you were able to line up all of the fastest men in history together, only two – Gay and Powell – would finish within a quarter of a second of Bolt’s Sunday night jog, equivalent to a deficit of three metres or more.

That’s how much faster Usain Bolt is than anyone else we have ever seen.

I can think of only two other track and field athletes in the modern era who have so utterly dominated their events.

Edwin Moses won 122 consecutive races at the 400 metre hurdles, including two Olympic and two World Championship golds. His former world record of 47.02s, set 26 years ago, remains the second-fastest ever, and he still holds nine of the 20 fastest times on record (no one else has more than two).

Like Bolt, Michael Johnson was considered something of a freak of nature, by virtue of his unique short, choppy running stride. In a career in which he dominated at 200 metres, 400 metres and as part of the American 4x400 metre relay team, he collected four Olympic and eight World Championship gold medals. He held the 200 metres world record for 12 years until Bolt beat it in Beijing; he still holds 12 of the 20 fastest times ever. His 400 metres world record of 43.18s still stands ten years later; only three others have come within half a second of that time (indeed, only eight other men have run sub-44s).

Edwin Moses. Michael Johnson. That’s pretty exalted (and exclusive) company, and given his rate of progress - he is still only 22, well short of a sprinter’s traditional peak - we may one day reflect on how Usain Bolt was in fact an athlete in a league of his own.

Bolt states he will be the next man to lower the record, and that he believes he is capable of running sub-9.5. 15 months ago, we would have laughed at such a statement; after Sunday night, we are all believers.

But wait: there’s more.

Barring injury or disqualification, Bolt will line up as the runaway favourite in the 200 metres final tomorrow night. Gay, a real threat in this event in which he holds the fastest time this year, has already withdrawn injured. So if, as expected, he does indeed run away from the rest of the field, he will have his sights set on lowering his own mark of 19.30s. Only twice ever – the Olympic finals in Beijing and Atlanta – has anyone got within 0.27s of that.

Lightning may not strike twice. But, as in Beijing, we may see Usain Bolt strike for the second time tomorrow evening. The world expects, Usain. Time to deliver the impossible.

If you can't do the time

... Don't do the crime, as the saying goes.

I can't imagine there are too many genuine sports fans who are losing sleep over the news that Dwain Chambers was today unsuccessful in his attempt to overturn his lifetime Olympic ban in the high court.

Under the rules of the British Olympic Association, which takes a harder stance than other countries' athletics associations (and indeed many other sports), Chambers' positive 2003 test for the designer steroid THG - an offence to which he has since confessed in an attempt at clemency - precludes him from selection for the Olympics, even though he won the national trials last weekend.

Chambers had argued that the ban was an unfair restraint of trade. And although Mr Justice Mackay suggested that the BOA's by-law could be seen as unlawful, he refused to grant an injunction to temporarily suspend the lifetime ban until a full hearing, which is now unlikely to occur, could be convened next year.

In reality, Chambers' right to earn a living is a long way from being curtailed. He remains eligible to qualify for both the European and World Championships, and his notoriety may favour him as a draw for promoters of race meetings across the world.

And, of course, he is free to sell his side of the story to the tabloids, or to appear on the next series of I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out of Here, where he can feast on witchetty grubs to his heart's content.

That aside, I am delighted by today's verdict. It will certainly make other British drug cheats think twice before challenging the BOA again - the precedent set if Chambers had won is too horrible to contemplate - and the fact that the UK governing body adopts a more draconian position than other countries is neither here nor there. And while he might look wistfully at someone like David Millar, banned from cycling for the mandatory two years but now something of a poster boy for the new anti-drugs movement in the sport, again that is neither here nor there. As an athlete, Chambers knew exactly what the risk was before he was caught, and just because he has admitted his guilt does not automatically entitle him to an early parole at the expense of clean, if less talented, athletes like Craig Pickering who have leigitimately earned the right to go to Beijing.

Whichever way you put it, Dwain, you are a convicted cheat. It's time to live with the consequences.

Keeping up with the Joneses

There was a time when Marion Jones had the world at her (very fast) feet. She was the dominant force in women’s sprinting, a gold medal winner at the 1997, 1999 and 2001 World Athletics Championships, and winner of three golds (and five medals overall) at the 2000 Sydney Olympics. She had even survived the revelation of her then-husband CJ Hunter’s ban for a positive nandrolone test shortly before Sydney with her reputation intact.

But by the time she was implicated in the Balco scandal in 2004, that reputation was already in tatters. By then, people were regarding her marriage with her former husband in a more cynical light. Having Trevor Graham as her coach made things worse. And her relationship with fellow sprinter Tim Montgomery (with whom she had a child), also the subject of a doping ban, further served to erode the presumption of innocence which she steadfastly continued to claim.

So Jones’s revelation on Friday that she had indeed lied in her testimony to a federal court during the Balco enquiry came as no surprise. Tell us something we didn’t already know, Marion.

Even then, her public ‘admission’ was nothing if not economical with the truth. She has conceded that she had given false testimony, but continues to state that Graham fed her tetrahydrogestrinone – more commonly known as THG or ‘the clear’ - without her knowledge. This despite consistent testimony from many others that she was a fully aware and active participant, and her own admission of there being a clear improvement in performance as a result of what she maintains she always believed was ‘flaxseed oil’.

She also announced her retirement from athletics, a disingenuous statement if ever there was one, given the inevitable reaction which would have followed from both US Athletics and the IAAF.

Forget the PR spin. The weight of evidence against Jones goes way beyond circumstantial: she is as complicit as she is guilty. And her attempt to claim her departure from the sport on her own terms was both self-serving and utterly transparent.

Nobody believes you, Marion. And, worse still, I suspect nobody particularly cares either. Good riddance.

As a footnote – and further evidence of the sickly state which athletics finds itself in – if the IOC strips Jones of her Olympic golds, one of the beneficiaries will be Ekaterini Thanou, the Greek sprinter best remembered in 2004 for attempting to excuse her third missed pre-Olympics drugs test by claiming she had been involved in a motorcycle accident. Not exactly a shining example of the Olympian ideal.

There was a time when Marion Jones had the world at her feet. Today, a weary world wouldn’t waste the effort of treading on her.

You know summer's coming to an end when ...

... The TV schedules are filled wall-to-wall with major sporting events. Everywhere you look, a major tournament is under way (or about to start).

In cricket, there is the excitement of the inaugural Twenty20 World Cup and its relentless biff-bash-bosh, thrill-a-minute format. England will go into the tournament on a high, having recorded their first major one-day series win since Lions versus Christians (possibly even longer ago than that). The talismanic Andrew Flintoff returned, just about fit - as good as we can expect these days - to take three vital wickets as England roared home on Saturday to edge the series against India 4-3. And, having invented the format, you would have to hope that we would be quite good at it. Certainly we should have a better chance to put in a good showing than in the recent 'proper' World Cup - not that that's particularly difficult ...

In rugby union, the World Cup got off to an attention-grabbing start as the hosts France wilted under a testing examination from Argentina's rugged, physical defence, crashing to a 17-12 defeat. It was a shock, and yet not a shock; it was the Pumas' fifth win in their last six encounters with Les Bleus, although the first time they had won a match of such importance. And the rest of the opening weekend hinted at a clear North/South divide, with England, Ireland and Wales labouring against the USA, Namibia and Canada respectively, while the southern hemisphere triumvirate of New Zealand, Australia and South Africa ran up cricket scores in their respective openers.

The F1 season continues to speed towards what promises to be a thrilling climax, with Fernando Alonso leading Lewis Hamilton home in Italy, despite the British rookie executing spectacular overtaking moves on both Ferrari drivers. It was McLaren's first ever one-two finish at Monza, made doubly sweet in the light of the continuing 'Spygate' scandal which threatens to engulf the sport in political acrimony. With four races remaining, Alonso has cut Hamilton's lead to just three points. Expect more fireworks at Spa-Francorchamps this weekend, assuming the World Motor Sport Council does not decide to take drastic action against McLaren this Thursday.

Across the pond, it was the start of the new NFL season, which is particularly tantalising with the first ever regular season game in the UK coming to the new Wembley next month. Kickoff weekend didn't disappoint, wth six games being decided by seven points or less. In New York, New England's Ellis Hobbs fielded a kickoff eight yards deep in his own endzone and ran it back, untouched, 108 yards for a touchdown - an NFL record. In Dallas, the Cowboys beat the New York Giants by a crazy 45-35 score. (In football terms, think of the 5-4 North London derby game from a few years back.) And in San Francisco, my beloved 49ers squeezed out a 20-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals, scoring the go-ahead touchdown with just 26 seconds remaining, having nearly fumbled the ball away at the goalline the previous play. My heart is still recovering from that one.

The World Athletics Championships have been and gone already, but that didn't stop Asafa Powell stealing headlines on Sunday with a searing run to shatter the 100 metres world record. In setting a new mark of 9.74 seconds, he shaved three hundredths of a second off the previous best time he had jointly held with the now-banned Justin Gatlin. A blink of an eye to some, but equivalent to a gap of nearly one-third of a metre compared to the previous record - as good as a mile in an event which frequently requires freeze-frame images to determine the winner. The only shame was that he had not produced this run on the grand stage of the World Championships only weeks previously.

And then there's the small matter of Euro 2008 qualifying, with the home nations experiencing mixed fortunes: Wales battered by Germany, Northern Ireland losing disappointingly in Latvia, the Republic of Ireland only earning a draw in Slovakia, Scotland easing past Lithuania, and an injury-ravaged England neatly side-stepping the banana skin that was Israel at Wembley (and looking surprisingly decent in doing so). Next up is Russsia - by far the harder of the two games - tomorrow.

Last but by no means least, the women's football World Cup kicked off in China yesterday with the defending champions Germany administering an old-fashioned shellacking - 11-0 - to Argentina. Hope Powell's England squad, a modest 12th in the world rankings and with the misfortune to be drawn in Germany's group, face an uphill battle to qualify for the knockout stages, but if they can beat Japan today in what is to all intents and purposes a winner-takes-all eliminator, who knows? If you've never watched the women's game before, you should give it a try. You might be surprised at the level of skill and strength on show - and pleased at the lack of professional cynicism which we have come to accept as part and parcel of the men's game.

All that in the space of a five day span, Friday to Tuesday. Not bad!

So, while it's a shame summer is coming to an end, if you like your sports it's really not so bad. Roll on winter!