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The Weekend in Sports – Michael Phelps is back, Tiger Woods’ record broken, Chelsea beaten 3-0 and more!

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What a weekend of Sports! Suga had no idea the weekend would be packed with so many Championships, drama and talent, but the Sports channels certainly delivered some unexpected treats and entertainment.

Swimming – U.S. Nationals in San Antonio

Michael Phelps (30 years old), the most decorated Olympian is not only back but back in Olympic form with 1 year to RIO! Phelps was out of the picture for a while, especially with his 6-month suspension for a DUI that ended 4 months ago. However, he was still not allowed to enter the World Championships in Russia. Instead he was confined to swimming in a more minor, but still important and respected National meet in San Antonio, USA.

Looks like they should have sent him to Kazan, Russia though, because Phelps’ times were faster than the Gold-winning times there. USA also had a poor performance only winning 2 individual gold medals! Phelps’ 3 individual events were the 100m Fly, 200m Fly and 200m IM. He had a late entry in the 200m Breast stroke perhaps just for practice, since he is worst at that one. He finished 5th in that race. But for his 3 main performances? He was body lengths ahead, racing against the clock and not the field. His 200m Fly time was faster than his Gold winning performance at the London Olympics and his 100m FLY and 200m IM times were just tenths of a second off. Spectacular performance. Can the legend on the track, Usain Bolt show he is back and ready for RIO too at the World Championships in Beijing this August 23?!

Golf – PGA Championship

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Jason Day finished the PGA Championship at 20 under with a par on the 18th hole, breaking Tiger Woods’ major championship record set of -19 at the 2000 Open Championship. After 7 top 5s including 3 second place finishes previously at majors and 10 top 10s since 2010, he finally came through and won his first major championship in style. Congrats Jason!

Netball- World Cup 2015

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Surprise Surprise, the Aussie Diamonds won the Netball World Cup in Australia. The Aussies have dominated for decades with their only threat, if any, being from New Zealand. The Sunshine girls from Jamaica played well, finishing 4th overall. They fell to the Aussies in the semi-finals 56-67 and then lost to England in the usual fight for Bronze, 44-66.

Tennis – Rogers Cup, Montreal

Serena Williams was upset by Belinda Bencic (mentored by former rival of Serena, Martina Hingis) in the semi-finals of the Rogers cup in 3 sets. Serena said she felt that she played like an amateur. Did she play like an amateur or did Bencic finally get an opportunity to beat her strategically? Bencic went on to win the cup in the finals by default versus Simona Halep, who retired down 0-3 in the 3rd set due to injury/heat.

For the men, Andy Murray (no. 2) beat Novak Djokovic 6-4, 4-6, 6-3 to win his 3rd Rogers Cup and eight-match losing streak versus world no. 1, Djoko. It was not easy though. After Djoko steam rolled him to even sets, Murray took an extended bathroom break before the 3rd and came out to serve first then quickly broke Djokovic to go up 2-0. At 3-1, Djokovic failed many times to break Murray’s serve and Murray finally went up to 4-1 after Deuce #10, a point that lasted over 15 minutes! I think that decided the match. Djokovic still showed some effort but Murray did not give up after losing 4 Championship points. He finally converted the 5th and won. Satisfying for Murray but frustrating for Djoko, whose streaks had to finally come to an end – 30 straight wins at Masters events, 24 straight wins in Masters deciding sets, 12 straight wins in Masters finals and of course, 8 straight wins versus Andy Murray.

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Gymnastics – USA Nationals

All Suga can say is that the men looked pathetic as usual. They were described as sloppy, making it hard for the selection committee to choose the best from the worst with competitors failing in what should be their strongest events individually. There were numerous falls off the bars, outrunning the runway after the vault and even unsure dismounts, one of which had to be repeated. Embarrassing.

Thank goodness for the ladies. Look out for Simone Biles, the women’s all-round Gymnastics Champ.

Barclay’s Premier League, BPL

Manchester City, runner up of BPL 2015, surely made their agenda known yesterday with a convincing 3-0 win over Defending Champs, Chelsea. After Terry’s failed attempt to defend the start of a play ending with Sergio Aguero’s first goal (31′), Terry was taken off for the entire 2nd half of the match. Kompany took advantage of a corner kick to head in the 2nd goal (79′) that went in off of the post and then Chelsea’s defense totally fell apart, resulting in Man City’s 3rd goal (85′) by Fernandinho. Mourinho placed players such as Fabregas and more in positions they should not have been, resulting in crucial coaching errors and they also played without their goal keeper who was sent off in the previous match, however Suga thinks Man City would have still come out on top regardless. After a draw with Swansea and a horrible loss to Man City for the opening of BPL, Chelsea has some work to do.

Looking forward to another weekend of high quality competition and variety of sports some time soon! Suga hopes you enjoyed as well.

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Australia demolishes New Zealand to win ICC Cricket World Cup 2015!

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Australia bowled out New Zealand for 183 runs in 45 overs at the Melbourne Cricket Ground last Saturday. They then moved on to win their 5th World Cup title by 7 wickets with 186/3 (33.1 overs) !

Australia certainly was never our favourite to win the tournament based on past rivalry with the West Indies but well done and Congratulations to them.

New Zealand's Martin Guptill

New Zealand sent West Indies Packing! What has happened to West Indies Cricket?

New Zealand's Martin Guptill
New Zealand’s Martin Guptill

Last Friday night, the West Indies allowed New Zealand to make a whopping 393 runs.

Martin Guptill surpassed our very own, Chris Gayle’s record of 215 made earlier in the tournament, to hit the highest world cup score, a smashing 237 runs not out. Credit must be given to Guptill’s magnificent performance, hitting all of 137 runs off of his last 52 balls, whether balls were bowled short or long, but our bowling and fielding was poor. Guptill got time to settle into long partnerships and Marlon Samuels dropped a crucial catch to get rid of him. Those catches you do not miss. They stood up and watched many balls roll to the boundary. We often fail to get dirty and dive to stop balls like other teams, harming us in the long run. The result for New Zealand was 393/6 (50 overs).

West Indies ended their innings at 250 all out in just 30.3 overs. Gayle made an exciting but short-lived 61 runs, then wickets crumbled even faster. New Zealand won by 143 runs. On top of that, Jamaica is not the only one with a ‘Bolt’. New Zealand’s fast bowler, Trent Boult is at his peak, as he took 4 early wickets. Sadly, Gayle and to a small extent Jonathan Carter, were the only threats New Zealand faced and they knew it. So, what was our strategy? Clearly the wrong one. Great effort was shown by the West Indies where batting was concerned because the result could have been much worse or embarrassing, as we have witnessed before in those situations. However, I believe they were incorrectly guided.

With a massive target of 393 runs, the strategy should not be to go out there and instantly make as much 6s and 4s as possible. After all it is not 20/20 cricket. They should have attempted to bat out the entire innings, peaking at the right intervals, not wildly going after 99% of the balls bowled exposing the wickets or blocking them when it was too late resulting in LBWs.

Overall, the current West Indies team is not good. Well clearly we haven’t had a good one in a while. The sport has evolved and we cannot rely on raw talent anymore. Teams West Indies used to destroy in the past have moved way beyond us. Teams we used to rival in the past such as Australia and New Zealand, totally demolish us now at practically every meeting if not all. What are they doing differently? When Australia wanted to pull themselves away to make themselves better than us in our hay day, they started looking back at the tapes, at every angle. They took it to a technical level. It’s like what is happening now with the death of Brazilian or South American football compared to European football. Times are changing and so are techniques, styles and tactics. Therefore the way West Indies are currently and have been training need to change. In a situation with a an unfit Gayle who barely got cleared to play New Zealand, all should not rest on his shoulders.

As shocking as it may seem, some of us still rally around the West Indies and do not refer to them as the ‘Worst Indies’. There were a lot of men named, ‘Hopeton’ in the bar on Friday night. I am appealing for us to rebuild. At the end of the day, the players get blamed but from management right down is responsible.

Godspeed West Indies.

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