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6057. jexster - 7/6/2008 10:45:41 PM 
6058. wabbit - 7/6/2008 11:09:21 PM  Rafael Nadal ended Roger Federer's five-year reign at Wimbledon on Sunday, winning a riveting, five-set marathon to claim his first title at the All England Club and signal a changing of the guard in men's tennis. Nadal held off a stirring comeback by Federer from two sets down to prevail 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5), 6-7 (8), 9-7. He became the first man to win the French Open and Wimbledon in the same year since Bjorn Borg in 1980. Nadal, the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon since Manolo Santana in 1966, avenged his losses to Federer in the last two finals here and snapped the Swiss star's All England Club winning streak at 40 matches and overall grass-court run at 65. The rain-delayed match ended in near darkness after 4 hours, 48 minutes of play -- the longest men's final in Wimbledon history -- when Federer slapped a forehand into the net on Nadal's fourth match point and second of the game.
Somebody had to lose the ladies’ singles final, but there was to be consolation for Serena Williams in the doubles, as she and elder sister Venus captured a third Wimbledon crown – their seventh Grand Slam title – by defeating Lisa Raymond and Samantha Stosur, 6-2, 6-2. Raymond and Stosur are both former doubles number ones: As a pair, they won the US Open in 2005 and Roland Garros in 2006, and in the first half of 2007 they collected five titles on the tour. But when Stosur fell ill and missed most of the second half of the season, their prospects suffered. Still, the pair have enjoyed a vintage week, first defeating third seeds Kveta Peschke and Rennae Stubbs in the last 16, then breezing past unseeded Ekaterina Makarova and Selima Sfar in the quarters. In their semi final they made top seeds Cara Black and Liezel Huber look ordinary. But today, with their powerful and well-grooved returns, the 11th-seeded Williams pairing made life hard for the resolute serve-and-volleyers from the get-go. Indeed, while Raymond and Stosur, the No.16 seeds, play a classical doubles game – at the net – they were often forced to play from the baseline far more than they must have have liked...
Wimbledon
6059. wabbit - 7/6/2008 11:10:07 PM 
Spaniard Alejandro Valverde won the opening stage in a final sprint Saturday as cycling's three-week showcase took a first step in trying to get beyond the doping scandals that for years have battered the race and the entire sport. "I've achieved two of my objectives: to win a stage and to wear the yellow jersey," Valverde said. "That's done today. ... It gives me peace of mind for the rest of the race." Valverde, fresh off winning last month's Dauphine Libere and the Spanish championship, broke away from the pack at the end of the 123-mile leg from Brest to Plumelec. On a windy day marked by four crashes, Valverde was followed by Philippe Gilbert of Belgium and Jerome Pineau of France. The top U.S. rider was Christian Vandevelde in 18th place...
Le Tour de France news
6060. alistairconnor - 7/7/2008 3:10:32 PM Tyson Gay. A tough name to carry for a sportsman.
Imagine the guys on either side of him, eyeing him before the starting gun.
Wondering if he's going to bite their ears off. 6061. alistairconnor - 7/7/2008 3:35:29 PM Good sign for the Tour : (I know, I've been saying for the last few years that this time, it's going to be clean. But this time...)
Greg Lemond is back visiting the tour, after five years of absence... He's quoted in yesterday's papers, saying that he was approached to put together a team in 2001, and they asked him if it was possible to win the Tour without doping. He said no... But he says that now things are different, he's "99% optimist".
Greg fancies the Australian, Cadel Evans. As good a guess as any. Valverde is also looking good. 6062. alistairconnor - 7/7/2008 3:41:42 PM Third stage today, across Brittany from Saint Brieuc to Nantes. About an hour from the finish. A group of four out in front, but they will get chewed up in the last few kilometres. 6063. alistairconnor - 7/7/2008 4:34:46 PM Hey hey they're going all the way...
If they make it, a French boy will get the yellow... Romain Feuillu 6064. jexster - 7/7/2008 10:23:19 PM Greatest Tennis Match Ever Played
It was exhausting just to watch 6065. alistairconnor - 7/8/2008 4:22:34 PM  Oh oh it looks like little Romain Feuillu has had his day in the sun (and wind and rain...)
He's doing the time trial now, and he's well off the pace. He's got 1 min 48 seconds on the serious contenders but he will lose all of that and more... Serious contenders for the yellow today are Englishman David Millar, and Luxemburger Kim Kirchen.
6066. alistairconnor - 7/8/2008 4:25:18 PM Valverde is off the pace too. I suspect he's having a rest day. Saving it for the mountains. Let someone else make the running. 6067. alistairconnor - 7/8/2008 4:32:32 PM Ah no. Millar and Kirchen are in the same second. But Schumacher beat them both by 18. He'll be in yellow tomorrow, unless I'm missing something. 6068. David Ehrenstein - 7/8/2008 7:22:04 PM 
6069. concerned - 7/8/2008 7:38:11 PM Why don't the Mote administrators just rename this thread the 'Spurts Illustrated Gay Lust Object' thread? 6070. wabbit - 7/8/2008 8:15:53 PM Why don't you pony up and take on the responsibility for maintaining a thread for a while?
That said, concerned is right. I'm personally bored to tears with all the gazing in here. Put it in the Sex Thread or in Jexster's thread. And no, Jexster, your one-liners aren't going to cut it here; either have something more than the usual ooohing and aaahing or put it elsewhere.
It will all be moved or deleted without further notice in the future. 6071. alistairconnor - 7/10/2008 4:08:11 PM Oooh mama! The boss is back!
The Tour is arriving at Super Besse, a small ski station in the Auvergne. It's not an extreme climb -- 2nd category -- I've done it myself, a few years ago with my mountain biking crew. This time of year, hot day, melting road, and severe time constraint (we wanted to take the cablecar up to the top of the ski slopes, to ride down the other side, and they only took bikes in the morning)
We probably suffered more than the guys are today. 6072. wonkers2 - 7/13/2008 3:13:59 AM 100th Detroit Gold Cup Hydroplane Racing 6073. TheWizardOfWhimsy - 7/15/2008 8:42:56 PM What a culture!
6074. jexster - 7/15/2008 9:37:23 PM Never bothered with the NEW Yankee Stadium til today...Seeing as this is the last year for the old one
It is BEAUTIFUL
Cool thing is ..all field dimensions exactly the same except distance from Home to the backstop. 6075. wabbit - 7/16/2008 3:52:47 PM Holy cow, is that poor kid being fed steroids or what? That can't be natural. 6076. wabbit - 7/16/2008 3:53:43 PM  I didn't make it to the end of the game, but from what I saw it was a good one this year. By the ninth inning, Tito had used all his field position players, so his team (except for the pitchers) was set for the duration. After a record-tying 15 innings and a record-shattering four hours and 50 minutes, after every player on each team that could be used was used -- and some, possibly, abused -- the AL finally put away the NL, 4-3. It was one of the most remarkable, frustrating, thrilling, patience-shattering exhibition games in the long history of the sport. The last All-Star Game in Yankee Stadium continued the AL's mastery of the sad-sack NL, which hasn't won one of these things since 1996. The only non-loss in that time for the NL came, memorably, in a 2002 11-inning tie in Milwaukee that prompted baseball to up the All-Star rosters to 32 players per team and award home-field advantage in the World Series to the winner.
For a while, it looked like this might be the NL's year to win. The NL took a 2-0 lead, the first run coming on an opposite-field home run from Colorado's Matt Holliday. The AL tied it up with -- horrors of all horrors in Yankee Stadium -- a two-run homer from Boston's J.D. Drew. The NL struck back in the eighth with a run off Boston's Jonathan Papelbon (to the delight, somewhat strangely, of the Yankees fans). The AL tied it in the bottom of the inning.
And then they played on and on and on. And on some more. The NL got its leadoff hitter on in the ninth. Nothing. The AL had its first two on in the 10th. Nothing. The AL had its leadoff man on in the 11th and 12th, the NL in the 12th and 13th. Nothing. And some more nothing.
Then finally, in the bottom of 15th, with the NL on its last pitcher, Minnesota's Justin Morneau singled off Philadelphia's Brad Lidge, Tampa Bay's Dioner Navaro singled Morneau to second, Drew walked to load the bases and Texas second baseman Michael Young -- who hit a game-winning two-run triple in the 2006 game -- lofted a fly ball to right field that was just deep enough.
The throw from Milwaukee's Corey Hart was a little on the first-base side of home, and Morneau slid in just ahead of the tag from Atlanta catcher Brian McCann. Somewhere, commissioner Bud Selig -- who took the blame for the 2002 debacle -- let out a long, slow exhale...
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