The Welshman who struck gold at the World Championships last August has been stricken by a
Posted in General on 22. Aug, 2010
The Welshman, who struck gold at the World Championships last August, has been stricken by a hamstring injury as he prepares to challenge for the Olympic high- hurdles crown in September. He has been cured before by the Bavarian doctor, whose unorthodox methods include the injection of cocktails containing cell parts from calves’ foet-uses, pigs’ blood and honey extract.Müller-Wohlfahrt, the German team doctor at Euro 2000 and Bayern Munich’s medicine man for 22 years, has been dismissed by some as a maverick quack. “I know there are many who say my methods are strange,” he acknowledges, “but after so many years they only have to look at the achievements I’ve had. I have built up a huge client list and I’m proud of the work I’ve done to get sportsmen back to full fitness.”Over the years that list has included such luminaries as Boris Becker, Katarina Witt, Stephen Roche, Jimmy Connors, Daley Thompson, Diego Maradona, Linford Christie, Michael Owen and Roy Keane. Even Luciano Pavarotti has sought the healing powers of Müller-Wohlfahrt, who earlier this year expanded his operations to include consultancy work at a new sports injury clinic owned by the boyfriend of his daughter, Maren – one Lothar Matthäus.When Jose Maria Olazabal donned the green jacket at the US Masters last year he dedicated his victory to the good doctor Not that Müller-Wohlfahrt boasts a 100 per cent record. Indeed, he has yet to find a lasting cure for one of his English clients. Relieving Darren Anderton of his sick note could be his greatest challenge.Harry in, Boz outThere are only 62 days to go now before the formal opening of the Sydney Olympics, but only 60 before the opening event.
The opening ceremony takes place in the Olympic Stadium on Friday, 15 September, two days after the battle for gold has actually commenced. The competitive action kicks off on the evening of Wednesday, 13 September, with the staging of six group matches in the Olympic football tournament.One of the fixtures features the Olyroos, as the Australian Socceroos have been renamed. They will be captained by Middlesbrough’s latest recruit, the former Fiorentina midfielder Paul Okon, who has been chosen as one of three players over the age of 23 that each team are permitted. Contenders for the other two places include Mark Schwarzer, Mark Viduka and Stan Lazaridis, though Mark Bosnich has ruled himself out, not wishing to leave Old Trafford in case Fabien Barthez suffers a loss offitness or form.Among the younger element will be Harry Kewell, for whom the lure of an Olympics on home soil has proved greater than the possibility of Champions’ League football in West Yorkshire. Kewell is a Sydney native, as is Christian Vieiri, who was hoping to be one of Italy’s over-age players before he suffered the hip injury that ruled him out of Euro 2000.Internazionale announced on Thursday that Vieiri will be out of action for a further two-and-a-half months, which means there will be no return home for the man who lists Allan Border as his hero and who owns a restaurant at Darling Harbour in the heart of Sydney.
Not that Kewell will be on hometown soil when he lines up for the Olyroos on 13 September. Their opening match is at the Melbourne Cricket Ground.World at her feetMaria Mutola, one of the leading contenders for the women’s 800m title in Sydney, last week came to the rescue of Grupo Desportivo when she authorised the sale of a million dresses bearing her portrait to boost the financially-stricken Mozambique football club. Mutola is best known as the reigning Commonwealth 800m champion and holder of the world indoor 1,000m record, but she owes her status as one of the leading ladies of middle-distance running to her skills as a footballer.It was while playing as a teenage striker in Maputo that her potential as a runner was spotted by Jose Craveirinha, Mozambique’s most celebrated poet and a sporting philanthropist. He arranged for Mutola to be sent to college in the United States on an Olympic Solidarity Scholarship. “I could tell that she would be good at running,” Craveirinha says, with reason if not rhyme.Percy’s progressAnd finally… Over the years the Olympic football tournament has featured some of the greats of the game: Ferenc Puskas, Lev Yashin, Oleg Blochin, Michel Platini, Ronaldo, Romario and Nwankwo Kanu among them.
Since 1960 it has not been graced by any Great British players – because of fears that Fifa might press for the introduction of a combined England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland team at international level – but Britain were the inaugural Olympic football champions in Paris 100 years ago. They were represented by the amateurs of Upton Park, whose right-back, Percy Buckingham, went on to fast-bowling fame for Essex and the MCC.. What else is there to do on a wet weekend in Wetton except sit there twiddling your toes? But something is afoot. There they are, a dozen mean-looking men and eight nervous women, gathered in a marquee, pinkies poised and putting their best feet forward ready to do combat in what surely qualifies as the most bizarre event ever to be held in the name of sport: the World Toe-Wrestling Championships. What else is there to do on a wet weekend in Wetton except sit there twiddling your toes? But something is afoot. There they are, a dozen mean-looking men and eight nervous women, gathered in a marquee, pinkies poised and putting their best feet forward ready to do combat in what surely qualifies as the most bizarre event ever to be held in the name of sport: the World Toe-Wrestling Championships.
Locking toes has become more than an annual village ritual deep in the Peak District, a decent hike from Ashbourne and on the borders of Dovedale.
There they reckon they are worth at least a footnote in sporting history.It all began in the mid-Seventies, when a group of walkers, putting their feet up at the inn, debated over a few pints how it was about time the British invented a sport at which they could actually win. So, after a few giggles, the World Toe-Wrestling Championships were born – and were promptly won by a Canadian. So they shelved them for a while, until the then publican, George Burgess, decided to resurrect the event seven years ago. Now he has retired to become the president of the World Toe-Wrestling Organisation, whose championships have progressed to become among the whackiest on the summer calendar, traditionally held in the middle of Wimbledon.To the uninitiated it may seem that here we have the final repository for fruitcakes, but those who do indulge reckon they get a kick out of it – well, at least a bit of a twitch in the toes. Basically toe-wrestling follows the principles of arm-wrestling, the idea being to force the outside edge of your opponent’s foot to touch the side of the “toe rack”.