Now that the 2022 WSL World Championship season is over it is probably an appropriate time to revisit a story published by Chas Smith in online journal BeachGrit a few years back. One would think that, after his scathing critique of this ludicrous practice, that winners of surfing contests would have put their feet down by now and refused to be made to look like a staggering … [Read more...]
Training mysteries in the times of COVID
Strange and mysterious stuff happens during Covid lockdown. Even stranger stuff happens when attempting to train under Covid lockdown conditions. A good example of the mysterious times we live in happened to me yesterday. I turned up at my local lap pool, in the morning, ready to knock out two kilometres of freestyle. The sign on the door demanded, not surprisingly, that … [Read more...]
Outstanding (but not well-known) sporting achievement
Lifelong surfer and former Manly (Sydney Northern Beaches) resident, Greg Mossop, is possibly the only surfer in the world who has dropped-in on two world champions on the one wave! He freely admits that many surfers can boast that they have dropped in on more than one world champion in their surfing lives, but it is the fact that he managed the feat on the one wave that makes … [Read more...]
Swimmer smashes recent times…
After a week of recording pitifully slow freestyle times over 1500 m, swimmer and sports philosopher, Socrates, knew he had to change something. "I was swimming like a bloody soccer player, all week," lamented the ancient Greek athlete and thinker, "...so I had to come up with a solution!" Miraculously, Socrates shaved five minutes off his recent times while swimming at … [Read more...]
Small town Rugby League star gives birth to brilliant strategy!
Like many big bloke athletes, a mate of mine (who, incidentally, was the hard man power forward for my high school basketball team), considered himself a tactical mastermind. Not too many years ago, Big David was still playing in the back row for the Warialda Wombats regional Rugby League footy team. As a student of the game and a serious thinker to boot, David used to look for … [Read more...]