Wimbledon finals again

Once again the Williams sisters Venus and Serena are contesting Wimbledon. I am a fan of these sisters I am not a tennis fan, but I have my favourites whom I can spend the whole day watching them from way back starting from John McEnroe, Stephie Graafe, Martina Navratilova. Later the likes of Amanda Coetze for being a South African I could hardly see her play, Pete Sampras and the Williams sisters were the latest on my list. This Wimbledon was full of Surprises one of the Russian heavy weights was eliminated very early except Dementieva who lost to Venus Williams on the semis. Serena faced the sensational hard working Zheng Jie whom I thought won’t give Serena much problem, but she did. Serena had to dig deep into her experience to beat her.

I have heard people say they don’t like it when finals become a family affair others went as far as suggesting that the final will be decided over the Williams dinner table. Honestly the experts never gave the Williams sisters a chance. When they joined professional ranks sceptics called for their father to leave them to the pros if he wanted them to succeed. He ignored all those calls and succeeded then they moved on and said he won’t sustain the high standard he had set for the girls it is time to go. When they dominated the circuit people began to talk of family affair that is boring, that they don’t give their all or the final is decided at home. I wish for Venus to win this time her sister dominated her in all the finals in England.

Maybe there is something to say about EURO after all

EUFA EURO 2008 went out with a bang. I guess they answered critics like me in the best way possible especially Turkey and Spain. I thought I would see the finals being contested between those two unfortunately lucky didn’t favour the Turks. Germany never look liked they would go through to the finals, but their sheer guts and determination took them trough. Ironically one of my man of the tournament would come from them. Short tempered Sweinsteiger. He was outstanding except that he saw red along the way. Spanish Sergio Ramos was the engine room, when he didn’t play Spain was not playing. When he stepped up the gear from back to the middle to being a thorn on the flash of the defences Spain always looked dangerous. Well done to Spain they deserve it. Initially I thought the Semis would be between Spain, Holland, Portugal and Croatia with Holland taking it. Well done Spain, I can’t wait to see you in South Africa next year on Confederation Cup. I hope we won’t embarrass ourselves because I know Egypt won’t.

Not much to write home about in Euro 2008

In Soccer there is a lot of superstition, I remember in my playing days we believed that when you leave a change room you must not look behind until you reach the field of play. It has been around for some time but when my friend told me that Liverpool was going to win the 2005 EUEFA champions league finals against AC Milan I thought he was crazy. On paper AC Milan was the favourites, but he told me “ In 1982 the Pope died… Prince Charles married princess Diana and Liverpool won the champions league,” he said. Needless to say the out comes reflected that.

In Euro 2008 I tried mine, when realising that Spain was going to play Italy I started looking at their history . What I found out was astounding, Spain had failed to live up to expectations in big tournament … and I thought that was a general knowledge. They had played three of their last major tournaments until penalties. Incredibly they had lost all those matches. They lost to Belgium in Mexico1986. Lost again in Wembley against England in 1996 and recently against South Korea in 2002 in Japan. . In superstition terms odds were against them.

Italy had its fair share of misfortunes in penalty shoot out in the world cup finals in 1990, 1994 and 1998 but that seemed to have past as they had won on their last penalty shoot out in 2006. I watched the whole match between Spain and Italy thanks to paternity leave I didn’t have to wake up and go to work. I was not surprised though when Spain won because like Italy they had to break that bad luck at some stage.

I think Afcon was more enterprising than Euro 08. Players are tired from long season and not much is different from European leagues and the Champions league.

I wish Spain good luck.

What is more important than life?

When driving on the free way why do motorbikes drive between cars? Why can’t they use the far right small lane which is normally unused and it is not an emergency lane either? Is it illegal to do so? I have seen so many motorbikes involved in accidents as a result of driving between the cars. I am always aware of them on the road especially when they have their head lights on bright it makes it easier other motorist to monitor them on their rear view mirrors.

Earlier this morning just before 06h00, a black Volvo was joining the onramp at high speed right in front me. I was driving on the middle lane at about 70km per. That car came straight from the on ramp to the lane on my left going past in front of me on the middle lane and straight across to the right lane. On joining the right lane not to mention that it did not even indicate the intentions to change lanes a motorcycle had just passed me, and two seconds later what I saw was horrific.

The Black Volvo bumped the motor bike. The impact didn’t seem to be that much until what followed, the bike flew to the air like a piece of wood sending the biker soaring to a big lamp post and back to the far right small lane . On the ground he did not make any movement and I assumed he was dead. I immediately I stopped the car and ran to what looked like a lifeless body. By the time I reached him more people have stopped their cars and ran to help. To my relief he was still alive, he could still move his body including his feet.

There was a young lady whom when we all panicked and didn't know what to do was very calm. She took charge of the situation like and accident professional if there is any thing like that. I was very impressed she called metro police who took ages to come. Seeing that so many people were helping and they were coping I decided to leave as early as I could.

I have seen the Think bike guys pleading with the motorists on freeway bridges, on TV and on the radio, but by the look of things no one is listening. Lets respect them as we respect other motorists. I don’t want to imagine how many people were inconvenienced by just what happened this morning. One accident can cost one up to an hour on the road. Lets think bike.