Is sport a religion? An interesting piece in the Cauldron looks at the similarities. One thought occurred to me reading it – there isn’t anything about rivalries and hatred. Religion is usually about love. But in sports, there’s a lot of hate, too. For me, that’s where the metaphor ended.
[PLUG] One quick reminder: do by my book if you haven’t yet – Sports Geek, great Christmas present.
F1
The Hamilton-Rosberg finale should be fun, but you know about that. Instead, let’s look forward. Is F1 in a crisis? I would say that there is certainly one brewing, as both Malaysia and Singapore look to quit hosting races. Bernie Ecclestone made a pivot to Asia long before anyone was talking in such terms, expanding the F1 calendar away from Europe and into new markets. But if those new markets can’t, or don’t want, to host F1 Grand Prix, where does the sport go from here? It doesn’t help calling Singapore “ungrateful“, either.
It’s not just races that F1 needs, it’s faces too. And one of the best is retiring. Here’s what you need to know about Felipe Massa’s farewell.
TENNIS
I make the case in Newsweek that Andy Murray is a bit lucky to be world number 1. Has Novak had the better year? Check out the numbers and decide for yourself.
DRUGS
The sneaky ways athletes try to beat doping tests and the reason why so many are eventually caught – a Quartz explainer.
RUGBY
The Economist does a very thorough job of explaining why the All Blacks are really really good.
FOOTBALL
Cristiano Ronaldo’s goodbye to the Calderón – a great bit of writing by Sid Lowe in the Guardian.
Forget the night-out controversy – Rooney isn’t fit enough these days, and that’s the problem. Compare to Ronaldo: he takes 3am ice baths to improve his metabolism, apparently…
CRICKET
Which are the greatest bowling performances of them all? A book has the surprising answers.
CYCLING
The FT’s Murad Ahmed looks inside British Cycling’s medal factory. Great feature.
Adios.
