Love is.....

Valentine's day is here again and the boys of Sports Wall are here to tell you about the many different aspects of love...

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone. And may all your festive sport be magical.

Happy Valentine's Day

Today is a special day. Its the day of the patron saint of love, St Valentino.

  So sit back, relax and enjoy Valentine's day, the Sports Wall way.

Dani day in Deutschland

This week the giant bubble of hilarity that is the Moto GP paddock decamped to Sachsenring in Germany. Now this season has been missing something but finally on Sunday it happened. Dani Pedrosa won. It was marvellous. He had a brilliant battle with Stinky until about twelve laps to go when he overtook him with a lovely smooth maneouvre. The BBC for some reason seemed to think Casey 'had let him past' on purpose which is frankly ludicrous and anyway Dani's laptimes were faster the whole time he was stuck behind Casey and he clearly had no trouble keeping ahead of him once he did pass him. But there was more to come. Firstly we had the brilliant battles further down the field. Lovely Dovi and his teammate Cal Crutchlow were once again throwing everything they had at each other for fourth place, which eventually meant that Cal pushed a bit too hard and ran off track ending up in eighth. Valentino Rossi had a stellar battle all race with Nicky Hayden and Hector Barbera with all of them trading positions several times which was made all the better by Alvaro Bautista's stunning run from right at the back of the grid right through to seventh position.  The highlight of Alvaro's spectacular (and mad) race was his hilarious kamikaze move towards the end of the last lap where he seemingly said to himself "screw it. I'm going. Aaaaaaaaaah!!" and just lunged desperatley past three people and right to the edge of the track. I don't know how he stayed on but he did so kudos to Alvaro on that one. On top of all that excitement Vale managed to finish in sixth and home town hero Stefan Bradl finished in fifth which was really fantastic to see both for him and all the lovely people at team LCR, not least the delectable Lucio Cecchinello himself. But that wasn't the most dramatic moment of the day. This came on the second last corner of the last lap with Dani pushing hard and Casey pushing even harder to try and overtake him. Then the end of Casey's bike folded and slid out from underneath him. At HQ we couldn't believe our eyes, we'd been jokingly pointing at him all race (actually all season) in the style of the evil monkey from family guy and the bbc man had been predicting that he would retake the lead when suddenly down he goes. Actually though you could see it coming, he seemed to be pushing way harder than Dani and right on to his limits and a few times in the last few laps his bike had been squirming and sliding all over the track. So Dani wrapped up his first victory of the season and his hattrick of victorys at Sachsenring. His beaming little face on the podium was just wonderful and watching him jump up and down with excitement was adorable. And we even got a Pedrossi moment when they shook hands as they rode around post-race. Brilliant

Manning up in Le mans

I've been a little remiss in my lack of Moto GP posts this season. But the race at Le Mans this weekend was a cracker. It was in fact 'stonking' (thank you Charlie Cox.) Dani's day seemed to sort of ebb and flow as he started out in pole but then he seemed to get in difficulty and found himself back in six and at this point it would have been very easy to assume he was being over-cautious in the ridiculous conditions. BUT then first Cal Crutchlow and then Andrea Dovizioso fell victim to the slippery track and slid off while cornering. So Dani's very sensible little ways earned him a more than respectable fourth placed finish instead of the 'nightmare in a bubblecar' that the Tech 3 boys endured. Then there was Valentino. Now, you don't get to be a nine time world champion for nothing and there's no substitute for experience. During the past few months rumors of Valentino's fall were greatly exaggerated. But this weekend he showed us all what he was made of. He totally manned up this weekend and owned that circuit. He put in a vintage Valentino performance riding the wheels off his Duke to come home a fantastic second. The neighbours must once again have wondered what on earth was going on at HQ as the celebration level was pretty high given how long we've been waiting to celebrate for Val again. But the fun wasn't just restricted to on the race track. First up we had the lovely Matt Roberts from the BBC shoving right into Michael Schumacher in the middle of his live grid chat thing much to the frustration of Schumi's furiously gesticulating press lady. Then there was Michele Pirro very calmly nearly giving the BBC a heart attack by proclaiming something (the weather or his weekend I think, I missed exactly what he said) 'shit' live on air. At lunchtime. I don't think he even realised that he wasn't supposed to. So all in all a pretty good weekend in France.
PS: There's a pretty cool interview with Valentino up on Moto GP.com http://www.motogp.com/en/videos/2012/Monster+Energy+Presents+Ask+Valentino+1      check it out, he's pretty charming, as usual. Though I don't believe for a second he's a fan of Angelina Jolie

Dani day at Sachsenring!

There was absolute pandemonium in HQ today at the end of the Moto GP race. This was because Dani's marvellous comeback finally kicked into top gear today as he marked it with a win. Yes you read that right, in only his second race back our gorgeous boy won. Not just won, won in style too. He played it perfectly with a dynamite start, then some kick ass passing moves on stinky and Jorge. It was a stunning race all round with lovely Dovi and Marco engaging in a pretty livley scrap for fourth place which was later joined by Ben Spies. Valentino had his fair share of the action too, showing us he can still get it done in an almighty scrap with Alvaro Bautista and Fratboy Hayden. One of the particular highlights of the race was Alberto the happiest man on earth hanging right off the pit wall, waving like a madman at Dani to go faster. Also good was Dovi blowing kisses at the camera at the end, he's always a very charming boy. But by far the best moment for me today was eating my moto GP winning cookie at the end of the race. I made my moto gp cookie at the beginning of the day to eat with the race in honour of Dani and it ended up a victory cookie! And it was delicious.

The long awaited return

It's been a long wait but finally this weekend Dani returned to the Moto GP paddock. And of course there was a rather tall Italian waiting to greet him on his return. Unfortunatley it wasn't Valentino Rossi but Marco Simoncelli the cause of his absence. Poor Marco attempted to do the decent thing and shake Dani's hand in an attempt to put all the animosty behind them but Dani was having none of it. I was a little disappointed in Dani and his refusal of the handshake. I just didn't think he was that kind of person, he always seemed more mature than that to me. Don't get me wrong I understand why he would feel angry at Marco but I don't think continuing to blame him helps anyone. Maybe Valentino can have a word with him and help the situation since he's apparently friends with both of them. Having said that, I did enjoy Dani's deadpan declaration that "there's nothing in his [Marco's] head but hair." The race itself was pretty good with some exciting battles the whole way through the field. Dani foughtt his way from fourteenth up to seventh, which on his return from injury is pretty damn good. Jorge Lorenzo and Andrea Dovizioso put in sterling performances pipping Casey at the end of the race and throwing the chammpionship right back open. Also little baby Marc (Marquez) won again! Yay. We're quite fond of little baby Marc at HQ largely because he looks like the love child of Bojan Krkic and Justin Bieber.

Two Dani-less rounds

I've been slightly remiss about my moto GP postings, largely because there's been a Dani shaped hole in the grid for the past two rounds. I had to tape Catalunya because I was on holiday. I was hoping for a Valentino Rossi win since I was in Italy but fifth wasn't too bad, given he's still in the developing stage with the bike. I spent quite a bit of my day out in Riva skulking around bar canopies, leaning over in a super unsubtle way trying to surreptitiously watch their highlights. Luckily my mum then handily sent me a text informing me that "stinky" had won and Rossi had finished fifth. Stellar.
Then it was the British GP. It was eventful to say the least. Lots of rain meant crashes for Spies, Lorenzo and Simoncelli and lots of sketchy moments besides. Which means its all change in the leaderboard again. Unfortunately stinky is now leading but it does mean narrow the gaps at the top which lets Dani back in if he returns sharpish. A friend of mine attended the GP and has returned with autographs! I haven't managed to find out whose yet and the suspense is killing me, I can't wait to hear all the exciting stuff from the weekend.

Dani day in Estoril

I've already talked about one momentous event that happened over the weekend but there are even more to come. Starting here. With Sunday's Estoril GP. And a stonking GP it was.
Once again before it had even started we were on the right track with a press room bitch fest worthy of the red carpet. Jorge Lorenzo and Marco Simoncelli got into a little spat about Marco's ahem aggressive riding style. The highlight was Jorge telling him that "if it happens in the future with you, then there'll be a problem." To which Marco replied "Then I'll get arrested." What a guy.
The race itself was a tactical masterclass from Dani Pedrosa. Valentino Rossi would have been proud of his patience and perserverance in stalking Jorge until four laps remaining. Clever boy. Lovely Dovi also pulled out a hell of a strategy in reflecting the famous Elias-Rossi duel over the line from 06. Its turning into an amazing season already and with Le Mans up next we're sure to have more drama coming. Bring it on

Jerez GP - Crashes, hissy fits and comedy falls

Now that is how to start the season with a bang. This weekend's race had absolutely everything you could ask for and hopefully is just a taster of what we're going to get this season. So without further ado, let's dive right in.

The evidence mounts

"Pedrosa called me a few times when I was still in recovery, to see how I was doing and to tell me to stay positive," GPOne.com reports Rossi as saying.
The bromance lives! The evidence just keeps building. I think google plants this stuff in my way. Anyway I just found this and I thought it would make a sweet little pre-race thing.

Intergalactic in Estoril

An exciting weekend by all accounts in Estoril. Firstly Dani Pedrosa came back properly which you can all guess meant ecstatic celebrations at Sports Wall HQ (And Valentino's house proabably.) The race itself was a total cracker. Jorge Lorenzo won in a spaceman suit but that's of little consequence. Valentino and Andrea rounded out the podium which was fabulous to see, and hear as it meant we got two awesome Italian accented interviews for the price of one. Speaking of Andrea Dovizioso, what a fighter he is. Quite simply one of the finest duels I've seen in ages. Full credit must also go to Marco Simoncelli for providing high octane, precarious frankly insane overtaking and riding. Lots and lots of amore for our Italian lovelies this weekend. Another shout out for Marco for the card skit he did in his garage during the rain break, brilliant. Dani also produced some heroics coming back from twelfth on the grid while still recovering from a broken collarbone (its in FOUR pieces) to get as high as fifth before finishing eighth. I cheered him over the line like he'd won.
Finally to complete the joy we heard this weekend that the lovely Toni Elias is to return to Moto GP class with LCR Honda. And quite right too. He's a true pro and a true gent. We look forward to his return.

Get Well Soon Dani

Oh Dear. Weirdly a day after I posted a picture of him in a cast Dani Pedrosa has broken his collarbone. Its so heartbreaking, just as he was hitting a run of form. I'm sending lots of mental hugs and love Dani's way and I hope he gets better soon. We've got all the available harem members on cheering up duty buying grapes and promising back rubs (that means YOU Vale.)

feliz cumpleaños Dani

A special post for a special boy.

Its Dani Pedrosa's 25th Birthday today so Ruth's Sport's Wall warmly wishes our favourite Spanish speedster many happy returns. Here's hoping the rest of the harem throw him one hell of a party...not to mention all the gifts he deserves....