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

Moto GP merch

Check it out - I've acquired a Valentino Rossi shirt. It will from now on be my 'race day shirt.' I love it so much.
PS: You'll notice that on the TV behind me you can see the half-time highlights of the Euro 2012 final.

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 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.

Belated Birthdays

Two of our favourite boys in the world of sport have had birthdays this week. First on monday (14th) our little french ray of sunshine Bacary Sagna celebrated his birthday. We hope they had a little party for him at the emirates and we can only assume Gael Clichy did something nice for his friend on his anniversaire to make it joyeux. Then on the 16th Valentino Rossi turned 32. Once again I like to think somebody from the moto GP crew threw him a party. And I sincerely hope and pretty confidently guess that Dani Pedrosa got him a present. Many many happy returns to a fabulous pair of all round fantastic gentlemen. Have a glass on us guys.

Moto GP - The most beautiful love story

In tribute to the fabulous, passionate, crazy genius that is Valentino Rossi here is his version of the most his most beautiful love story (no not the one with Dani)
"Many things have changed since that far-off time in 2004, but especially ‘she', my M1, has changed. At that time she was a poor middle-grid position MotoGP bike, derided by most of the riders and the MotoGP workers. Now, after having helped her to grow and improve, you can see her smiling in her garage, courted and admired, treated as the ‘top of the class'.” Unfortunately even the most beautiful love stories finish, but they leave a lot of wonderful memories, like when my M1 and I kissed for the first time on the grass at Welkom, when she looked straight in my eyes and told me ‘I love you!'"

(picture via motogp.com)