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.

Fashion Files - World Athletics Championships

As you all know we love bringing you a bit of sartorial silliness with our fashion files series and after being inspired by the World Athletics Championships, we decided that we simply had to expand the range of fashion files. So hold on to your (celebration) hats everyone and join us trackside.

he ain't heavy he's (not) my brother

Inspired by Allyson Felix's brother Wes Jimmy Vicaut tries to assist Christophe LeMaitre after his injury in Moscow. Christophe is not so sure....

Early Impressions of Moscow 2013

So the World Athletics Championships kicked off in Moscow today. There were plenty of brilliant early moments; Italy's silver medal in the women's marathon, Mo Farah winning 10,000 m gold and a brilliant beginning to the decathlon competition but I want to focus on the 100 m.

Cartoons a la Francais

Some cartoons I've been working on of Christophe Le Maitre. Firstly a drawing of Christophe celebrating with Jimmy Vicaut inspired by this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_rsrGSV9ps (about 1.05 onwards)

And secondly a drawing of Christophe celebrating with Usain Bolt inspired by this photo http://photo.europe1.fr/sport/christophe-lemaitre-usain-bolt-maxppp-930620/21810095-1-fre-FR/Christophe-lemaitre-usain-bolt-maxppp-930620_scalewidth_630.jpg and christophe's pose inspired by this photo http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2012/07/26/article-2179282-14328494000005DC-744_468x286.jpg

The big (aesthetic) guide to Diamond League

Its been a little quiet around here but now we're back. And to mark a year since the London Olympics we're bringing you our big aesthetic guide to some athletes to watch out for the Diamond League.

Aesthetic Olympics part 2

So I enjoyed putting together my Olympics hotlist so much I decided to compile part two. Also the Olympics just continued to be awesome and provide me with plenty of inspiration. So hear we go, hold on to your hats.

Aesthetic Olympics

 As I'm sure you're all aware I love the olympics. And this year's event in London is no exception.   Now I'll get to the serious sports commentary bit later but first I've been inspired by Cosmopolitan's frankly shocking list of the hottest athletes at this year's games and I decided I could do a way better job myself.

Happy International Women's day

Once again its International Women's Day so here at Sports Wall we'd once again like to fly the flag for feminism and salute all the wonderful women making sports great.Firstly Hope Solo- She's beautiful, she's badass and she's absolutley brilliant at what she does. The ultimate women's day girl crush.
Elizaveta Tuktamysheva - She's a World Junior Champion, Youth Olympics Gold medallist and she won two Grand Prix titles on her debut. And she's only 15. Phenomenal.
Eva Carneiro - You may not know they name but you would certainly recognise her if you saw her. She's the lovley lady who sits next to the manager on the Chelsea bench. She's their first team doctor you see. Again she's gorgeous but more importantly she strikes a blow for girls in a male dominated industry and is so inspirational that we all just wish we were her.
Kim Clijsters - She retired for two years then when she came back she became the first wildcard and unseeded player to win the US open. Then she defended her title the next year. Then she won the Australian Open in 2011 to become world number one. And she's the (joint) most successful mummy in tennis history.
Caster Semenya - She won the 800m gold medal at the World Athletics Championships at aged 18. But the reason that we love her and the reason she is the perfect inspirational woman for women's day is the grace and dignity with she handled what must be every girl's worst nightmare. And for coming back and proving them all wrong and winning a silver medal at the 2011 Worlds. She's a wonderful example of courage and strength and I can't think of better slogan for Women everywhere than her very own "God made me the way I am and I accept myself." Right on Caster.
Happy Women's Day to all the kick ass ladies worldwide.

World Championships!

Over the last couple of weeks, I've been lucky enough to catch  plenty of the IAAF world Athletics championships in Daegu, South Korea. What a spectacular competition it was. Drama across theboard. I love big athletics events like this because there's such a massive variety of sports on show, its great to learn all the little details you didn't know before and such a wide range of athletes means you not only get some wonderful stories but you aadopt new favourites too. I invariably end up adopting lots of new people at these big events, as if I don't support enough people as it is.

International Women's Day

Today is International Women's Day! Happy Women's day everyone. Since this blog is pretty boy-centric usually and since of course it is run by a woman, I decided that today on Sports Wall we're going to pay tribute to some of the fantastic ladies making sports great.

Australians and Penalties

I've been watching more of the Commonwealth games of the past couple of days and I've come to the conclusion that Australians are unbelievably good at sports. Really unbelievable. Like phenomenally good. I say this because I watched them totally cane everyone at swimming, produce mind-blowing performances at diving and then this morning totally kick hockey's ass.
An interesting fact about Australia: their hockey team is called the 'hockeyroos.' How awesome is that? Which brings me perfectly on to another thing about amazing Australian sporting stuff. During their gold medal penalty shootout this morning (which they won, duh) I heard the Australian hockey coach give possibly THE best advixce on how to take penalties I've ever heard. His pearl of wisdom was "Don't worry about feinting or dummying it, don't worry about the goalkeeper's movement just hit it at the target as hard as you can."
Now that is brilliant. Not only did it totally work for hockey, it works for football too. Or I assume any other sports with penalties. Its so simple but so genius. Just hit the target. When you really think about it, this is the method that stands the highest chance of success. If you over complicate your penalty by attempting to confuse or second guess the keeper your chances of missing are higher. But if you simply blast the ball at the target you have a much higher probability of scoring because at least its in the right are straightaway.
So the lesson I have learnt from the commonwealth games is in strategic terms always keep it single. Also that Australians are awesome.

Athletics

I've been watching the athletics in Delhi this week. I enjoy big athletics tournaments. And the commonwealth games is no different. I've managed to catch a few running events which have been good. The one thing I enjoyed most unexpectedly (or not if you know me) was the men's swimming relay. Just wow. Holy Cow were those australians good, a stunning performance, also kudos to south africa. I've also enjoyed the diving, which I find absolutley fascinating, the precision involved is mind blowing. I'm not normally very patriotic for dear old blighty but I did cheer a few times for the home nations this time. And it was very nice to see a healthy medal haul. I've also caught some throwing events, high jump and long jump and I'm hoping to catch pole vault tomorrow afternoon as its a sport i do enjoy.