2010 Winter Olympics

The 2010 Winter Olympics, officially the XXI Olympic Winter Games or the 21st Winter Olympics, will be a major international multi-sport event held on February 12–28, 2010, in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, with some events held in the resort town of Whistler, British Columbia and in the Vancouver suburb of Richmond. Both the Olympic and Paralympic Games are being organized by the Vancouver Organizing Committee (VANOC). The 2010 Winter Olympics will be the third Olympics hosted by Canada, and the first by the province of British Columbia. Previously, Canada was home to the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal, Quebec and the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary, Alberta. Read more

David Villa held up the European Championship trophy, which the Spaniards had not won in 44 years.

A championship 44 years in the waiting is worth a special celebration.

Spain made sure it didn’t disappoint any of its fans Sunday night, both during its 1-0 victory over Germany in Vienna, Austria, that won the European Championship, and after it.

Fernando Torres scored in the 33rd minute, and the Spaniards never backed down. Their last significant title came in the 1964 Euros.

“It is to me the most important day in Spanish football in many, many years,” Torres said.

The Spaniards got the one goal they needed and set off chants of “ES-PANA!” and “Ole, Ole Ole!” at the final whistle.

The entire Spanish squad ran over to the huge rooting section of red and gold, exchanging hugs, while many of the spent Germans collapsed to the turf.

“We played the best for the entire tournament, and we beat some great teams,” Torres said. “We beat Italy, the World Cup champion, and we beat Russia and now Germany. That is how you become champion.”

When Spain goalkeeper and captain Iker Casillas accepted the trophy on a stage, the Spanish fans began chanting the melody to their national anthem, which has no words. Thousands of camera flashes went off as the players jumped in place and then headed onto the field to show off their prize.

The Spaniards weren’t close to being finished with their celebration. They marched to their rooting section, hoisting the cup and saluting their flag-waving, firecracker-exploding fans.

“We have won in a brilliant way,” coach Luis Aragones said. “We will be able to start saying we can win, a European championship as well as any other thing.”

Courtesy: kansascity.com

By Grahame L. Jones, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

Spain wants Coach Luis Aragones to stay, but Aragones wants to leave.

Italy wants Coach Roberto Donadoni to leave, but Donadoni wants to stay.

Austria doesn’t care what Coach Josef Hickersberger does, so Hickersberger has quit.

Coaches were all the news Monday, the first non-playing day in more than two weeks at soccer’s European Championship. The tournament resumes with the semifinals Wednesday and Thursday.

The Spanish are one of the four remaining teams — along with Russia, Turkey and Germany — but their 69-year-old coach said that, win or lose, he would be stepping down after Sunday’s final in Vienna.

“I thank all of those people who have addressed words of encouragement or compliments,” Aragones said, “but . . . this adventure is ending for me, whatever happens to Spain here.

“We have created a great group with a great atmosphere. But I’m not going to get involved in whether they should offer me another contract or not. It is over and that is it.”

For Donadoni, the picture is less clear. He had breakfast Monday with Giancarlo Abete, president of the Italian soccer federation, but revealed little of what was said.

Asked whether he would resign in the wake of Italy’s elimination Sunday, Donadoni rejected the idea.

“Resign? The thought would never even enter the antechamber of my brain,” the 44-year-old coach said.

“It’s not because of a missed penalty that I’m going to change my opinion of our European Championship, that would be stupid,” he said, referring to Italy’s ouster by Spain on penalty kicks.

“With respect to those who should decide, I’m not going to try to sway them. My record speaks for itself. I’m not going to try to talk it up.”

Hickersberger, meanwhile, made a preemptive strike, stepping down on the day before his fate was to be decided by the Austrian soccer federation.

“I am stopping. . . . I feel empty and tired. I need to take a break and recharge the batteries,” he told Austria’s Der Standard newspaper. “The chapter is closed. My mission has been accomplished. I have reflected long and hard.”

Always good for a quote, Hickersberger, 60, then delivered one of the best of the tournament in a broadside at referees. “They treat us like circus bears,” he said. “I don’t want to be a circus bear anymore.”

Austria, the lowest-ranked team in the tournament, failed to win a game, and Hickersberger, along with Germany Coach Joachim “Jogi” Loew were ejected from the Austria-Germany game for arguing with the fourth official.

In one other development Monday, Italian referee Roberto Rosetti was selected to take charge of Sunday’s final.

Source: latimes.com

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

Good to talk: Guus Hiddink instructs his Russia squad.

Take Jose Mourinho, add age and vast experience, and you get Guus Hiddink. At 61, he is 16 years the senior of the Special One and comes with all the confidence, wit and cheek of Mourinho. Then again, it is hard to imagine Mourinho driving through the countryside on a Harley-Davidson in the manner Hiddink likes to relax.

On Wednesday, Hiddink maintained his outstanding record of taking national teams out of the qualifying group to lead Russia into the quarter-finals of a major tournament for the first time. He did it with some considerable style, his team outplaying Sweden – who needed only a draw – with a delightful approach that served as a warning to the teams still here.

With a delicious piece of irony, it is his native Holland that stands between Russia and history. At the end of the Sweden game Moscow exploded, the 15,000 Russians inside the Tivoli Neu Stadium could not contain their delight and neither could the players. But Hiddink stood calmly on the touchline and turned to his coaching staff, urging them to keep a lid on their excitement.

The players in this squad and before have discovered he is not a man to mess with. During Euro 96, when in charge of Holland, Hiddink sent home Edgar Davids and more recently, he warned his top two strikers, Andrei Arshavin and Roman Pavlyuchenko, that they could both miss Euro 2008.

Regardless of the result tonight, Hiddink’s future looks good. Asked if he could manage Sweden one day, he laughed, but his response will alert teams around the world. “We’ll see what happens after this European championship.”

He has agreed verbally to two more years with Russia and is paid handsomely, with Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich contributing to his salary. But he ruled himself out of the running to replace Avram Grant at Stamford Bridge. “I’m enjoying my job right now,” he said recently. “I get a lot of positive energy working with young people, teaching them a few things. It’s a big motivation for me to keep going.”

And, on his ability to motivate the Russians, he added: “I demand a response. I don’t want to sound cocky, but if you want to play at international level, then the demands I lay down means you can go one of two ways: either fly, or fight. That’s the choice we offered. They chose to fight.”

As Marco van Basten’s side may discover in tonight’s game, such a warning, probably also uttered to the Dutch more than a decade ago, could return to haunt them.

All the 13 matches will be broadcast live on ESPN and STAR Cricket.

Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, UAE and Hong Kong are participating in the 13-day continental tournament.

An array of former international stars has been lined up as commentators.

ESPN STAR Sports presenter Harsha Bhogle, Ian Chappell and Marvan Atapattu will be based in Singapore while on-site commentary team will have past stars including Waqar Younis, Bruce Yardley, Danny Morrison, Rameez Raja, Wasim Akram, Aamir Sohail and Arun Lal.

Source: http://www.hindu.com

“Although the Royal Challengers failed to make much headway, the Rajasthan Royals sponsored by my company lifted the trophy,” said Mallya, who had openly expressed his unhappiness with the way the Rahul Dravid-led Royal Challengers performed in the Twenty20 cricket extravaganza.

The flamboyant businessman, who also owns a Formula One team besides an airline, felt the IPL has added a new dimension to cricket.

“IPL has defined cricket. IPL was the biggest blockbuster and phenomenal market success for TV,” he said.

Mallya said the tournament will help India build a “world class squad” by throwing up talented youngsters. Mallya also did not see anything wrong in cricketers making some quick money through the slam-bang format.

“When football players could make money why not cricketers?” he asked.

Mallya hoped that the England and Wales Cricket Board would also allow its players to participate in the next edition of the event.

“They will do so next year,” he said. PTI

[Source: http://www.ptinews.com]

The 2008 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as Euro 2008, is taking place in Austria and Switzerland from 7 June to 29 June 2008. It is the second successful joint bid in the competition’s history, following the UEFA Euro 2000 hosted by Belgium and the Netherlands. The 2012 competition in Poland and Ukraine is scheduled to become the third jointly-hosted tournament.

A total of 16 teams will participate in the tournament. Austria and Switzerland automatically qualified as hosts; the remaining 14 teams have been determined through qualifying matches which started in August 2006. Austria and Poland will be making their first appearance in the tournament. The winner of Euro 2008 will represent UEFA at the 2009 FIFA Confederations Cup in South Africa, unless Italy wins the tournament, in which case the runner-up will be entered, as Italy is already entered as the winner of the 2006 FIFA World Cup. (Source: wikipedia.org)