From Nasser Hussain’s farewell century to Rocky Marciano’s perfect legacy and Eric Cantona’s lack of doubt, we salute six triumphant farewellsThe decision had already been made when Nasser Hussain went out for his final Test innings. An international career that spanned 14 years had seen him become perhaps the pivotal figure in the last few decades of English cricket. It was Hussain’s brilliant captaincy that had pulled England up from the nadir of being ranked last in the world and laid the groundwork for Michael Vaughan, the 2005 Ashes and all that. Vaughan got the glory, but he had Steve Harmison, Andrew Flintoff, Marcus Trescothick and Andrew Strauss at their peaks: Hussain’s first Test as captain featured Aftab Habib and...
Olympic sprinter is regaining fitness and aiming to be back running on the track next year after a horrific motorbike accident in Tenerife left him in a wheelchairJames Ellington waits for me on an ordinary weekday afternoon but, before I see the Olympic sprinter, I spot his crutches. The Indoor Athletics Centre at Brunel University is full of young runners, bristling with health, and it takes a while to find Ellington. I then see the crutches leaning against a high jump mat, where a man sits, and I know it is him.Ellington waves and then, slowly but determinedly, he hoists up his damaged body and moves towards me. It is easy to tell the 31-year-old how impressed I am to see...
By the end of the 5-1 Champions League capitulation there was an air of sadness, of a wonderful manager caught in the final stages of a long goodbyeThis was a strange, decelerating, ultimately rather sad occasion for a great club and a wonderful manager caught in the final stages of his own torturous long goodbye. Before kick-off a caravan of two hundred or so Arsenal supporters had staged a procession from Highbury to the Emirates in protest at Arsène Wenger’s continued employment, a kind of Jarrow march for the parochially enraged of north London. “We want you to go, we want you to go,” they sang on the streets outside the stadium. “No New Contract,” the signs read. Which, as...
Allegations about the American coach are not going away, which means both he and Farah must engage more fully with those who are challenging themThe last time I spoke to Alberto Salazar, in a hotel lobby in Beijing, he offered some simple financial advice. “You should put your money on me being cleared,” he said, smiling. “It’s a winning bet.” That was in August 2015, in the midst of a blizzard of allegations and an investigation by the US Anti‑Doping Agency against him. Yet 18 months later he remains in limbo, neither damned or saved, still awaiting his fate. And there, right beside him, stands Sir Mo Farah and British Athletics.Who would have predicted this in June 2015, when the allegations...
Farah remains Britain’s most popular athlete by a mile but at the Great Edinburgh International XCountry there were the first stirrings of a changing of the guardEven after defeat they chanted Mo Farah’s name like a mantra, the cries of “Mo! Mo!” growing more urgent as the chances of a selfie with him faded. The reaction is similar whenever he runs in Britain. For all the negative headlines around the United States Anti-Doping Agency investigation into his coach, Alberto Salazar, and the questioning of his relationship with Jama Aden, the Somali coach who is under investigation by Spanish police, Farah remains this island’s most popular athlete by a mile. Related: Laura Muir targets European and world medals in 2017 after...