Long before the Buena Vista Social Club beguiled audiences around the world, revolutionary Cuba’s sporting heroes enjoyed global renownOn a warm evening in a Barcelona suburb 24 years ago, the air thick and heavy, the light-grey and gold, Cuba and the USA met in a baseball game that was as much a contest of ideologies as an Olympic semi-final. As the two teams lined up to shake hands before the semi-final, each Cuban presented his opponent with a commemorative pennant. The Americans had come empty-handed.The USA team consisted of college boys, some of them on the brink of Major League-careers. The Cubans were veterans of their domestic league, unbeaten in almost 70 internationals. After a scoreless first hour, it was...
Toni Minichiello, Jessica Ennis-Hill’s coach for nearly two decades, explains her early desire to improve and how her grandfather had to renegotiate the dealPeople will say I am biased but to my mind Jess is the greatest British athlete of all time. Who else has had the career she has had? Olympic champion at London 2012. Double world champion. Seven global medals – more than any heptathlete in history – plus another couple in the Commonwealth Games and European championships, too. And to return to the top after having her son, Reggie, in 2014, when so many experts believed the stresses of the heptathlon would make it impossible, says a lot about how talented and tenacious she was. Related: From...
Described as Tadpole by her peers and racially abused as a junior, Ennis-Hill – who retired on Thursday – rose beyond her frame to conquer the heptathlonJess Ennis-Hill had her first hangover when she was 16. She had been out at a friend’s house, acting like any other teen. Someone spilt a drink, someone else tried to clean the stain with raw bleach. It was that kind of party.When she woke the next day she pulled a pillow over her head to try to make the daylight go away. But she had to go and compete in a junior athletics meeting. She threw up once before she got into the car, and then again when she got out of it...
As an athletics correspondent Anna Kessel closely followed Jessica Ennis-Hill’s career for almost a decade. Here she reflects on the Olympic gold medallist who embodies the notion of a strong and powerful 21st century womanI’ll never forget the first time Jessica Ennis-Hill blew me away. It was 2009 and we were following her progress at the world championships in Berlin. Her buildup to the event had been horrible – missing the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games with a broken ankle and having to retrain for the long jump using a different leg for take off. We knew she was in brilliant form, despite the setbacks, but in the shot put she stuttered. Two weak throws and her points tally suddenly looked...
Robert Young’s attempted ultra-running feats attracted great sympathy and support, given his troubled history, but when his honesty was challenged his backers did the right thing – and set a rare exampleIt was a story that melted hearts and scrambled minds. Two years ago Robert Young was sitting on his sofa watching Mo Farah in the London Marathon when his girlfriend bet him 20p that he could not run 26.2 miles. The next day he proved her wrong. Then he repeated the trick, only faster. Incredibly, by his telling, a year later he had completed 370 marathons, often getting up at 2.45am to run round Richmond Park in London before he went to work.Soon there were flattering articles in national...