Eventer Zara Phillips Marries in Scotland

Zara Phillips marries Mike Tindall in Scotland

Weddings aren't usually big on this blog but this weekend British eventer Zara Phillips got married so I thought a little comment was in order. For anyone who doesn't know her - she is a former Eventing World Champion, BBC Sports Personality of the year in 2006, and one of the UK's Olympic hopes. Plus, although she plays this down as much as possible, she's the Queen of England's granddaughter.

Zara Phillips world champion on Toytown

Zara Phillips Badminton

Eventing is far from easy - she's broken a collarbone among other injuries - but it's the more the huge effort she makes to mostly pay her own way and avoid the celebrity-value of being born into the royal family that brings her in here. It would be so easy to sit back and let The Family take care of her, but she walks her own path.

Some friends saw her jump in Dublin at few months back at the Tattersalls International CIC where she rode really well but was forced to retire on Lord Lauries. So she's still looking out for that perfect horse to make an Olympic medal a reality. She is officially retiring Toytown this week at the Festival of British Eventing.

In the meantime, she's so committed that her honeymoon was put on hold - only two days allowed. It probably doesn't help that her now-husband plays rugby for England and has a wee competition - the World Cup - coming up soon. Training first all-round then.

In an interview here, she said: "She said: 'You go about choosing the horses you get on with. It is very much a partnership sport so you have to work on everything together to get the job done, that would be the most important way of looking for the right horse. Taking part in London would be a massive dream for me personally, the pinnacle of my career, because everyone wants to go to the Olympics in every sport, so it would be a massive honour."

Thailand's female boxers go to the Olympics

Great interviews from Global Post with the women on the Thai boxing team preparing for the Olympics. As with the male fighters, many of them were Muay Thai boxers first and now are changing over. Interesting look at a culture where women are not meant to be physically strong or act in a 'masculine' way. Plus ca change ...

Thai Women Boxers Going to the Olympics

Pressure on 2012 boxers

Interesting piece in one of the Irish papers today looking at the effects of only having three weight divisions for women's boxing in the London Olympics. Looks like there will be a large shuffle with boxers moving up and down the divisions to try and qualify. And something tells me the women moving down from higher categories will stand a *slight* advantage as long as they can keep the weight off. 

Taylor pic Lucozade Sport

For anyone reading that who hasn't seen how easily boxers drop kgs, it might sound nuts. But if you're fit and know how to skip in a sweat-suit or even in a sauna (oh yes) then dropping five or more kgs just in time to make a weigh-in is not difficult. And depending on how long you have before the actual fight, you can be back up at your normal weight by ringtime. But lighter women trying to go up, or women naturally in these three divisions could face problems. Bulking up means losing speed and agility, plus mentally you feel slow and a bit trapped in your gloves.

A former Irish champion interviewed for the piece, Michael Carruth said: "There is huge pressure on Katie (Taylor, Irish world champion) that she just needs to turn up and win. That’s not right. Two World champions will come into her weight division because there are only three weight categories in the Olympics for women. You will have the 64 kilo class going down to 60 and you’ll have the 57kg boxers going up to 60kg. 

"Then you are looking at beaten semi-finalists and quarter-finalists also flooding into the same weight category."

If you think of all the quality women boxers you know, and imagine them shoehorning into three divisions with just 36 places, well the getting there is going to be as big an achievement as medalling. While Taylor faces incomers, another favourite of mine - Mary Kom from India - will be looking to go up. The divisions are: 

Fly Weight (48-51kg), Light Weight (57-60kg), Middle Weight (69-75kg) 

Sadaf Rahimi, Afghan Women's Boxing Team pic Majid Saeedi

What about the boxers from your country? How are they fixed for qualifiers?

Sweat-free Olympics Play Fair 2012

"The legal minimum wage in Sri Lanka is Rs7,900 (£45 per month). Although workers making goods for Adidas, Nike and Speedo tend to get paid Rs10,000 (£55 per month) this is still below the official UN global poverty line of $2 a day. People can't meet their basic needs with this meagre wage. A recent survey by the Sri Lankan government found that 67 per cent of women working in the garment sector are suffering from anaemia because of poor diet." 

This is an extract from a disturbing report on the Trade Unions Cogress (TUC) site on working conditions for the (mostly) women making sports-clothing for Adidas, Nike and Speedo in Sri Lanka.  Trade unionist Nirosha Priyadarshini Manankanda Dewage recently came to the UK to give a series of speeches on the factories and let us know what we can do to help her improve life for these workers. 

You can read this full TUC report here

It's disheartening how little things have changed. Have you read No Logo? You could think with all the attention given to sweat-shops they might disappear but it seems the bottom-line still rules.

What can we do?

Gaza marathon

Marathon in Gaza pic Al-Jazeera

There's an unexpected headline. Over 1,000 runners took part in the first marathon held there a few days ago; a 10km, a half and a full marathon. Most did the shorter races, the marathon was run by Palestinian athletes training for the London Olympics.

The course says a lot - run from the border with Israel to the border with Egypt, exactly 42 km. Aside from hundreds of school children, the only woman running was one of the UN workers who organised the tournament. The race was run to raise funds for summer schools held every year for school children in Gaza. You can read more about how it all works here on the UNRWA site.

Mary Kom wins again at Asian Cup

Mary Kom pic Glamour Indian

Indian boxer Mary Kom won gold in the 48kgs division at the Asian Cup yesterday. This was her fourth time taking the title, beginning to be bit of a habit. She beat Kim Myong Sim from North Korea in the tournament, running in China at the moment. 

Mary Kom with her medals

Her website reminds us she has already won five World Titles and somehow finds time to mother twin boys as well, hope her husband helps out a lot! 

Unfortunately the 2012 Olympics will not include a 48kgs division for women. As this is the first year they are including us, there are only three divisions - compared to ten for boys - to start with. They are: 

Fly Weight (48-51kg), 

Light Weight (57-60kg) 

Middle Weight (69-75kg) 

I'm sure Kom will be gunning for one of the 36 slots  - 250 men - but it will be a big ask to get in the ring with women that much heavier. For those of you not initiated into the madness of boxing, fighters usually 'walk around' a good bit heavier than their fight weight and then come down to meet the requirements. So Kom could be aiming to fight at that heavier weight, feeling sluggish and out of sorts. That said, she has a year to prepare so you never know. I'd love to see her take an Olympic medal to add to her amazing story. 

More on Kom here. 

Let the countdown begin

I found this on Vimeo earlier this week, great to see the hype building up around women boxers for the Olympics next year. Enjoy -- and have a great weekend!


First Assignment: Women's Boxing 2012 Olympics from Montana Mann on Vimeo.

Winter Olympics joins 21st century

A Norwegian reader (thanks Marte) sent me a link about the IOC's decision to allow women ski jumpers in the tournament. I'm a bit late to the party on this one but bloggers' prerogative and all that ...

So it seems ski-jumpers have Canadian Katie Willis and her friends to thank for this. They took a rights case to a Canadian court, claiming they were being discriminated against by not being allowed to take part. Can you imagine having to take a human rights case to be allowed compete in a sports tournament? Well, not just any tournament but still. Really Jacques Rogge, this is what you want happening on your watch? Can we all please pack up and join the 21st century? (hard to do in Europe at the moment with royal weddings and beatified popes everywhere but let's try)

Katie Willis, Canada

I'm pleased for the new generation of ski-jumpers, and sure there will be more of them now with the Olympic gold as a lure. But was saddened to read that Katie Willis herself is near the end of her career so may not compete in Sochi 2014. In the story, she said: "I've been off for a bit so that does make it hard to get back and get into the rhythm of it. But it's definitely possible, there's still a few years."

I'm sure we missed out many great boxing fights too. Looking forward to seeing all of these women compete in the next few years.

Green Olympics for London?

Happy Earth Day everyone! Just noticed the animated Google-logo for today, very cute. But of more relevance to us are the plans to Green-Up for the London Olympics next year. 

From reading this BBC story, it looks like eco-plans were part of the scheme from the start. The committee report says: 

• on target to cut 100,000 tonnes of carbon emission from the building stage 
• cleaned up two million tonnes of contaminated soil from the venue 
• plans to develop 150 acres of urban parkland around the proposed venues 
• restoring 45 hectares of polluted land to wetlands ( great for the locals too)

However, and sadly, they have had to downgrade their plans to produce 20% of their energy from renewable sources to just 9%. This BBC report says that's down to a lack of a main wind turbine. 

Still, it is a lot more positive than you might have expected from such a massive event. Two more reports from the organisers to come, it will be interesting to see what practical eco-measures they will put in place for the athletes and spectators.

And as an aside; I smiled at the caption the BBC have on a photo of the 1948 London games: "Environmental concerns were not an issue for the 1948 Games' organisers." Any excuse to get in how often London has hosted the games I guess. 

What eco-measures have you seen at large sporting events?

Boxing after 2700 years

Two months to go before the tickets for the London Olympics 2012 go on sale. No prizes for guessing that the boxing is high on my list of things to see, it is very exciting that women are finally being allow to compete.

Anyone watching the amateur world championships last September for the first time would have been shocked at the standard - higher and higher with each fight. The days when women fighting was a freak-show are long-gone with most trainers now happy to take on women fighters in their gyms. It's still a macho world but at least the doors are open now. One Dublin trainer I talked to a few weeks back just grinned when I asked him how he feels about the women training in his gym: "If you want to fight in a man's game, you have to fight like a man," he said as he threw the female fighters into sparring with the boys. Nice.

The video is from the successful "Let Them Box" campaign run to end 2,700 years of waiting to compete in the Olympics. You'll meet many of these women over the next few months here.