[theo_luddite]

Another weekend of sport at it's most unpredictable best, for the most part, both competition and weather wise.

Seth Efrika beat the Bent Stick Throwers at Lords in a game that looked like it could have finished by Friday lunch or tea-time at one point.
Take a bow AmChaff, the only one that didn't bet on an Aussie win and the only one to pick up a point this weekend.

You'd have to be really Spaun-y to have predicted that JJ Spaun would win the US Open. On a course that had been described as impossible to play by some, the toughest test in golf lived up to it's name. That the winner was the only one to break par over 4 days, not helped by a Sunday afternoon deluge that stopped play for 90 minutes says a lot about how the course was set up. Our best efforts, Scheffeler finished tied 7th on 4 over and Shauffele was tied 12th on 6 over, despite the pair of them having two of the best rounds of the final day. No points all round there then.

I missed the first half of the shale shifting on Friday night, but the 2nd half was some of the best Speedway racing I've seen at this level. After a slow start, Dan Bewley showed that home track knowledge and riding the boards was the way to go to win the final on Friday. What he did afterwards to himself or his bikes later on Friday night didn't help him on Saturday as his first 4 outings only produced 3 points. A last race heat win put him in the last chance qualifiers, but he gated badly, stuck to an inside line and came last again. Meanwhile, Bartosz Zmarzlik, who looked a bit out of sorts on Friday but still finished 2nd in the final produced a master class on Saturday. Winning his first 4 races he'd already more points on the board than anyone else could muster. A lacklustre 3rd in his 5th race still gave him prime gate position in the final, which he won easily in comparison to some of the other racing this weekend. The other Belle Vue favourite, Aussie Brady Kurtz, finished 3rd on Friday and 2nd on Saturday and he came 2nd in the Sprint Race on Friday.

Zmarzlik is back at the top of the leader board, 11 points clear of Kurtz.

The biggest surpise, to me anyway, was that with a few laps remaining in the Fi in Montreal, nobody had given the "Wall of Champions" the traditional annual good hard smack. Then a few laps from the end, Lando Norris tried to squeeze what is essentially a rectangular box into a cheese wedge shaped gap between the pit wall and his team mate. To say his wheels fell off is an understatement. George Russell won from Crash Verstappen, with Crash never really getting close enough to add more points to his licence. Most of the action with regards to overtaking was going on more than a slack-handfull of places back from the front 5 until Lando didn't quite land his attempt.

In those two North American Winter Competitions that go on until almost next Winter ......

Florida are leading Edmonton 3-2 at Slap-Shot and Indiana and Oklahoma are currently 2-2 in the Peach Basket shoot-out.

Elsewhere in competitions we're not covering, I'll admit I didn't see a single serve and volley but apparently the Ladies put on a darned good show at Queens and it looks like being a fixture going forward. Doff of the cap to Tatjana Maria, a 37 year old mother of 11 year old and 4 year old daughters for winning the final. She hopes to hang around long enough to play Doubles with her eldest daughter. Keeping it in the family, her coach just happens to be her hubby. The men start today.

Apparently there was also some football played in some daft competition in the USofA. How the hell a part-time side from New Zealand qualified defies logic. That they got battered 10-0 doesn't. The only surprise was they stopped Harry Kane scoring. Then again, if you mark him with all 10 outfield players ....
England U21's drew 0-0 with Slovenia in the Euro U21 Championship in Slovakia. I listened to this on 5 Live and it made one of Town's worst performances of last season sound interesting. Another similar result, or better still a win, v Germany will see both go through to the knockout stages as England defend their trophy from 2023.