Ruth's Sports Desk - Special Edition

Here's my super special London edition of my sports desk. A couple of weeks ago I won tickets to go and watch Arsenal play Standard Liege in the Champions League at the Emirates! I was super excited and somehow between screaming, dancing and nearly crying I managed to organise a return trip on a bus and I was soon on my way. Well it was an incredible night, a dream come true. When we (me and my dad) arrived we got the tube to Arsenal tube stadium which was exciting enough in itself then walked down the road to see the old Highbury. Then we went to the Emirates itself. The stadium is breathtaking, absolutely huge and looks just beautiful. Its lit up with big 'emirates' lights and has massive murals on the sides with pictures of four players in a row with their backs to you and the names of Arsenal legends like Rice, Brady, Bergkamp,etc on them. There's big, old cannons at the front (from when it was actually an Arsenal) and I got my photo taken next to them. The gift shop is unbelievable anything you can think of to put an Arsenal crest on, they have. Then we went inside the stadium and when we walked out to take our seats I nearly cried, its so incredible that I just filled up with emotion (I know that sounds OTT but seriously it was like nothing I'd ever seen before and I have been wanting to go for so long.) Our seats were fabulous, bang on the halfway line and with a perfect view. We saw the players warming up (with Pat Rice!!) which was beyond exciting and discovered that the Arsenal song is 'the Wonder of you.' The match itself was great, Arsenla totally dominated and with slick passing and very sharp play. Alex Song was absolutely immense, Bacary Sagna was tireless on the wing with Kieran Gibbs also very energetic. Andrey Arshavin was very impressive as was Samir Nasri. And Tomas Rosicky played for about 20 mins which made me absolutley delighted and over excited because I love him, he is one of my absolute favourite players ever. So all in all it was a magical night.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Moto GP Season Review

Here I am officially bereft for the Winter so as part of the coping process I'm writing my 2009 season review! And what a season its been, there may have been ups and downs but it was never anything less than thrilling, exciting and of course utterly STONKING.

Best victory- Dani's win in Laguna Seca. It came off the back of difficulties and DNFs and on the day he totally stormed it. Plus his unrestrained joy (and Vale's able assistance) on the podium was the cutest thing ever.

Best celebration - A tie between Vale's chicken and Jorge's space helmet and moonwalk.

Most exciting moment- Vale's last minute overtaking on the last corner on the last lap in Catalunya. Adrenalin rushes don't come better than this.

Biggest 'nightmare in a bubblecar' moment - Dani's crash in Mugello. Already injured he slides off at a corner and curls into a tiny, heart-breaking ball and has to be stretchered off. Cue wailing and tears in my house.

Best off track extra-curricular fun- a tie between legendary, stick-man Loris riding an elephant and the Yamaha crew's 'day at the office.' Colin Edwards has missed his vocation in life as a hardcore security guard/all round comedian.

Sweetest Moment - Senor Toothpaste himself Toni Elias giving Dani a lift back to the Parc Ferme after his bike ran out of gas. And every single time Dani and Vale are anywhere near each other.

Special award for all round dorkiness, adorableness in the face of adversity, biggest fanboy, hardest worker, Miss Congeniality and biggest smile - Andrea Dovizioso.

Best Race - Donnington for drama, Malaysia for joy and giggles, Brno for unpredictability, Valencia for a perfect joyous season finale.

So raise a glass and says 'cheers' to an awesome season and 'for suuuuuuure' an even better one next year. Huggy Dani and Vale wish you a happy off season and look forward to (ahem) doing it all again in 2010.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Nobody Does it Better/ Old Chicken Makes Good Soupy!

Congratulazioni e baci grandi a Valentino! The Doctor sealed his ninth world title (seventh in premier class) today in Malaysia. It was a thoroughly well deserved title with his season being absolutely sublime, exciting start to finish. He came third today in rain soaked conditions and after a very difficult start in which he ended up eleventh after running wide on the first corner. So I salute a true champion who constantly raises the bar and is the most amazing ambassador for his sport. Vale you are a hero.

Also lots and lots of amore to Dani and Andrea today. Dani came second after a very assured ride which was his first podium in wet conditions which was also a super achievement. He seemed really happy and super giggly after the race which was lovely to see. Poor Andrea was running in third and looking really impressive but the slippery conditions got the better of him and his bike slid away from him a few laps from the end. So (mentally) sending a bucketload of consolation kisses his way.

Ruth's Sports Desk- The return of extracurricular Thursday

Well here we are again. Another Thursday another round of random activities to keep the boys occupied. Today the extracurricular fun department decided to send Dani go karting with some of the baby bikers (that's 125 and 250 class riders,) Legendary Loris to an elephant sanctuary with Hiro Aoyama, Nico Terol and Hector Barbera (more baby bikers,) Toothpaste Toni to some mechanical event in Bangkok (No that isn't a euphemism) and Jorge and Valentino to the Petronas Towers. Vale and Jorge seemed to enjoy themselves and as you can see the competition continued with Vale managing to attract two pretty girl fans and Jorge only getting one (bless his little socks.) As you can see poor Jorge is still feeling the effects of crashing at the weekend with his plaster on his hand and swollen and scratched nose (all together 'aaaaahhhh') but at least he can take comfort that chicks do indeed dig his scars. There was also another press con with (this is rapidly becoming a tradition) Vale and Dani sitting together again, unfortunately we're not lucky enough to be gifted with another suggestive, eye-gazing picture this week but as a small bonus here's Legendary Loris and his new friend Hiro Aoyama riding an elephant.

Ruth's Sports Desk - The return of sixy football and excitement in Estoril

Well that sure was a fun-filled weekend of sports. First up Moto GP. The boys rolled in to Estoril for the latest round of racing and this week was the return of Casey Stoner (yawn.) He seems to have recovered form the most boring mystery illness in the world and is now back in irritating form. Once again Dani Pedrosa started the race super fast but was soon overtaken by Jorge Lorenzo. Dani had a right old battle with Casey and although he was a couple of seconds behind it really seemed like he was going to catch him. Poor Valentino struggled in fourth with grip issues but despite being miles behind Dani he was also miles in front of enforcer Edwards, so had a lonely but useful race. Lovely Dovi had a cracking battle with toothpaste Toni that went right up to the line with almost nothing in it and toni taking sixth and Dovi seventh. So Jorge emerged victorious and promptly did his routine of sticking a 'Lorenzo Land' flag on the racetrack. That's spiced up the title fight a bit with Valentino's lead down to 18 points with three races left. Casey was second and Dani third which means there's only about three points between them. I was rather disappointed that Casey was back on the podium so soon as I was robbed of seeing Dani and Valentino indulge in their normal overly chummy lets make Jorge jealous speculation inducing podium love in.

Next up (and on the same day, I nearly combusted with excitement) was Arsenal vs Blackburn. It was an interesting game which started badly as we conceded an early goal then went behind again. But we fought hard and were absolutely majestic going forward. We scored 6 goals and each of them were wonderful, particularly the wonderful left foot volley from Thomas Vermaelen (who is now our top scorer and a centre half!) All of the players put it an amazing display with Cesc Fabregas in particular standing out, assiting on four of the goals and scoring one himself. It was a great game to mark Arsene Wenger's 13th year in charge (happy anniversary) and even Thierry Henry was there watching in the stands.

Enjoy a random photo of Andrea Dovi at a petrol station opening looking sweet just for kicks.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Closure

The transfer window is officially closed (cue the party) so the madness is done at least until january. Arsenal's moves were pretty low-key with the major outgoings being Kolo Toure and Emmanuel Adebayor and our major signing being Thomas Vermaelen. Well here's who I would have signed had I been in Arsene Wenger's position.

1. Anatoliy Tymoschuk. (he actually went to Bayern Munich) He's a formidable defensive midfielder and fast too. Plus check that early nineties Kurt Cobain look he's rocking, right on.

2. Danijel Pranjic (again Bayern Munich got him) He's a super fast, clever winger. Excellent at full back and amazing at bombing forward. And he has model standard cheekbones.

3. Dani Guiza (plays for Fenerbahce didn't move in the window.) Because he's the second coolest person named Dani in Espana. Oh Yes. Plus he's pretty damn good at scoring goals.

Ruth's Sport's Desk - Thrills and Spills

This weekend was all set to be fantastic one - Arsenal vs Manchester United and Moto Gp from Indianapolis but once again reality intervened to bring me crashing down.

Arsenal lost 2-1 to Man U in a an absolute travesty of a match. Arsenal played much, much better with flowing passing, commanding midfield and many many close shots on goal. But thanks to some absolutely diabolical refereeing and one very very bad header Man U scraped the win. They got a penalty that shouldn't have been and anyone saying I'm biased watch it again Wayne Rooney is already on his knees by the time Manuel Almunia gets to the ball, Darren Fletcher absolutely scythed through Andrei Arshavin in the box and got away with it and Arsenal had a goal incorrectly disallowed for offside. What a joke.

The race at Indianapolis was a bit better. Dani Pedrosa had absolutely dominated all weekend, storming to a magnificant pole position and in the beginning of the race he once again stormed to the front and was looking so strong until he lost the front end and came off on lap 4. He did however manage to get his bike back p and running ok and carriedon like the little hero that he is (more on that later.) Which left Valentino Rossi in the lead ahead of Jorge Lorenzo. Everything pointed to another epic battle but Valentino suffered an almost identical front end issue and fell in about lap 9, he also got his bike back but was not as lucky because shortly after finding Dani and being passed by him (very very sweet of him like Donnigton in reverse) he had to stop because his bike was no longer working. Which left Jorge ten seconds clear in front and cruising. The battle for the other podium positios was super close with Nicky Hayden, Alex de Angelis and lovely Andrea Dovizioso all working tremendously hard. Dani meanwhile was lapping at one second faster than the entire grid and manged to ride everyone down and with the help of Niccolo Canepa and Marco Melandri falling off managed to finish in a fantastically fought tenth place after overtaking one of the suzukis almost on the line. He was so brave and so clever and I was absolutely thrilled for him managing to save his day. Jorge won and celebrated by climbing the fence and throwing himself at his crew, De Angelis finished second- a timely podium for him as like Toni last week he has also lost his contract at Gresini Honda and Nicky Hayden came third with Andrea almost taking it on the last lap. So plenty of excitement as usual and in the immortal words of the bbc guy STONKING.

Oh and today marks the return of Grand Slam tennis with the US Open kicking off at flushing meadows. Vamos Rafa.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Athletics Special

Well this week I've been watching the World Athletics Championships in Berlin (on TV obviously.) I have to say I'm really enjoying it. I do love these massive competitions where they have loads and loads of different events going on. Of course everybody knows about Usain Bolt and his world record breaking runs but there have been plenty of other exciting things going on. Elena Isinbaeyeva the women's pole vault champion who has won everything going had a shocker of a final failing early on and coming last, which was a massive surprise for everyone. There was plenty of drama in the womens high jump too with Blanka Vlasic fighting it out with Ariane Friedrichs in a super tense final and eventually coming out on top and coming pretty close to breaking the world record. Great Britain's very own Philips Idowu put in a very impressive performance turning in a jump of 17 metres 73 to take triple jump gold with Jessica Ennis (also British) storming to victory in the heptathlon. Providing possibly the highlights of the whole tournament, two Germans roared on by the home crowd threw their way to magnificent victories in the women's javelin and men's discus with Steffi Nerius at 37 proving that age is no barrier to awesomeness and providing a heart warming glow looking beyond proud on the podium with flag flying. And Robert Harting showing just how hardcore and supercool he is by ripping his own shirt in two with his bare hands then lifting up the bear mascot and carrying him around for a little while. Kenenisa Bakele maintained a 100% lifetime record by masterfully winning the 10,000 metres. And there was too many other exciting and dramatic races in all of the running events to mention So all in all its been really really cool. Good Stuff.

Ruth's Sports Desk - hit for six, sixy football, six appeal,etc.

Unbridled joy! The premier league season has returned and in some style too.

Yesterday Arsenal's premier league campaign got off to a flyin start. On paper an opening game against Everton at Goodison park was a tricky fixture. But Arsenal soon blasted away any suspicions of opening day nerves. The whole team was cohesive, fluid and sharp. The passing was superb, the attacking flow was nothing short of awesome and the defence was solid, yes you heard me solid. William Gallas and new boy Thomas Vermaelen were both commanding presences at the back and Vermaelen was hardcore and willing to fling himself in all day long. Gael 'on fiiiiiire' Clichy and Bacary Sagna were tireless in their running along the flanks once again. Alex 'superfly' Song has made super progress and is really becoming a solid and dependable player in midfield.

The first Arsenal goal was a wonderful curved, mid-distance shot from Denilson which really showed his progress. This was followed by two amazing TEXT BOOK headers from corners by Gallas and new boy Vermaelen sealing a wonderful debut from him, then an amazing combination of passes from Robin Van Persie and Cesc Fabregas, a wonderful run through from midfield to give Cesc a brace which he marked with a lovely gesture of respect for his late friend Daniel Jarque. The final goal was a tap in from Eduardo which made his return super lovely too!

Arsenal are now at this very moment- top of the league! It was a fantastic day and hopefully the start of a fruitful season. Come on you gooners. Oh and some select other results - Sunderland beat Bolton 1-0, Middlesbrough won 3-0, Newcastle also won 3-0, Liverpool lost 2-1 to Spurs.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Czech it out.

Today's Czech GP held at the circuit at Brno, marked the return of moto GP after a three week summer break. Interesting news all round before the race. One: Casey Stoner is taking his own hiatus and will not ride in the next three races due to his continuing 'health issues' ie his mystery tiredness. This means big things for the title race; Jorge and Valentino have a chance to pull away and Dani has a chance to catch up and nick third. Two: Repsol Honda have announced that Dani and Andrea will be staying at HRC for another two years. Which is fantastic news as they make a great team and complement each other very well. Three: Gresini/San Carlo Honda announced that they have signed Marco Melandri from Hayate (Kawasaki) and Marco Simoncelli from the 250 class. Now that is one hell of a team, I'm predicting plenty of hijinks and hilarity from that garage next year. I think the Marcos will make perfect teammates and can probably do a great job on the satellite hondas. However and this is a big however, this means Toni Elias and Alex de Angelis are out of a job which is a real shame because they've been doing a stellar job for the team.

Now to the race. Dani and Valentino made rocketing starts whereas Jorge had a shocker. However he soon found his way back towards the front. So Valentino took an early lead followed closely by Dani, again followed closely by Jorge. Then just behind them came Andrea Dovizioso, Toni 'senor toothpaste' Elias and Loris 'can't kill him with a stick' Capirossi. Dani held up Jorge for a few laps with Toni doing the same job on his lovely teammate Andrea. Jorge found a way past and before long he and Valentino had pulled away. Dani also opened up a gap on the chasing group leaving him to ride a very lonely race. With 5 laps to go Jorge lost the front end and crashed handing the race and title advantage to Valentino who now has a 50 point (two races worth) advantage. Dani hung on in his lonely bubble to claim a solid second. Toothpaste Toni did a stellar job holding off lovely Dovi to claim a well deserved and job prospect boosting third. So a cracking race all in all with the bbc guys doing their irreverent best once again, one of the highlights being them yelling "Valentino is in your head!!!!!" repeatedly at Jorge as he crashed.

ps: Toothpaste Toni is the cool dude on the right. Check out that million dollar smile.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Unbridled Joy

Its the moment I've been waiting for, my boys have finally gotten their sticky little hands on a trophy. Here is the glorious moment that Arsenal won the Emirates cup. They beat Rangers 3-0 today and these beautiful images are the result. I particularly like Emmanuel Eboue's choice of trophy as hat celebration technique. They should be very proud of themselves as this great little pre season display provides a handy confidence boost ahead of the new league campaign and a chance to evaluate the squad. I must say early signs seem good. Our forward line is firing, midfield are delivering and the defense looked generally ok. Its always excellent too to see the vitality, creativity and huge potential in our youth players.

Ruth's Sports Desk - Mountain Climbing in flip flops.

This weekend heralded the final moto gp race at Donnington Park for the near future. And boy did it go out with a bang.

It was half raining which meant the track was slippy but not wet enough for wet tyres. However that didn't deter Ducati who went for full wet tyres meaning that a few laps in Nicky and Casey were circulating on shredded tyres. Dani, Valentino, Jorge and Andrea Dovizioso (this cutie on the left) all had excellent starts. Toni Elias aka Mr Toothpaste had a stonking start and led briefly before touching the white line at the edge of the course and flying off. A few laps on Jorge stormed into the lead only to suffer an almost identical crash. Which left Dani, Valentino and Andrea to fight it out. Andrea and Valentino began to pull away and Dani began to struggle mostly I think due to the ridiculously sketchy conditions and the fact that Toni Elias had crashed literally inches from him making him super super cautious. Then a few laps on Valentino lost the front end of his bike and fell but managed to get it upright and running again. He rejoined the race in 11th position by which time Dani began storming backwards on the grid (hmmm what a 'strange' coincidence.) Andrea on the other hand consolidated his lead and flew home 1st ahead of Colin Edwards who cae form nowhere in a quite frankly stonking performance and Randy de Puniet who put it a really courageous and strong race. Valentino somehow managed to make up a huge gap and finish 5th while Dani ended up 9th. So massive massive congratulations to lovely, sweet, ditzy Andrea who thoroughly deserves his moment after all his determination and positivity.

Ruth's Sports Desk- A Welcome Return.

It is with great delight that I can finally say the words I have been waiting over a year to say "Tomas Rosicky is back." Oh yes. He has actually officially played football again. Hurrah!

He's been injured with an uber complicated knee complaint since January 2008. He returned to training at the end of the season and has been training intensively in Prague. He played the first half of Arsenal's first pre-season friendly against Barnet during which he was captain. I'm so pleased he's back, he's one of my favourite footballers ever and both myself and the Arsenal team have missed him badly (not that I know them or anything, its just obvious.) So I am now very very excited and hopeful for the new season. In other Arsenal related news our new signing Thomas Vermaelen played the entirety of the Barnet match and seemed to be looking good.

Now to Moto GP. Last week's race was at the Sachsenring (spelt right oh yes) in Germany. It was very exciting. Valentino and Jorge were once again fighting it out for the lead and exchanged positions several times, Valentino overtook Jorge with two laps left and came over the line 0.9 of a second ahead of him. Casey Stoner was third for a long time but begaan flagging towards the end which allowed Dani to reel him in and overtake him and even make up some ground on the leaders. It was great. Dani is now right back in the fight for a top three finish.

And finally some sports related news that I found out this very morning. Roger Federer's wife Mirka has had twins. Both girls, named Charlene and Myla. Aaah sweet. How very very nice. Congrats.

Ruth Sport's Desk- CL Review part two

Wednesday's matches again presented me with a viewing dilemma, namely that I couldn't watch my beloved Arsenal as their match was broadcast on Sky (boo, hiss) which I don't have. Instead I listened to the commentary on Radio Five Live Sport Extra which was frustrating and hilarious in equal measure- a particular highlight being the commentators' comparison of Julio Baptista to a random fan from the stands and their assertion that 'we're not overegging it he really is THAT bad.'
The game once again started badly with Arsenal conceding an entirely unnecessary goal due to a defensive mix-up between Kolo Toure and William Gallas. The game was exciting and tense- end to end stuff with both sets of midfielders and full backs working overtime. There was a case for a Roma penalty at the end of the first half with the referee controversially ignoring the entire Roma team's appeals and the collective howls of derision from over 60,000 angry Italians inside the Stadio Olympico when Roma full back Marco Motta was brought down by Gael Clichy.
The second half was full of missed chances with both teams coming very close to taking the tie. Into extra time the momentum was with the fresher legs of the young Arsenal team with the Roma team already struggling with residual injury issues beginning to tire. However they were unable to press this advantage leading to the most dramatic of endings- the penalty shootout!
Arsenal won the toss so first up was Eduardo. His penalty was saved by Roma's giant Brazilian keeper Doni putting every Arsenal fan into agony- I was so nervous I had to breathe into a brown paper bag. David Pizzaro scored Roma's first penalty, ramping up the tension further. Robin van Persie steadied Arsenal's nerves, cooly slotting home before Mirko Vucinic fluffed horribly sending the ball bobbling harmlessly into Manuel Almunia. The two teams matched each other with Arsenal's young team stepping up magnificently with Theo Walcott, Samir Nasri, Denilson, Kolo Toure and Bacary Sagna converting wonderfully. Roma held their nerve with Marco Motta, Francesco Totti, Julio Baptista, Vincenzo Montella and Alberto Aquilani on target. Abou Diaby made no mistake on Arsenal's eighth penalty but the pressure was too much for Max Tonetto who blazed his penalty over the bar. Cue wild (and adorable) celebrations from the Arsenal boys which included Robin van Persie in a vest, Nicklas Bendtner in leggings and not much else and a lot of jumping. So many, many congratulations to Arsenal's wonderful boys and to Arsene Wenger and his super cool amigo Pat Rice.
Oh and some team called Manchester United scored two goals.
Also through- Porto on away goals after a stalemate with Atletico Madrid and Barcelona in some style with a 5-2 win over Lyon.
In a random sports related snippet Nicola and I almost walked into/mowed down Dwain Chambers in Waterstones in Newcastle yesterday which was weird. He's the second sports person I've inconvenienced lately after getting my big head in the way of David Moyes reading the Liverpool team on TV at the the Riverside Stadium (Middlesbrough.)

Ruth's Sports Desk- CL review part one.

So once again it's that time: Champion's League week! We've reached the last 16 and the second-leg ties promised plenty of excitement and they definitely didn't disappoint. First up on Tuesday Liverpool took on Real Madrid and Chelsea travelled to Turin to face the 'Old Lady' of Italian football Juve.
I tuned in with high hopes expecting to be torn between the two games and flicking channels like a woman possessed. Things began to go wrong straight. i chose Juventus first due to my long-standing (seriously 10 years, since i was 9 years old) love for Pavel Nedved and the first five minutes were great, he was everywhere like a little Czech dynamo and I happily cooed over his miraculous blonde hair- honestly it's a real life miracle, he can play football for 90+ minutes and his hair will remain perfect and in place, if he brought out a hair care range I'm convinced it would fly off the shelves. Anyway everything looked great until he was tackled by (I think) Michael Essien hitting his head in the process, he was dazed but returned to the pitch like the hero that he is. Then five minutes later Nicolas Anelka carelessly elbowed him in the ribs leaving him barely able to stand and me screaming at the TV. So 13 minutes in and Pavel is gone so I try Realas I have a lot (ahem) admiration for their squad but things went from bad to worse when they conceded a goal and a ridiculous penalty- note to referee hands do NOT grow out of your shoulders.
Things picked up slightly on my return to Juve with a Vincenzo Iaquinta goal however Chelsea managed to find an equaliser (and all important away goal.) So I decided a large gin and tonic was in order for the second half. The Liverpool game descended into depression territory with shipping 4 by the end of the 90 leaving them 5-0 dowbn on aggregate. Juve and the supreme Alessandro Del Piero proved that age and a sending off (for Giorgio Chiellini) are no barrier to a heroic fightback, scoring a penalty but going down bravely 2-2 on the night and 3-2 overall.
Also through on Tuesday- Villareal and Bayern Munich with a truly breathtaking 7 goals on the night and 12 goals over two legs.