The Government's £140m, 'free' swim initiative might be somewhat over-described, but it seems to be a positive step towards delivering the much talked about participation legacy of the 2012 Olympics.
No, not all councils have warmed to the scheme. Somewhat inconveniently for the government at least, the pools in Mansfield and Northallerton, where British swimming's best current role models Rebecca Adlington and Jo Jackson happen to have taken their first plunges, are not taking part, but 80% of the rest of the local council pools in England will be giving something for nothing.
Read the rest of this entry
Over the next couple of days, Fifa's executive committee will be picking through the detail of the report president Sepp Blatter believes gives new hope to his crusade to limit the number of foreign players in club sides.
Fifa's congress voted in favour of an exploration of the six plus five regulation last year, but Blatter wanted a full examination, not just a discussion, and he's undeterred by the seemingly implacable opposition of the European Commission to any such idea. "If there's a law, a law can be amended," he asserts.
To that end, a Fifa-commissioned study by the Institute For European Affairs will be across the desks of the executive committee members in Zurich, asserting that six plus five is in fact compatible with European law. Handy that.
Read the rest of this entry
Dwain Chambers' Faustian pact with Victor Conte continues.
Just as Christopher Marlowe's magician sought knowledge and power, so Chambers is using Conte to educate him in the dark ways of the hypoxicator.
Well, perhaps that's an analogy too far, but hypoxicators, hypo/hyperbaric chambers and their ilk are at the contentious end of the scale of legal aids to performance.
Read the rest of this entry
I've been Radio 5 Live's Sports News and Olympics Correspondent since 1998. I'll be looking at the events behind the headlines in all sports but especially on the road to London 2012. 
