The future looks bright for British biking...
In the 1998 World Cup, an 18-year-old Michael Owen took to the pitch in an England jersey and began to turn the Argentine defence inside out, scoring one of the competition's great goals to announce his arrival as a global star.
Spending breakfast with one of the best motorbike riders in the world is more than a little surreal. But that is exactly what happened to me in Malaysia on Sunday, on the morning of the biggest race of Jorge Lorenzo's life.
This was no intimate affair. Lorenzo is a man who, I imagine, is rarely on his own and he was sharing the table with another seven people. I am still not sure who all of them were but his best friend and PR man Hector Martin was among them, while a camera crew was in close proximity, filming Lorenzo's every move.
That is the strange thing about becoming a world champion in motorsport. When you are trying to find your feet, you struggle for everything - for helmets, gloves, travel costs and bike parts - but as soon as you achieve success, everyone wants a piece of you.
At first glance, Dani Pedrosa's tumble just five minutes into the first practice session of the Japanese GP seemed pretty innocuous.
I watched from the media centre as he was carried away on a stretcher and taken to the medical centre, where he discovered he had suffered multiple fractures to a collarbone.
Only two weeks ago at Aragon, Alberto Puig, Pedrosa's manager, had told me how important the next three back-to-back races would be for the Honda rider as he attempted to overhaul Jorge Lorenzo's 56-point lead in the championship standings.
But when we heard just how badly Pedrosa had been hurt at Motegi, we knew Lorenzo had taken a massive step closer to his first MotoGP title.
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Hello, I'm Jennie Gow and I'll be guiding you through this year's MotoGP coverage on the BBC. I've been working in the biking world ever since I started out in TV, covering Speedway and Motocross before my move into the world of Valentino Rossi, Casey Stoner, Nicky Hayden et al. Anyway, I hope you enjoy my blog and all the gossip and tales I'll be bringing from the grid and paddock.You can stay up to date with Jennie Gow via these feeds.
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