SportsPageFair

I’ve never met Joe Lindsey, at least I don’t think I have. But I’ve read his work for years, and he’s among my favorite cycling writers. Who else could reference Eddy Merckx, Andy Hampsten, Elvis Presley and the Japan-based Morning Banana Diet fad all in the same article?

The Morning Banana Diet part is a coincidence. But Lindsey, a freelance writer in Colorado who contributes a column and other articles to Bicycling Magazine, wrote a piece awhile back on the benefit of bananas in cyclists’ diets.

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Welcome to SportsPageFair.com. As a sportswriter for more than 30 years, I contribute articles to myriad print and online publications and news organizations — The Associated Press to PGA Tour Partners (the national magazine of the PGA Tour) and the Sacramento Bee, a regional daily newspaper in the capital of California, to Reuters, the international news service.

Author of SportsPageFair.com

I’m particularly fond of endurance sports. I’ve reported on cycling for more than 25 years. I’ve attended the Tour de France start to finish 10 times, and in 2005 I co-wrote Tour de France For Dummies with renowned international broadcaster Phil Liggett.

I like endurance sports in part because I’m endurance sports participant; I’ve completed more than 80 marathons and ultramarathons.

Golf is also among my favorite sports. With rare exception, the pro men and women I’ve interviewed and reported on through the years are cordial, articulate athletes. And it’s easy to like the location of most golf tournaments.

During my career, I’ve also covered the National Football League, National Basketball Association, Major League baseball, tennis and boxing. And in more than a dozen countries, I’ve written about the full spectrum of niche sports followed by passionate fans — cross country skiing to motorcycle racing, rowing to triathlon.

I’ve interviewed Julius Irving about his golf game and Lance Armstrong about running. I’ve never met anyone nicer than the great Norwegian runner Grete Waitz. Three-time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond has been extraordinarily friendly to me (and to lots of other journalists) through the years.

With SportsPageFair.com, I look forward to commenting on the global sporting scene. Your comments are encouraged.

Mario Andretti speaking at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca

Mario Andretti was the honored guest at the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at the recent event held in conjunction with Monterey Auto Week. Here’s the final installment of a two-post interview with the legendary driver. I was one of about 20 journalists who interviewed Andretti in an administrative building near the raceway paddock.

Question: Is the Lotus 79 your favorite car?

MA: It’s definitely one of the favorite cars of my career, no question about it. It’s one of the few cars I really feel I understood. I understood its pluses and minuses, if you will. I think I was really able to extract what the car could give me. And the payback was very handsome. But it wasn’t a given. If you got it wrong, you really got it wrong. You had to go for the sweet spot. “

Q: What part of your career brings back the fondest memories?

MA: From as personal standpoint, I have to tell you that winning the Italian Grand Prix and clinching the World Championship had to have been the ultimate in my career. In Italy, at age 14, that’s where I saw my very first Formula One race. I was still in a refugee camp and that’s where my dreams really began of pursuing my career.

To read part 1, click here: Mario Andretti

2009  Knee Knackering North Shore Trail Run

5 somewhat small marathons coming up this weekend. Small as in number of participants but not as in distance. 42.195km.

If you didn’t run straight home from the  2009  Knee Knackering North Shore Trail Run you can likely see the results here.

Keep in mind, it takes a while for the results to update. Until they do, you can compare your time to last year’s results.

2009 Knee Knackering North Shore Trail Run - Race Results

You might also be interested in:

Three steps to beginning marathon training – rulk, ruddle and run

The Christian marathon runner, lesson number 2 – There is never any reason to give up

The Christian marathon runner, lesson number 3 – if you want to go faster, lose weight

The Christian triathlete, lesson number 3 – If you see a shark…

One of the unique events in sports begins Friday on the famed Pebble Beach Golf Links in the Monterey Peninsula. It’s the Walmart First Tee Open, a late-season event on the Champions Tour.

The event is the only major sporting event in which junior amateur players can compete with professional athletes.

The tournament has co-title sponsorship: Walmart is the world’s largest retailer; The First Tee National School Program, launched in 2004, introduces children to golf and core value programs.

The 78 pros in the field will compete for a $2.1 million purse and a $315,000 winner’s check. Simultaneously, each pro will be teamed with a junior player (age 14-18) in a pro-junior competition.

For junior golfers, it’s a close equivalent of a high school player competing an NBA or NFL game.

At the Walmart First Tee Open, now in its fifth year, junior contestants are selected from around the country based on life skills knowledge and golf proficiency, with the emphasis on life skills.

“Playing with the kids is really fun,” said Scott Simpson, the former U.S. Open winner on the PGA Tour who won the Walmart First Tee Open in 2006. “I heard about it even before I got on the Champions Tour about how much fun it was to play in the tournament.

“It’s special because of all us grew up being junior golfers, and it gives us a chance years later to spend a few days with another junior golf, especially with the First Tee program. They’ve done a great job, not only with junior golf, but really helping the kids learn what’s going to make them successful, not only in golf but in everything in life. It’s a perfect blend.”

I first met Jeannie Longo of France more than 20 years ago. She was part of the Celestial Seasonings/Red Zinger team competing in the Coors International Bicycle Classic in Colorado.

Jeannie Longo, 49, of France, among the 10 oldest Beijing Olympians

Longo was the best women’s cyclist in the world. She was in her mid-20s then, fiery, charming and tough on the bike. Like a lot of the French of the time, she wore an ascot with her non-cycling clothes. I immediately liked her, the opposite of most of her competitors, whom she sometimes called “silly girls.” Her rivals may still not like her, but they respect her. She’s known as “Queen Jeannie.”

It’s been a decade or so, but I always enjoyed interviewing Longo through the years. She may be the greatest athlete in the world, who’s largely unknown outside of cycling. She can be polite, she can critical and she can still ride.

Longo, 49, the 1996 road race gold medalist, will be competing in her seventh Olympics in Beijing. She’ll be among the oldest athletes participating in China.

Here’s the list of the 10 oldest athletes competing inn (according to Reuters), their country and sport in which they’re scheduled to participate.

Hiroshi Hoketsu, 67, Japan, equestrian
Laurie Lever, 60, Australia, equestrian
John Dane, 58, USA, sailing
Susan Nattrass, 57, Canada, shooting
Mark Todd, 52, New Zealand, equestrian
Iain Murray, 50, Australia, sailing
Luan Jujie, 50, Canada, fencing
Jeannie Longo, 49, France, cycling
Ralf Schumann, 46, Germany, shooting
Dara Torres, 41, United States, swimming

Jeannie Longo

The world’s best athlete no one knows turned age 50 today. She’s cyclist Jeannie Longo of France. Racing for nearly 30 years after an alpine skiing career, Longo has won more than 1,000 events, including 55 national titles an Olympic gold medal and victories in countries around the globe.

Although widely revered in the cycling world, Longo remains unheralded in the mainstream media. But she she shouldn’t be, particularly considering her legacy.

Longo, who has a doctorate in Sports Management, was born Oct. 31, 1958 in Annecy, France. She began her athletic as a downhill skier. After winning the French schools’ ski championship and three university skiing championships, she switched her main athletic endeavor in 1979 to cycling at the urging of her then coach (and now husband) Patrice Ciprelli and won her first national title.

As one of the 10 oldest athletes in the Summer Olympics in Beijing in August, Longo, 49, finished fourth in the individual time trial.

Over 6000 people ran the marathon this weekend in 2008.

Were it a relay race, the whole lot could have made it around the world more than six times.

This weekend, there are apt to be more.

If you didn’t run straight home from the 2009 Covenant Health Knoxville Marathon you can see the results here.

Keep in mind, it takes a while for the results to update. Until they do, you can compare your time to last year’s results.

2009 Knoxville Marathon Race Results

You might also be interested in:

The Christian marathon runner, lesson number 1

The Christian triathlete, lesson number 1

German Erik Zabel, once the dominant sprinter in cycling who accumulated more than 200 career wins, will retire at the end of the season. Zabel, 38, will compete this Sunday in the road race of the World Cycling Championships in Varese, Italy. He’ll conclude his career October 3 in the Sparkasse Munsterland Giro.

Erik Zabel

Via a press release, Zabel commented: “I had a lot of fun riding this year and could keep up with my international rivals. I don’t know if I could do that for another season and think that this is the right moment to stop.”

Zabel turned pro in 1993 with Team Telekom, leaving the team only in 2006 to join the newly-formed Team Milram. He is the most successful German cyclist in history.

And his victories, include: 12 stage wins and six green jerseys as the best sprinter in the Tour de France and eight stages in the Tour of Spain.

Zabel also won Milano-Sanremo four times, Paris-Tours three times and was victorious in the Amstel Gold Race, Rund um den Henninger Turm, Rund um Köln and the HEW Cyclassics.

This season, he incorporated a career-first into he itinerary: He rode in all three Grand Tours.

Jan Ullrich

The cyclist who shadowed Lance Armstrong as his most competitive rival during his first career believes the seven-time Tour de France winner is capable of winning an eighth title next July.

Jan Ullrich of Germany, who won the Tour de France in 1997 and finished second to Armstrong three times in cycling’s most prestigious event, was surprised by the 37-year-old cyclist’s announcement of his pending return.

“But I find it good,” Ullrich said. “Lance is drawing the attention of the world to cycling. “I think it’s possible for him to win once again in France. If he is prepared mentally, the body will be capable of doing it.”

Ullrich, 34, retired in February 2007 amid doping allegations he has denied.

With regard to Armstrong’s refusal to have his frozen urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France retested for performance-enhancing drugs, Ullrich said he would respond the same way Armstrong has to the French anti-doping organization.

“Why should he (Armstrong) do something he doesn’t have to do?” said Ullrich, who added he’s not interested in a comeback. “I wouldn’t do it either, as a matter of principle.”