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markiechops

Listed below are comments made by markiechops between Friday, 15th August 2008 and Monday, 13th July 2009.

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Tevez a sound deal for Man City 8:57pm on 13 Jul 2009 Not only is Tevez a handy player who will come into his own in a team where he is finally given space to play his game, but he is also a dead ringer for one of the naked "Romeo Cleaners" who used to appear on Channel 4's "Eurotrash" in the 1990's.
Owen worth Man Utd gamble 2:12pm on 03 Jul 2009 Playing half a season for a team who were allergic to scoring, and with his head, heart and legs definitely elsewhere, Owen still managed to notch up 10 goals last season. If you add that to the oft-overlooked influence he had at Madrid as an impact striker and with a chance of a World Cup to play for, Fergie may well have already made the signing of the season.
Britain's cycling success - is it cricket? 8:26pm on 18 Aug 2008 Stop looking for this silver lining's cloud. There is only one problem with Team GB's domination of the track, and that is that we didn't sweep the board. In London, we have to aim to win every single gold available.
So Paula's made it to the start-line - but what now? 6:44pm on 16 Aug 2008 "Paula Radcliffe gave up in Athens as soon as the third althlete passed her. She knew her medal hopes had gone and gave up.. simple as that ! Why do people still have faith in her? She is a quitter. plain and simple!"

Nonsense! British sport needs more people with this mindset if we're to win anything; Radcliffe knew that finishing without winning was meaningless, and she very sensibly chose to cut her losses.

Cycling boss Dave Brailsford sent back lottery funding for riders he did not believe had a realistic chance of winning a medal in Beijing, and his ruthless approach is clearly paying dividends.

Before the nadir of Atlanta 1996 (which was probably the best thing that could have happened to British sport), it was par to the course that the GB team would return home from the Summer games with no more than five medals.

Sydney, Athens and (almost certainly) Beijing have us our biggest gold hauls since 1924, and those of us who have had a taste of success - regardless of the sport - now have no desire to go back to the days of painfully British heroic defeats.

Quite simply, if a sportsperson is neither a serious medal contender for the forthcoming Olympiad, nor a young athlete with sufficient promise for future tournaments, they should not be sent.
British cyclists lay down marker 5:30pm on 15 Aug 2008 It's not the events themselves that are "turgid", as one commentator suggested, merely the losing of them. I don't think that anyone would have dreamed that 8m people would have switched to BBC2 just before midnight during the winter games 8 years ago to watch the British Women snatch gold in the curling, but that's just what happened, and there'd be nothing turgid about watching weightlifting if we dominated the sport.

So far Team GB have taken 2 cycling golds and a silver over distances where they weren't expected to succeed, and if they continue to ride to form they should deliver one of the most exciting weeks in British sporting history.

If that happens, who in the UK will care one jot about the 100m sprint?

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