All Sport Report

About a week after the announcemant came down that big sister Venus was on board for the ‘07 Fed Cup in Delray Beach Florida in late April, Serena Williams has agreed to play for the US team as well.

Zina Garrison, who could be in her final year as captain of the US team after signing an extension that only covers ‘07, suddenly finds herself in prime position to turn around the play of the US in recent Fed Cup history. She has Serena coming off an incredible Austrailian Open in which she entered the tournament unranked and cruised her way through the finals to bring home her 8th career Grand Slam title. Serena is undefeated in Fed Cup matches in her career in both singles and doubles play and big sister Venus is 13-3 in her career in Fed Cup play.

Williams, right now, is healthy and playing nearly as well as she had when she owned the world of women’s tennis. Her agreement to play in the Fed Cup means that she wants to end the US six year drought in the tournament and if her passion and hunger are contagious to the rest of the US team they could very well bring the Fed Cup title back to the US.

The US will face Belgium in the first round of the Fed Cup in late April. The announcement has yet to be made as to whether the sisters will be the US doubles team, or if Garrison will have them play in singles competition. In my opinion just having both sisters healthy and in agreement to play is a huge advantage to the team and drastically increases their chances of bringing the Fed Cup home for the first time since 2000.

2006 Tour de France winner Floyd Landis will find out today, along with the rest of the world if he will be banned from racing on French soil for as much as the next two years by the French Anti-Doping Agency.

Landis tested positive for elevated levels of testosterone following his storybook Tour victory last year. After a second sample was tested and confirmed that of the first, Landis was informed that he would be involved in a disciplinary hearing.

Landis maintains that he did nothing wrong and that the Chatenay-Malabry laboratory which tested the sample is inncorrect. Chateny-Malabry does have somewhat of a shakey history, Spanish cyclist Inigo Landuluce was recently acquitted of doping charges when the lab was found to have violated testing standards. Representatives from the lab have suggested the errors were caused by a “very heavy workload”.

Landis is not expected to be present at the ruling, but instead to be represented by his lawyer. The possible two year ban would keep Floyd out of the next two Tours as well as any other pertinent pro races on French soil.

Landis will also face a ruling from the US Anti-doping Agency following a hearing to come sometime in April.

The Alpine World Ski Championships were scheduled to begin in Are Sweden this past Saturday with the Men’s Super-G, but severe weather conditions wouldn’t permit the race. It was postponed again on Sunday and Monday following a pummeling snow and severe winds that would have made the course downright dangerous.

In the months and weeks leading up to the event there would probably have been postponement due to a lack of snow, that certainly wasn’t the case this weekend.
Several hundred people worked to move an estimated twenty feet of wind driven snow from the course over the past few days to allow the world championships to finally get underway on Tuesday.

Tuesday saw both the Men’s and Womens Super-G run consectutively following the three days of wretched conditions. The weather was reportedly perfect, the US men’s skiers however were not.

The top US finisher was Steven Nyman who finished 12th, nearly a full second behind the leader. Defending Super-G champion Bode Miller(pictured below) finished a very disappointing 24th. Bode made a few mistakes at the top of the course and lost some time from heavy contact with a gate while coming to the end of the course.

Patrick Staudacher of Italy crossed the line in just over one minute and fourteen seconds bringing home the gold. He was followed by Fritz Strobl of Austria and Bruno Kernen of Switzerland respectively.

Anja Paerson had a strong run on the course wrapping up the woman’s gold for Sweden.

Provided the weather holds up the men’s and women’s super combined events will take place Thursday and Friday, followed by the downhills on the weekend so the US men will have Wednesday to prep for the events leading into the weekend and reflect on the performances of Tuesday, and hopefully be able to put up a better showing as the World Championships continue.

Laila Ali is following in her fathers’s footsteps, blazing her way through the world of women’s boxing, just as her dad did in men’s. She was involved in an historic fight on Saturday, the first women’s professional boxing match in South Africa and what will probably be the shortest women’s professional boxing match of all time in South Africa - under one minute.

Ali improved her record to a very impressive 24-0, with 21 wins coming by way of knock out. It only took a mere 56 seconds for Ali to dismantle her opponent Gwendolyn O’Neil, the bulk of the damage being done by two powerful right hands. Laila proved again that she could float like a butterfly, but sting more like a cannon.

Ali appologized to the fans for the brevity of the fight, said she had intentions of making it short, just not that short.

Brevity of the fight aside, the only disappointing part of the night came when Ali said that this was going to be her last fight for a while, she is apparently considering a break from the fight world in order to start a family. This news will come as a big disappointment to the fans of women’s boxing, but come as the best possible news for the women who fight in the super middleweight division.

At twenty one years of age English powerlifter AJ Roberts already has his name on the pages of the record books more than once. In his last competition Roberts put up a big 2285 lb total by way of an 881 lb squat, a 705 lb deadlift and a 699 lb benchpress, which gave him enough to take home the crown in the 308 lb weight class of the ‘06 WPC World Championships.

AJ’s beginnings with the weights came as many other’s had, he started lifting to get bigger for football, “that’s when my obsession with lifting started.” His entrance into competitive powerlifting, however, came a bit differently.

Roberts came to the US as an exchange student and international students are only granted one year of eligability. In an attempt to avoid this complication AJ’s parents actually signed over guardianship to the family he was staying with, but false rumors circulated that he was an international recruit. The OSSA ruled him ineligable, and despite several attempts of appeal AJ was banned from playing high school sports during his senior year. The world of powerlifting was about to be blessed with one of it’s most promising young competitors.

AJ started breaking records in 2003 in the teen division with a 470 lb deadlift and the numbers kept growing. By November 2005 AJ held IPA World Records in the 275 lb weight class with a 903 lb Squat, a 600 lb benchpress and a 2138 lb total.

His next full meet, the IronGladiators Classic ‘07, will come in April of ‘07 in Spokane, WA where AJ will look to improve his total to over 2400 lbs. Roberts will be twenty two in a little over a month, which in the powerlifting world means that he hasn’t even begun to hit his stride. He is at least of few years away from being at his peak, he’s going to keep getting bigger, stronger and more proficient.

“I’m addicted to lifting,” he says, “it’s my drug of choice. I keep going back day after day because I love everything about it - the smell, the sound, the blood, the pain. Powerlifting has become part of who I am, without it I’m not sure how I would function.”

At last years IronGladiators Classic AJ set Oregon state records with a 950 lb squat and a 650 lb bench press and a personal record total of 2300 lbs. A 2400 pound total is definitely within Roberts’ reach for this coming April, as far as what we’ll see from this phenom down the road - your guess is as good as mine, but I will tell you you should bring your calculator to add up the total ’cause it’s gonna be huge!

For more info on AJ Roberts go here, or to get info on how you can be trained by AJ go here.

For all of your metal maniacs out there who didn’t quite get your fill from Monday’s profile of Randall Truscott, here’s a little something to hold you over until this Monday:

Here’s Randall squating 578

Here he is pulling 578

and here he is locking out 540

These are hot off the press from Truscott’s last meet, they should give you your powerlifting fill until we talk Iron again Monday at ten. This week is another one not to be missed when you’ll get a look at another Heavy Metal Monster in AJ Roberts.

The Dubai Desert Classic is underway, the second round, for the most part complete and going into the weekend Tiger Woods isn’t tops on the leader board. Could the seemingly unbeatable Woods be on his way to losing for the first time in his last eight PGA Tour events? There’s a lot of golf yet to be played this weekend but Tiger is trailing the current leader Ross Fisher by five.

The twenty six year old English golfer, who didn’t even make the cut in his last attempt to play a PGA tour, shot back to back 65s in the first two rounds at Dubai, Fisher is sitting at fourteen under par giving him a five shot advantage over the best golfer in the world.

Ross Fisher is shooting the best golf of his life right now and if he shoots in the third round as well as he did in the first two, he’ll be very tough to beat - even for Tiger.

Woods currently sits tied for fourth on the leaderboard, with thirty-six players still yet to complete the second round due to inclimate weather, so he won’t just be playing against the young Englishman this weekend.

Over the last two plus years Roger Federer seems to be on a mission, the goal of that mission - the hostile takeover of professional men’s tennis, the result thus far is astounding success.

Roger Federer’s latest accomplishment was winning the Australian Open in straight sets, not one match in straight sets, the whole Grand Slam tourney in straight sets. This is the first time such a feat has been accomplished in more than two and a half decades (Bjorn Borg in 1980). This is Federer’s third consecutive Grand Slam title, making him the only player to have notched three consecutive Grand Slam victories twice in their career. Roger is tied for fifth on the all time list for Grand Slam titles with ten, sitting one behind Bjorn Borg and and Rod Laver, who are tied for third with eleven.

In a matter of three weeks he will have been ranked number one for more consecutive weeks than anyone else in tennis history. At the end of this month Roger will have been the top ranked player for 160 weeks (for those of you who don’t want to do the math, that’s over three years!)

There isn’t anyone in the field that can challenge Federer right now. Pete Sampras was incredible, but there was always Agassi and Chang to give him a run for his money. It’s not that there isn’t any talent in Men’s tennis, Andy Roddick is a very talented athlete, but right now Federer is making him look silly on the court.

What’s going to make Roger Federer one of the most dominant athletes of this generation? He’s still got several years of tennis left, and he keeps getting better with every match. The rest of the field can’t come close to seriously competing with him now, I can’t imagine how he’ll run the table at the next Grand Slam and the one after that, if he can remain healthy.

If Roger Federer continues on his current course, performing consistently better each time he makes an appearance, he will most certainly be considered, if not the greatest, one of the greatest players to have ever graced the court. The only hope for other men in the world of tennis is to bide their time until Roger begins to lose a step due to age, unless he decides to give professional baseball a try - a la Michael Jordan.

Steve Yzerman left the world of physical hockey last year, retiring from play after a twenty-two year career with the Detroit Red Wings. Yzerman put up major numbers during his time on the ice with the Red Wings. He played in over 1500 games, tallying nearly 700 goals, and his 1755 points put him at sixth on the all time point leaders list.

Yzerman meant a lot more to the Red Wings than numbers on a stat sheet, he was a leader who wore the captain “C” with pride. On and off the ice Stevie Y was a guy the players, coaches and fans could count on to step up when it mattered most, his name became synonomous with Red Wings hockey.

Retiring certainly didn’t keep Yzerman away from a leadership role with his beloved Red Wings, he currently serves as the teams vice president. Now it’s been announced that he will be an international leader for Team Canada.

Yzerman will put his leadership skills to the test taking the helm of the Canadian Team as General Manager this April for the IIHF World Hockey Championships in Moscow.

Canada was just shy of medalling at last years world championships, losing to Finland in a game to determine who would bring home the bronze. They’ll look to improve upon that this spring, and having a guy like Yzerman in a leadership role with your team is certainly a good place to start.

This weekend marked the passing of the annual “Tough Guy” competition in South Staffordshire Great Britain. Thousands of competitors compete on a team or as individuals against each other and the clock for their attempt to earn a coveted winner’s metal by finishing in under the time limit (3 hours and twelve minutes).

Sounds simple enough right:

Wrong, this isn’t some kind of walk in the park. Competitors face obsticles such as: The Tiger - two giant forty foot a frames that must be scaled, complete with charged up electric fences to pass in between; The Behemoth - four towers attached by criss-crossing ropes entrants scale one tower then have to navigate the ropes to the final tower; Fiery Holes - self explanitory(see above); The Vietcong tunnels - a series of used sewer pipes piercing the landscape to be navigated; The Stalog escape - a crawl through swampy water beneath barbed wire; and just before the finish The Hill a giant ominous hill of muck and mud to sap whatever remaing energy the competitors have left from the mentally and physically grueling course.

Many congratulations to a very “tough guy” indeed, the first place finisher in this years contest Vito Grafagnino who completed the course in a little over an hour.

For complete details on the course, the training, charitable contributions and entrance info(if you’ve got the stones) go here