1. ‘“I come from a different generation,” Jiménez says. “And I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t hide the way I am. If I want to have a drink, I have a drink. Why shouldn’t I? Is it illegal to drink alcohol? Is tobacco illegal? So why should I care if people see me smoking? I do what I do out in the open. If people have a problem with that they can stick their tongue up their ass and let the rest of us do what we want to do. You can quote me exactly the way I said that.” He cracks an impish smile. “And what else do you want me to tell you?”‘
2. ’His mother, Karen Kinzle Zegel, sent him a maternal text message to calm down, all will be well. He sent a quick response that, if you knew Patrick Risha at this stage, reflected either bristling anger or unnerving apathy: I am calm.
Now her son was on the phone again, saying disturbing things in a casual tone. As she looks back on that late night last September, their conversation wasn’t just about a measly $400 bank overdraft. It was about football. The word was never uttered, but that’s what this was really about. Football.’
3.‘It is striking, even after a push for equality in recent times, how variable the public recognition and financial compensation for women is in all the different sports. The more popular sports seem to give scant recognition or reward to their women athletes: football, cricket and rugby are all about the men. There are more and more moves to correct this, but women athletes in these sports are woefully under-represented in the media, while in tennis, athletics and now track cycling, the women are closer to being equals, at least in profile. We think of Victoria Pendleton as we do of Chris Hoy, and Serena Williams is as much of a superstar as Novak Djokovic.’
4.‘Mourad Boudjellal once dubbed them “The Trolls of the Massif Central”. Back then, the Toulon owner was an angry man. He’d spent much of the previous season serving a league banning order for a remarkable verbal attack on a Top 14 referee after his side’s narrow and ill-tempered defeat at the Stade Marcel Michelin. Truculence was oozing out of every pore. It was a year-long temper tantrum that told us all we need to know about the relationship between Toulon and Clermont Auvergne. They loathe one another …even on a good day.’
This was one of our favourite pieces ahead of Saturday’s Champions Cup final — Martin Gillingham on Clermont and how they’re everything that Toulon aren’t.
5.“He is always balanced, as comfortable and controlled in a clinch or the corner as in the center of the ring … Outside, he allegedly picked up and shook a female security guard; police issued him a citation. The security guards at the casino encouraged the women not to press charges and thus risk “paying for it in the streets.”
6.‘“My brother, Daniel, was seven,” Mangala says. “He loved playing football. Like a lot of kids of that age in France, living in apartment blocks, they would play football in the area below. Then one day, just a normal day, he and his friends were playing and the ball went out of play and ran down a slope into the car park. There isn’t a lot of space in Paris so a lot of the car parks in these districts are underground. It was his turn to go down to fetch it and as he was coming back out, that’s when it happened. The automatic door came down. He couldn’t get out in time. It caught him here.”’
Manchester City defender Eliaquim Mangala tells Daniel Taylor about his brother Daniel and how he inspires him.
Cigars with The Mechanic, and finding strength in tragedy: The week's best sportswriting
1. ‘“I come from a different generation,” Jiménez says. “And I’m not a hypocrite. I don’t hide the way I am. If I want to have a drink, I have a drink. Why shouldn’t I? Is it illegal to drink alcohol? Is tobacco illegal? So why should I care if people see me smoking? I do what I do out in the open. If people have a problem with that they can stick their tongue up their ass and let the rest of us do what we want to do. You can quote me exactly the way I said that.” He cracks an impish smile. “And what else do you want me to tell you?”‘
Alan Shipnuck presents Miguel Angel Jimenez as the most interesting man in golf. He’s not wrong.
2. ’His mother, Karen Kinzle Zegel, sent him a maternal text message to calm down, all will be well. He sent a quick response that, if you knew Patrick Risha at this stage, reflected either bristling anger or unnerving apathy: I am calm.
Now her son was on the phone again, saying disturbing things in a casual tone. As she looks back on that late night last September, their conversation wasn’t just about a measly $400 bank overdraft. It was about football. The word was never uttered, but that’s what this was really about. Football.’
Dan Barry tells the tragic story of Patrick Risha and of a life defined by American football for all the wrong reasons.
3. ‘It is striking, even after a push for equality in recent times, how variable the public recognition and financial compensation for women is in all the different sports. The more popular sports seem to give scant recognition or reward to their women athletes: football, cricket and rugby are all about the men. There are more and more moves to correct this, but women athletes in these sports are woefully under-represented in the media, while in tennis, athletics and now track cycling, the women are closer to being equals, at least in profile. We think of Victoria Pendleton as we do of Chris Hoy, and Serena Williams is as much of a superstar as Novak Djokovic.’
James Willstrop takes a closer look at the inequality that still exists between male and female athletes.
4. ‘Mourad Boudjellal once dubbed them “The Trolls of the Massif Central”. Back then, the Toulon owner was an angry man. He’d spent much of the previous season serving a league banning order for a remarkable verbal attack on a Top 14 referee after his side’s narrow and ill-tempered defeat at the Stade Marcel Michelin. Truculence was oozing out of every pore. It was a year-long temper tantrum that told us all we need to know about the relationship between Toulon and Clermont Auvergne. They loathe one another …even on a good day.’
This was one of our favourite pieces ahead of Saturday’s Champions Cup final — Martin Gillingham on Clermont and how they’re everything that Toulon aren’t.
5. “He is always balanced, as comfortable and controlled in a clinch or the corner as in the center of the ring … Outside, he allegedly picked up and shook a female security guard; police issued him a citation. The security guards at the casino encouraged the women not to press charges and thus risk “paying for it in the streets.”
This one featured in our Friday compendium of pre-Mayweather v Pacquiao gems — check it out here if you missed it — but Louisa Thomas’s skewering of Floyd Mayweather the domestic abuser is worth a second look.
6. ‘“My brother, Daniel, was seven,” Mangala says. “He loved playing football. Like a lot of kids of that age in France, living in apartment blocks, they would play football in the area below. Then one day, just a normal day, he and his friends were playing and the ball went out of play and ran down a slope into the car park. There isn’t a lot of space in Paris so a lot of the car parks in these districts are underground. It was his turn to go down to fetch it and as he was coming back out, that’s when it happened. The automatic door came down. He couldn’t get out in time. It caught him here.”’
Manchester City defender Eliaquim Mangala tells Daniel Taylor about his brother Daniel and how he inspires him.
PPV cops, Good v Evil and legacy costs: Here’s the best of the Mayweather v Pacquiao sportswriting
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All-Ireland Senior HC Eliaquim Mangala Floyd Mayweather Manny Pacquiao Miguel Angel Jimenez Sportswriting Sunday Papers Clermont Toulon Well read