What a weekend of excitement and drama that only top class sport can provide with records broken and others seriously threatened.
The Ashes Test was the last to come to a conclusion yesterday morning and the script writers didn't disappoint as Andrew "Freddie" Flintoff produced one of the most inspiring bowling performances of his illustrious career to take five Australian wickets and become the first player to appear on the Lord's honour's board for a century and a five wicket haul. He was ably supported by Swann in the final denouement but the performances of Strauss, Cook, Prior and Anderson earlier in the Test all contributed to England's first Ashes win at the home of cricket for 75 years and only the second since the 19th Century - let's hope we don't have to wait until the 22nd Century for the next one! England's heroics of course meant that my prediction of a draw was wrong as was Pieterson to score a century in the match, but I'll live with that.
On Sunday evening we were almost witness to another record being broken at Turnberry at the conclusion of the Open Golf as Tom Watson came within one putt of becoming the oldest winner of a Golf major. Unfortunately it wasn't to be, as he bogeyed the last hole of the tournament and then struggled to compete in the play-off. Congratulations to Cink on winning the tournament but yet again all of the British contenders came up short with both Westwood and Wood matching Watson's achievement of bogeying the last when a par would have got them into the play-off. It is now ten years since Paul Lawrie won the Open and the last time a Briton won a major golf tournament and let's hope it won't be too long before this unwanted record is broken. However, Westwood's third place finish did mean my each-way prediction paid off even if my other two predictions did not even make the cut.
Earlier on Sunday Valentino Rossi won another very close Moto GP race at the Sachsenring in Germany. This has taken him to a total of 101 wins in GP events (125, 250 and Moto GP) and he is closing on de Agostini's overall record but in the meantime has now equalled his record of 158 podium finishes. This season in Moto GP is getting better all the time and for the first time it looks like that Rossi has a team-mate who is not overawed by the great man in Jorge Lorenzo whilst Stoner and Pedrosa are also right in the hunt.
The All Blacks kept up their unbeaten record at Eden Park in Auckland in the Tri-Nations rugby on Saturday but not before Australia had threatened a win. That unfortunately meant my prediction was wrong but it does look it is going to be a closely fought series between the southern hemisphere nations.
On Sunday the Tour de France exploded into life with Alberto Contador again showing his climbing pedigree on the climb to Verbier. He definitely appears to be the man to beat and whilst Armstrong remains in second place he looks beaten this time around with Andy Schleck and Bradley Wiggins perhaps being the two most likely to challenge Contador's pre-eminence in the final week.
The Green Jersey competition also looks done and dusted following the disqualification of Mark Cavendish from Saturday's stage but of course Thor Hushovd has to get to the finish line in Paris first. With Wiggin's performance though the British interest has in no way waned as he could go onto beat Robert Millar's fourth place finish twenty-five years ago to become the highest placed Briton in the history of the tour. My cycling prediction was for last Wednesday's stage which Cavendish duly won taking him to four stage wins for this tour equalling his achievement from last year and Barry Hoban's British record of eight stage wins in total.
Overall I had three correct predictions but because of reasonable odds (particularly in the Golf) meant a profit of £3.50 this week meaning I am now only down £9.50 since I started with these predictions. This week's predictions will be made on Friday and will involve the Hungarian GP, the British Moto GP and cricket's Friends Provident trophy final at Lords.
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