It's time for serious spectator sports

By Mustapha Kamil Mohd Janor | mustaphakamil@nst.com.my

Writer is a NST executive editor, (Business Times)

ROUND THE GLOBE: Fans have the next three months well planned out

Mustapha Kamil Mohd Janor IT'S summer in much of the northern hemisphere, when the days start early and the nights come a little later. This year's summer in much of the globe's top half is also building up to be a fulfilling three months for sports fans as almost all of the world's major sporting events promising high quality performances will be held.

Shouts of "goal!" will reverberate in houses, restaurants, pubs and other places of convergence in the wee hours of the mornings for the next month or so as the football European Championship has started last Friday.

The championship is as eagerly awaited as the World Cup.

World champions, Spain, are in the finals and so too are runners-up, Holland. A team traditionally a favourite in Malaysia, England, is a pale shadow of its glory years of the mid-1960s but it is not entirely inconceivable that somehow, new coach, Roy Hodgson, may have an ace hidden somewhere up his sleeves.

In tennis, conclusion of the world's foremost clay-court tournament, the French Open, is only a starter. After battling at Roland Garros, the world's best players will converge in England for another grand slam event, the Wimbledon. Played on grass, the Wimbledon trophy is a dream of everyone who has some knowledge of swinging the tennis racquet.

The players will, after Wimbledon, cross the Atlantic for the US Open, a tournament played on hard court and as always at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Centre in Flushing Meadows, in Queens, New York.

Golf fans, too, are in for a treat this summer as three of professional golf's grand slam events will be played within the period. The Masters having being played in early spring at the Augusta National in Georgia, the next big one, the US Open, will be played over four days at the Olympic Club in California at the end of this month.

Many of the golfers will then fly across the Atlantic for the British Open, which this year will be played at the windswept links course of the Royal Lytham & St Annes, in Lancashire, England.

Then the golfers head back to the US for fourth major, the US PGA Championship, to be played this time at the Kiawah Island Country Club in South Carolina, US in August.

And as a bonus, this year will also feature golf's foremost team event, the Ryder Cup, where European golfers will battle their American counterparts at the Medinah course, outside of Chicago in September. With Tiger Woods showing flashes of his past brilliance, golf is set to be a closely watched sporting event this summer.

Other than those mentioned, there will be other equally prominent annual sporting events, such as cycling's Tour de France, the European athletics meet and the ongoing races in the Formula One circuit.

Topping it all, however, would be the mother of all sporting events, games of the 30th Olympiad, which this time will be staged in London. Among those keenly awaited would be whether Jamaican sprinter, Usain Bolt, will continue to blaze the tracks like he did in Beijing four years ago.

In conclusion, it will be three months filled with excitement, frustrations, victories and defeats. Like others, Malaysians are expected to be glued to their TVs within this period.

And just as soon as one might think the excitement is over once daylight becomes shorter in the northern hemisphere, the 2012/2013 English Premier League football season starts.

All eyes will be on Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt at the London Olympics 2012, the mother of all sporting events this summer. AFP pic

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Writer is a NST executive editor, (Business Times)

It's time for serious spectator sports

ROUND THE GLOBE: Fans have the next three months well planned out

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