From UK Sport
Manchester is set to welcome the best squash players from around the globe as the men’s and women’s world championships are held concurrently for the first time in the UK. The event, taking place between October 11-16, is the sixth World Championship to be supported by UK Sport’s Lottery funded World Class Events Programme in 2008. Read the rest of this entry »

Roger Mosey, the BBC Head of Sport recently appointed as its director of 2012 Olympic operations, says he made a startling discovery when visiting the recent Beijing Games: the Olympics is a big event.

In an interview with the Guardian, Mosey - whose sport department opted to make no bid for television rights to next year’s Ashes cricket series and future England games, and who lost the BBC’s rights to Premier League highlights and live FA Cup coveraged - said: “You know the Olympics are huge, but when you see it on the scale of Beijing we all immediately thought, ‘This is two, or three, or four times bigger than we thought it was’.”
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From Sport England
Sport England has appointed Caroline Weber to the newly created role of Executive Director of Communications and Public Affairs.
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IAN COLE on the claims of Lewis Hamilton to retain the Sportsman of the Year title

Lewis Hamilton is not short on self-belief. Our 2007 Sportsman of the Year thoroughly enjoyed his lunch with us 12 months ago.
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£380 million is an “astonishing” amount of money, according to London Mayor Boris Johnson, but well worth it if it avoids the media attacking the 2012 London Games as they did the 1996 Olympics. Read the rest of this entry »

The final deadline for the 2009 SJA Yearbook, which is distributed to all members, national sports desks, broadcasters and PR companies, is October 12.

Profile entries in the Yearbook are a significant benefit of membership of the SJA. Having a profile in the Yearbook can be a shop window for your work, especially for freelancers.
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From Jayne Pearce, London 2012
London 2012 wants your feedback on your experiences at the Beijing Olympic and Paralympic Games. This is an important opportunity for all media who worked in Beijing to provide input towards the organisation of press facilities in London in 2012.
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IAN COLE, in his latest profile of the contenders for the SJA Sports Awards, on world and Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu

Christine Ohuruogu might have been Sportswoman of the Year last year. After all, she won the world championships gold medal at 400 metres. Normally, that’s not a bad shout. Read the rest of this entry »

From BEWA
This year’s British Equestrian Writers’ Association’s annual general meeting and awards lunch will be held on Thursday, November 20, at Queen’s Club, Palliser Road, in west London.

As many of you will know, Alan Smith, who is retiring at equestrian correspondent of the Daily Telegraph at the end of 2008, after 48 years, is also retiring as chairman of BEWA, and Genevieve Murphy and Judith Draper are also retiring from the committee. Read the rest of this entry »

IAN COLE profiles another of the candidates for the SJA Sportsman of the Year Awards - tennis Grand Slam finallist Andy Murray

Andy Murray doesn’t much like journalists. Which is a problem when you consider he is arguably our best-known face of British sport worldwide (David Beckham having been consigned to the modelling lounge).
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Multi-world champion cyclist Bradley Wiggins won two gold medals in Beijing, including a stunning world record, making him one of the leading contenders for the title of SJA Sportsman of the Year. He is profiled here, in an fascinating interview with award-winning DONALD McRAE, published in the Guardian Read the rest of this entry »

Michael Vaughan, the Ashes-winning captain, is joining the Telegraph as a cricket columnist. Read the rest of this entry »

About 500 Olympians and Paralympians are to celebrate their Beijing success in London on October 16.

All athletes who went to Beijing have been invited, with 10 flat-bed trucks to carry them through the streets.

The parade is certain to include several of the leading contenders for this year’s SJA Sportsman, Sportswoman and Team of the Year - voting for which began earlier this week.

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Newcastle United’s temporary manager Joe Kinnear has got off to a bad start in his relationship with the press - with particular complaints aimed at Simon Bird, of the Mirror and Niall Hickman, from the Express.

In the same week that Sir Alex Ferguson told the press that he would not co-operate with them any longer, Kinnear’s outburst yesterday contained more than 50 expletives. And it was all on-the-record, despite the repeated efforts of the club’s press officer.
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OLIVER HOLT, chief sportswriter at the Daily Mirror, asks all fellow SJA members to consider supporting his next venture

I know this may come as a surprise to some of you but I am running the New York Marathon on November 2. Running it, walking it, crawling it,whatever.
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