UFO Info Week-End

The swimmers won no medals of any colour for the first Games in

The swimmers won no medals of any colour for the first Games in 64 years. They weren’t so much dead in the water as camped out on their lilos waiting for the next cheque from the Lottery.Enter Sweetenham, a no-nonsense taskmaster with an obsession for winning. The Sweetenham regime is interested only in Olympic finalists. Passengers are a waste of space.Marshall has been one of revelations of the trials, winning the 200m freestyle last week (setting two British records on the way) and adding the 100m yesterday in a record time of 54.62sec. She will represent Britain in Athens in both events and on her current progress, medals are there for the taking. What a difference four years make.”Not waving but drowning,” was the epitaph of British swimming in Sydney.

His body language said the rest.It was left to Melanie Marshall to coin a new catchphrase for the British team after an otherwise encouraging five days of action at the national long-course championships, which doubled as the Athens trials.”I don’t mean to be rude,” the 22-year-old Loughborough student gasped to a poolside interviewer as she recovered from another record swim. Although the 33-year-old, four-time Olympian, who won silver in the 50 metres freestyle at last year’s World Championships, won the 50m British title here, his time of 22.47sec was 0.05sec outside the stringent qualifying criteria laid down by Britain’s Aus-tralian performance director, Bill Sweetenham.
“It’s disappointing,” Foster uttered. Mark Foster provided the shock of the Olympic trials last night by failing to make the grade for Athens. The roar of the crowd started after we turned into the straight and it was so loud in the last two furlongs, I thought it was the Derby at Epsom! The last time I was here I won on Alllegsnobrain, and that was completing the set of a winner on every course in Britain for me.”. Dettori then performed a flying dismount from the Ed Dunlop-trained three-year-old, much to the delight of those packing around the winner’s enclosure.He said: “It’s unbelievable. But the will for winners is always there for me.”Frankie Dettori was determined to keep his name to the fore, too, when visiting Musselburgh for the first time since 1993, delighting a modern-day record crowd with a victory on Finders Keepers.The Italian’s presence helped swell the attendance to 6,600, plus about 2,000 children, and he left the weighing-room 20 minutes before the first race to allow himself plenty of time to sign autographs on his way to the parade ring.Finders Keepers made virtually all the running in the seven-furlong maiden stakes. The arm and cheek injuries set me back a bit and it has been harder.

McCoy has reached 200 in the past in 1997-98, 1999-2000, 2001-2 and last season.His oft-expressed aim is to make it to 300 one season, having ridden 289 winners in 2001-2002, and he insisted yesterday that “300 is not impossible”. His chance disappeared this campaign when he missed two months with a broken arm sustained at Worcester last June, and he then suffered facial injuries at yesterday’s Sussex venue in February, which ruled him out for another eight days.The eight-times champion, with his ninth title already in the bag, said: “It hasn’t been easy this time, with about three and a half months off through injury and two bans. Arthur Moore, who saddles three runners in today’s Irish Grand National, confirmed his stable is in flying form with a treble at Fairyhouse yesterday. Moore also runs the highly consistent Munster, as well as another outsider, Marcus Du Berlais.Yesterday, he struck first in the Dan Moore Memorial Handicap Chase – named after his father – with the 11-year-old Fadoudal Du Cochet.

McCoy sent the grey mare to the front with a circuit left to travel and they were never in danger thereafter, the 2-5 favourite coming home to score hard held by nine lengths from L’Etang Bleu.The Irishman had moved on to 199 with a treble at Newton Abbot on Saturday. The champion jockey did not have to be at his strongest to reach the milestone when enjoying a comfortable success on the Martin Pipe-trained Tucacas in a novices’ chase. Canterbury will face the home side, Laren, in the women’s final after beating the Russian side Moscowskaya 4-1 in their last pool game yesterday, while Cannock willplay Oranje Zwart in Eindhoven.
Cannock had edged home 1-0 against the German side Crefelder after Martin Jones sprinted clear to score the only goal of the game on 62 minutes.The Germans, who arrived here from their indoor season and found the transition tough in their earlier games, forced a couple of saves from James Fair in the first-half. He only recovered a few days ago and he was not in peak health or in great condition. He is going to improve.”Coral also cut The Cliff’s Edge to 6-1 from 14-1 after he won the Blue Grass Stakes at Lexington, while Smarty Jones is 8-1 from 14-1 after keeping his unbeaten record intact in the Arkansas Derby at Oaklawn.KENTUCKY DERBY BETTING Coral: 5-1 Tapit, 6-1 The Cliff’s Edge, 8-1 Smarty Jones, 10-1 Rock Hard Ten, Lion Heart, 12-1 Master David, Imperialism, Castledale, 14-1 Eddington, 16-1 Birdstone, Borrego, 20-1 Friends Lake, Minister Eric, 25-1 and upwards others..