Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/920426
maltatoday SUNDAY 31 DECEMBER 2017 49 ATHLETICS SNOOKER Sports Ronnie O'Sullivan could miss World Championships Ronnie O'Sullivan has suggested he may miss next year's World Championship in order to film a television show. A five-time winner of the event, O'Sullivan remains snooker's biggest draw and, despite his advancing years – he turned 42 earlier this month – is still one of the sport's leading players. A scintillating six-week period across November and December saw him win three ranking titles – including a sixth UK Cham- pionship crown – and he would likely to go to Sheffield in April as the favourite to win a sixth world title. However, in a question and answer session on Twitter, O'Sullivan – no stranger to state- ments which whip up a frenzy – suggested filming a second series of his show 'Hustle', in which he travels the world playing pool, may take precedence. "Filming it in May," he said, when asked by a fan when he would be taking the show to Australia. The World Championship runs from April 21 to May 7, so O'Sullivan may well be both tell- ing the truth and enjoying mak- ing mischief at the same time, but when directly asked if he would miss the Worlds, he said: "I might do. Crucible goes on too long and it's my least fav event of all.. plus I've got plenty rank- ing points so no need to play as much." He went on to add: "Why not. Making Hustle is a right laugh crucible is boring plus I've ticked that box 5X." O'Sullivan is two behind Ste- phen Hendry's record seven world titles and when it was put to him he may wish to challenge that, he said: "Don't matter mate.. who cares.. On my tomb stone it will say 5 worlds 8 worlds.. SO WHAT.. It's what you experience while on this planet that counts." O'Sullivan, regarded by many – including Hendry – as the great- est player of all time, has played sparingly over recent years, com- bining snooker with off-table activities such as television work and writing novels. He has already suggested he may not defend his UK crown in York next December, saying he would "one million per cent" accept an invite to take part in 'I'm a Celebrity' in the Austral- ian jungle which clashes with the tournament. Ronnie O'Sullivan Track and field faces up to uncertain life without Bolt AS the man who carried athletics on his back through dark days sprinted off into the sunset in 2017, the sport itself was left to ponder an uncer- tain future without its shining bea- con, Usain St Leo Bolt. Alas, there was to be no storybook farewell for the great Jamaican as he bowed out at the world champion- ships in London, unable to maintain his decade-long domination as the world's fastest man, earning only a bronze in the 100 metres. More anti-climactic still, his last race, the anchor leg in the sprint re- lay final, ended with him crumpling to the track with a hamstring injury, before defying his medical helpers to rise gingerly and hobble over the line. The crowd offered their hero a sympathetic roar and he applauded back to them -- a poignant scene that summed up the unique relationship between the greatest showman the sport had seen and his disciples. For Bolt, at 30, it had been a cham- pionships too far yet he bowed out with reputation enhanced, showing as much dignity in defeat as he had always demonstrated pleasure after his 19 global race triumphs. He congratulated Justin Gatlin, his successor as 100m king, with a warmth that proved beyond a bay- ing crowd in the London Stadium, who simply rained boos down on the two-time doping offender as if crowning him as the sport's golden bogeyman. Therein lay the sport's new dilem- ma. With Bolt gone, the new stand- ard bearer for world sprinting now appeared to be a 35-year-old that athletics could neither believe in nor forgive. So where were the sport's new heroes going to come from? And who was going to fill the yawning charisma chasm left by Bolt as he now lounged around idly dreaming of one day playing for Manchester United? Those world championships of- fered only partial answers despite the booming declaration of organis- ing co-chair Ed Warner that "Lon- don 2017 has given athletics its be- lief back." True, it was a vibrant, hugely well- attended event, full of surprises, but it was hardly the complete panacea for a sport still so troubled that the world's biggest country, Russia, was again left on the outside looking in at the London party. IAAF President Sebastian Coe said he believed this athletics super- power, suspended amid allegations of state-sponsored doping, was sig- nificantly changing its attitude to tackling the problem but there was still no timescale for Russia's return. Still, though, Coe, who could not be faulted for inventiveness in try- ing to make his sport more relevant and appealing to a new generation, offered an upbeat assessment that athletics was enjoying a fresh lease of life. "I genuinely can't remember a time when the sport was so competitive and the stories around them so rich," he enthused. Certainly, London offered a glimpse of a promising future with genuine star quality obvious again, most strikingly in the performance of the peerless flying Qatari high jumper Mutaz Essa Barshim, who was unbeatable all summer. Then, there was Norway's young converted decathlete Karsten War- holm winning from gun to tape in the one-lap hurdles and the brilliant Belgian all-rounder, heptathlete Nafi Thiam, who broke the 7,000 point barrier in Gotzis, Austria be- fore dominating in London. Cynicism, though, remained dev- ilish opponents for athletics to com- bat. Even in London, some of those 'rich stories' that Coe enthused about were sprinkled with scepti- cism. For instance, after Britain's dis- tance king Mo Farah had ended a track career on a par with Bolt's with a 10,000 metres gold and 5,000m silver, the home hero ended up hav- ing to wearily defend himself. Asked again about being coached by Alberto Salazar, who is being in- vestigated by the US Anti-Doping Agency over his training meth- ods, Farah protested: "Why bring it up year after year, making it into headlines? I've achieved what I have achieved. You're trying to destroy it." Farah, who will now concentrate on road running, has since ended his coaching arrangement with the American. As for the man projected to take Bolt's mantle, Wayde van Niekerk failed in his 400m/200m golden double bid, winning the one-lap race but ending up, bizarrely, in tears after winning 'only' a silver in the shorter event. He complained of a lack of respect from Isaac Makwala, his Botswa- nan rival who, having been kept out of the 400m after being diagnosed with norovirus, muttered darkly about a conspiracy to ensure Van Niekerk was the face of London. Sadly, the sport's great South Af- rican hope then ended his year by suffering a ACL tear in a celebrity touch rugby match which will keep him out for nine months. With a crazy setback like that for its supposed new poster boy, allied to the old diet of off-track controversies and doping tales that keep gnawing away at its re- vival, no wonder athletics must already be missing its old lightning ringmaster. Usain Bolt