OLYMPICS-A-HOY

EXCLUSIVE

SquareOne Sports Feature

by Chris Mackie

The alpha male of the British track cycling team and in possession of (deep breath) nine world championship gold medals, two Commonwealth golds, an Olympic gold, Olympic silver and five World Championship silver medals, Chris Hoy recently led British cycling to unprecedented success at the World Championships held in Manchester. SquareOne caught up with him as he took a well deserved break after the competition.

Diplomatically fending off our gushing congratulations about the World Championship success, Hoy explains that his focus is now very much on the Olympics.

"I am just about to get back into training” he says. “I have done a few road rides and some light work but it is important to have a complete switch off, not just physically but mentally as well, because otherwise you will just plateau before the Olympics."
Having admitted to being something of a trainaholic in the past, Hoy has mixed feelings about resting.

"Initially the break is great but after three or four days you are itching to get back on the bike. And even though to an extent you can eat what you like, you begin to feel a bit lethargic and restless.”

Luckily, he doesn’t have to wait long to put that restlessness to use. The gruelling training schedule in the run up to the Olympics is imminent and he speaks surprisingly warmly of the often brutal sessions he faces in the coming weeks.

"The training we do is not so much about the volume, it is about the effort we expend in the session. We begin with strength work - a lot of work in the gym - then we move on to training that is more about power and speed, and then on to building up lactic tolerance, which is the worst."

Not for the faint hearted, this section of the schedule helps the athlete’s body form resistance to the pain caused by lactic acid. “The drills we do involve the static bikes in the lab” Hoy explains. We do a thirty second burst of effort followed by a one minute recovery. Basically you are creating a massive lactic acid build up followed by a short recovery time which means that when you start the next burst you still have lactic acid in your system.”

As the lazybones SquareOne winces, Hoy claims that the athletes don’t dread these sessions as much as you might think. "It is more that you know they (the sessions) are coming and it is always in the back of your mind. Every time you do that training it feels like the worst you have ever felt and in a funny way the fitter you are the harder that training is, because it is easier to get injured. For fifteen minutes afterwards the pain is really bad but then you come through it and, although you are still tired, you feel pretty good."

A relative veteran of two Olympics, Hoy says that the Olympic village is not all it is cracked up to be. “The village is a very pressurised and tense place before the games, so you don't want to spend too long there, but it is a great place to be when you are finished. Before the games there is huge tension and huge pressure on the athletes and coaches. Tempers can get frayed and the atmosphere can be not that pleasant."

Having been forced into a shift in events after the ludicrous decision to replace the 1km time trial with BMX on the Olympic roster, Hoy will be fighting on three fronts in Beijing. In a tight racing diary, he will compete in the team sprints, the keirin and the individual sprint in a five day period and is optimistic about his chances. "Realistically, the keirin is my best chance of wining" Hoy notes determinedly. "The team sprint will be the hardest because the French are so dominant. We have a very good chance of a medal but they are the favourites. We are in the ascendancy after our performance at the world championships and we are definitely improving. It will really shake up the French team if we beat them and it will give us a huge boost before the individual events."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cnu9caTTgqc

Photo by johnthescone

CLEAN BILL OF HEALTH?

SquareOne News

by Pere Fornes

The new Public Health Scotland bill which will update health laws dating back to 1889 passed stage one of its ratification yesterday at Holyrood.

Health professionals have been working under rules that date back to the Public Health Act 1897 and the Infectious Diseases Notification Act 1889. The new bill is geared towards dealing with threats which have emerged in recent years.

The bill outlines the duties of health professionals to notify authorities when they suspect that a patient has a contagious disease. Infections cause a quarter of all illnesses in the world and they account for 10% of deaths in the UK. Old threats such as tuberculosis, that were thought to be eradicated, are re-emerging whilst there is a threat of infectious diseases and contamination being spread through terrorist attacks.

The legislation is mainly aimed at addressing individuals who refuse to take measures to avoid contaminating others. Minister Shona Robinson said: “Some contaminated people take measures to avoid contaminating others, but we need legislation on this. Although we recognise that there is to be a balance between our duty to protect the public and the right of people to their rights.” All but the Conservative party agreed on this point, Mary Scanlon Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Health and Wellbeing, said:

“I am not so sure about the balance between the rights of the individual against the rights of society. If there is a threat to public health, the rights of society have to prevail.”

The Law Society of Scotland had been consulted and have said that there are four sections which are not compliant with current Scottish Law. All parties agreed that there was a real need for the law to be updated and overhauled but that some amendments would need to be made before stage two.

Labour MSP Ken McIntosh also made a proposal regarding concerns over the safety and licensing of sun beds. The bill currently only focuses on contagious diseases, but the rest of the groups agreed that such amendment was needed. He recalled the recent case of a 13-year-old boy who, in his hometown, went to an unsupervised tanning shop. He put coins in the tan machine and stayed there for 20 minutes. As a result, he ended up in hospital with serious burns. It is not the first time this has happened, but more worrying is the long-term damage, skin cancer has trebled in the last 20 years as a result of the obsession with looking good and having a ‘healthy tan’.

McIntosh proposed three measures.

1- Outlaw unsupervised saloons.

2- Set a minimum age of 18 years old for tanning beds.

3- Provide information on the risks involved.

He said: “We need one clear message: “Sun beds can kill you.” Why don’t we treat sun beds in the same way that we treat alcohol or tobacco?”

Photo by Son of Groucho

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DON AND OUT

SquareOne Sport

by Chris Hammond

You can’t sit, you’ve not been able to for over an hour. You feel tense, excited and physically drained. It’s cold, there’s rain and a wind which brings the lingering scent of alcohol with it. But for the huddled 22,000 enduring the elements on this December night in the North East the four goals Aberdeen would score against Danish heavyweights Copenhagen will be more than enough comfort from the elements.

Fast forward four months and a team largely consisting of the exact same players as that UEFA Cup glory night are strewn across a soggy Hampden pitch. Here they lie contemplating a 4-3 mauling at the hands of mid-table First Divison no marks Queen Of The South in a the Scottish Cup semi final.

Aberdeen manager Jimmy Calderwood, a mahogany skinned, rotund, gopher-like journalist's wet dream; stands on the touchline watching the players he jettisoned years ago scoring against and celebrating the defeat of a club once considered the best in the world. Red and white scarves rain down on the pitch as the north retreats from their battlefield rout at the hands of the south.

The week following sees Calderwood praise the ageing, decrepit Jackie McNamara, hailing him as the man to turn the club's fortunes round. This is despite the one time Scottish Player of the year being the poorest footballer on the park. Worse yet goal scoring pocket dynamo Barry Nicholson announces he won’t be staying at a club where he shines like a diamond in a morass of footballing faeces. Of course there were sacrificial lambs and noises made about new signings to appease the disgruntled fans. But largely those set for the chop didn’t play in the Cup debacle, and those seen as being the fast fix for the most rapidly declining force in football consist of two ex players who didn’t make a mark the first time round, a leaden footed former Rangers defender and a Dutch goalkeeper famous for a leaked video involving him enjoying bedroom deviance with a former girlfriend.

Before the season ends, Pittodrie an imposing fortress on the coast, prepares itself for three more scheduled raids. Willie Miller, a titanic, gladiatorial captain of former years looks on from his position as football director at a collection of troops which have shipped 8 goals in two semi finals this year, have no hope of a European Campaign come the autumn and are being managed by a man the fans accuse of picking a team through a “tactical tombola”.

Hewn from granite, the city of Aberdeen can merge with the sky on a dull day, leaving things an almost intolerably depressing shade of grey. Yet when the sun appears and the clouds depart, Aberdeen becomes a glistening beacon, a beautiful hub of elegance on a rugged landscape.

As this schizophrenic season of soccer shenanigans trundles to an end and a summer of rebuilding begins, the fans of Aberdeen FC have to ponder whether the next term will be silver or grey – Copenhagen or Queen Of The South. At the moment even the most optimistic would admit it’s grim up north.

EDINBURGH DEMONSTRATIONS

Pere Fornes

SquareOne News

Today Edinburgh saw over 1000 protesters participate in three separate demonstrations held across the city.

In the morning, about 50 people demonstrated against the Church of Scientology in Hunter Square. At the same time a pro-Beijing rally took place in which over 1,000 people demonstrated in favour of the Olympics and against the recent violence involving the Olympic torch.

But the most unusual demonstration took place in the afternoon. A rally in favour of US Presidential candidate Barack Obama was supposed to start outside the Scottish Parliament. However the number of people taking part was much lower than the organisers had expected, with around 40 turning up. A demonstrator said: “I don’t have anything personal against Hilary Clinton but Clinton means past and Obama means change.”

What was intended to be a rally ended up being a small demonstration outside the Scottish Parliament. Still Obama will receive a symbol of support from Scotland for his campaign. Kez Degeale, rally organizer, said: “We have a big banner which people are signing in support for Obama. We will send him the banner with all those signatures.”