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Continue reading →: Twenty-five years
It’s twenty-five years this month since I started at Downing College, Cambridge. I can scarcely believe it possible. The calendar used to be so friendly, and now it mocks me. My route to Cambridge was unorthodox. I had my A-level results before I applied, and so my admissions interviews the…
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Continue reading →: The poor, powerless IOC
“But one should not forget that we are staging the games in a sovereign state and the IOC cannot be expected to have an influence on the sovereign affairs of a country,” says departing IOC president Jacques Rogge. No indeed. The IOC’s hands are tied. They can do nothing, nothing,…
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Continue reading →: What I’m up to
I’m working on a new book. In fact I’m working on two. Before you get too excited I’m not entirely sure what these books are yet, and I’m still very much in the procrastination stages — which involve a great deal of staring into the middle distance with tea, and…
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Continue reading →: What would Putin do?
It’s a big few years for sport in Russia. In a couple of weeks Moscow hosts the World Athletics Championships. Next January the Winter Olympics bandwagon stops in Sochi. And in 2018 FIFA’s World Cup peppers the country with 32 national teams playing the world’s most popular sport. Meanwhile, let’s…










