Sunday Territorian 4 Apr 2010
Sunday Territorian; NewspaperNT
2010-04-04
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English
Community newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.; Australian newspapers -- Northern Territory -- Darwin.
Nationwide News Pty. Limited
Darwin
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Nationwide News Pty. Limited
https://www.legislation.gov.au/Details/C2019C00042
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https://hdl.handle.net/10070/700380
36 Sunday Territorian, Sunday, April 4, 2010 www.sundayterritorian.com.au P U B : N T N E W S D A T E : 4 -A P R -2 0 1 0 P A G E : 3 6 C O L O R : C M Y K SPORT Like Iron Mike lays down his Darwin Cup credentials By GREGOR MACTAGGART LIKE Iron Mike produced a killer jab to obliterate a smart field in Thursday nights SBA Office National Easter Cup (537m) at Winnellie Park. The Ron Phillips-trained speedster enhanced his perfect record of four wins from as many outings at Darwin Greyhound headquarters with a 214-length victory. Like Iron Mike ($2.50 into $2.10) showed his customary blistering early speed to lead into the first turn and led by as much as six lengths down the back straight. Uno Zephyr ($2.40 to $2.80) came out the pack to chase strongly, but Like Iron Mike found sufficiently to stop the clock in a sharp 31.80 seconds and claim the $1000 firstprize cheque. The win was Like Iron Mikes ninth from 43 outings and the son of Bond has shown enough to suggest that he may well be a live Darwin Cup chance come August. Never Quoted rounded out the trifecta that paid just $10.90 on UNiTAB. The win was the highlight of another fine night for Phillips who completed a winning treble. Go India opened the evening in style with a polished effort to win the SBA Social Club Dash (312m) and the programs hottest favourite Wheres Cairo ($1.60) landed some good bets by taking home t h e W e M e a n B u s i n e s s Dash (383m). Phillips wasnt the only trainer to produce multiple winners as Mick Famiglietti orchestrated two quality results. Other Mob made a welcome return to the Top End scene with a first-up win in the Territory Proud Dash (312m), but the biggest effort came from the nights final victor Captain Swift. Starting at $13.10 on UNiTAB, Captain Swift jumped straight to the front and fought off a game Gunna Do It to win the DTTM Syndicate Open Dash (383m) by two lengths in 22.31 seconds. Frank Scotts Happy As stopped the clock in 18.25 seconds to win the SBA Dash For Cash (312m) and the Joel Vansleve-trained Kaycees Jewel was successful in the SBA Office National Dash (383m). Results in Update Webber on pole at Sepang HOT PACE: Mark Webber on his way to the fastest time in practice yesterday P ic tu re : G E T T Y IM A G E SSEPANG: Australian Mark Webber survived tropical storms and a flooded circuit to grab pole position for todays Malaysian Grand Prix in wildly dramatic circumstances. After three of the fields four world champions had been eliminated in the opening mini-session and condemned to start among the tailenders at the back of the grid, Webber and his Red Bull team showed them all how it should be done. The 33-year-old timed his best lap of one minute and 49.327 seconds to perfection to grab the second pole position of his career ahead of German Nico Rosberg in a Mercedes. Webbers Red Bull teammate, Germanys Sebastian Vettelm was third ahead of two more Germans, Adrian Sutil, of Force India, and rookie Nico Hulkenberg, of Williams. B r a z i l i a n R u b e n s Barrichello, in the second Williams, was seventh ahead of his old Ferrari teammate and comeback kid Michael Schumacher in the second Mercedes. J a p a n e s e K a m u i Kobayashi was ninth for S a u b e r a n d I t a l i a n Vitantonio Liuzzi 10th in the second Force India car. The session was hit by a torrential downpour shortly before it began and this caused widespread chaos most notably for the Ferrari and McLaren teams which blundered their strategies and kept their drivers in their garages when other teams went out. This resulted in three of Formula Ones four world champions contesting the 2010 title race being sent skidding off the track. Two-times champion Spaniard Fernando Alonso, his Ferrari teammate Felipe Massa of Brazil, 2008 champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren and his teammate defending champion Jenson Button were all left at the back of the field. HUMAN ERROR: Stawell Gift officials remeasure the track yesterday after it was found to be 2.3 metres too long, forcing them to admit three extra runners to tomorrows semi-finals Surveyor's stuff-up a Gift for foot race semi-finalists By SCOTT GULLAN in Melbourne T H E S t a w e l l G i f t w a s thrown into farce last night with the track for Australias richest footrace found to be 3.2m too long. For 132 years the iconic event has been run over 120m, yesterdays heats were run over 123.2m with embarrassed organisers admitting it was a result of a surveyors error. As a result of the blunder the Stawell Athletic Club and Victorian Athletic League were forced to add three runners to tomorrows semi-finals after they were deemed to have been disadvantaged by the longer track in their heats. It was a human error, club spokesman Robert Irvine said. We have acknowledged it as a group and we cant go back on that now. We are keen to move on and make sure we get it right for Monday. The surveyor, who is on the Stawell Athletic Clubs committee, measured the track on Thursday and produced a certificate for the VAL with verification of the measurements. VAL chief steward Bill Sutton admitted he had to shoulder a lot of the blame given he failed to measure the track. I have never measured this track as long as I have been coming to Stawell as a steward and that is because I have always had a certificate to say it has been measured and everything like that, he said. I measure every other track when I go around Victoria, I have a wheel and I go around and advise the club if it is out a bit but I didnt do it this time knowing that Stawell has always been on the ball. Alarm bells started to be raised after the running of the heats of the womens Gift with the times disturbingly slower than previous years. That trend continued in the mens Gift and it was soon obvious to Stawell regulars that something was wrong. Times were on average almost half-a-second down on what is normally run on the opening day of the Easter Carnival. Canberras Tom Burbidge (8.75m) clocked the fastest time of the day, 12.48sec, and then there was space to the rest of the field with East Bentleighs Douglas Greenough next on 12.72sec followed by South Australian Dale Woodhams (12.75m). Last years gift was won by Queenslands Aaron Stubbs in a time of 11.87sec. Forced pit stop was correct: Tyres boss SEPANG: McLaren did the right thing when it ordered Lewis Hamilton to make a controversial second pit stop at the Australian Grand Prix last Sunday, according to Bridgestone tyre chief Hirohide Hamashima. After a post-race analysis of all the tyres, Hamashima said yesterday that Hamiltons tyres were almost totally worn out, and would not have permitted him to finish the Melbourne race. Hamilton (pictured) criticised his team after finishing sixth when he believed he had the speed to finish second or third for making the wrong decision. He claimed at the time that it wrecked their hopes of a one-two triumph with Hamilton finishing second behind winning teammate Jenson Button. Hamilton called it a freaking terrible decision, but later backtracked. The Bridgestone tyres boss, one of the most respected figures in the sport, said: Concerning (Mark) Webber and Hamilton, their first dry tyres were almost worn out they had to do a two-stop (race). Hamilton drove a spectacular race full of passing moves and speed and fought hard to defend his position against Webber until they collided in the closing stages. Hamashima revealed also that the triumphant Buttons tyres were almost shredded, too, at the end and it would have been dangerous for him to have gone much further. We studied all the tyres and Jensons tread was almost finished, he said. It was a very dangerous situation for him. Button had made a brilliant early decision to pit and change from intermediate rain tyres to dry tyres, which he then preserved just enough to complete the race as the winner. Malaysian GP Qualifying QUALIFYING times from the Malaysian Grand Prix at Sepang yesterday (session three): 1. Mark Webber (AUS/RBR) 1min 49.327sec 2. Nico Rosberg (GER/MER) . . +1.346 3. Sebastian Vettel (GER/RBR) . . 1.462 4. Adrian Sutil (GER/FOR) . . . . 1.587 5. Nico Hulkenberg (GER/WIL) . . 1.674 6. Robert Kubica (POL/REN) . . 1.724 7. Rubens Barrichello (BRA/WIL) . . . . 8. Michael Schumacher (GER/MER) . . . . 9. Kamui Kobayashi (JPN/SAU) . . . . . . 10. Vitantonio Liuzzi (ITA/FOR) . . . . . . Miami Open produces another big upset MIAMI: Andy Roddicks decision to take some risks paid off yesterday as the American rallied to beat Spains Rafael Nadal and book a clash with giant-killing Tomas Berdych in the final of the Miami Open. Roddick engineered a turnaround to triumph 4-6 6-3 6-3 over world No. 4 Nadal, who was the highest seed left in the draw. Berdych, who saved a match point en route to a stunning upset of world No. 1 Roger Federer in the fourth round, dismantled fifth-seeded Swede Robin Soderling 6-2 6-2. Berdych, who said he wanted to be aggressive but with lots of control was able to do just that. He broke Soderling four times and faced only one break point himself. After being pushed around in the first set by Nadal, who will still return to No. 3 in the world on Monday, Roddick realised he would have to do more. I took a lot of risks there in the last two sets, Roddick said. Thats what I have to do. My comfort zone of moving the ball around and maybe chipping it around a little bit doesnt work against Rafa. I had to try to come up with something that at least took him out of his comfort zone a little bit, and it paid off. Roddick, who finished with 15 aces, began moving to the net with more aggression a tactic that Nadal admitted caught him by surprise. I started the match playing pretty well, Nadal said. I had the match under control in the first set with my serve. In the second set Andy was serving well, I didnt have a lot of chances on the return. He plays a very aggressive game and started to play more aggressive in the game where he got the break. It was a change, and it was a surprise for me. After that, in the third, he put more pressure on my serve, attacking more. Hes playing really well.