Sport

Having participated as a journalist in thousands of post-match press conferences, I can testify the experience can be incredibly uncomfortable for all involved. In the NRL, there is a rule that both head coaches front the media while players are made available where possible. An obvious exception is when players are being treated for an injury. The losing coach's press...

A group committed to banning greyhound racing is calling on the NSW Government to end racing on the oval track in Goulburn when the city's new straight track opens in 2022. The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds (GPG) advocacy is calling for action ahead of the Greyhound Welfare Integrity Commission (GWIC) hearing in Goulburn on Thursday, 3 June. CPG president...

Rugby League people talk a lot about the importance of 'the spine' - the spine being the combined talents of the hooker, halfback and fullback. In the Raiders glory years of 1989, 90 and 94, the spine was virtually unchanged and had an enormous influence on the team’s success. In 1989/90, Steve Walters was the best hooker in rugby league....

John Blom lasted around a year in the public service in Canberra before deciding that there was another world to be conquered. It was a world he had become familiar with while studying International Relations and Politics at the ANU. John worked his way through university as a global tennis umpire, effectively travelling the world while completing his degree from...

At 16 years of age, Robin Duff became a dual international. She was still at Canberra Girls Grammar School when she was called into the Australian women’s hockey squad, comprising 26 members. She had already been selected in the Australian women’s softball team as a pitcher, in 1977. These were heady times unlikely to be repeated too often these days...

As she grew up in the Woden area, Laura Peel’s passion was gymnastics. She would train 24 hours a week. But she was also a skier, thanks to her mother, Teresa. The combination has helped make Laura a world champion with high hopes for Olympic gold. Laura explains, “I learnt to ski at Perisher when I was about three years...

Set among the trails of Stromlo Forest Park, with generous cut-off times and a range of distances to suit everyone, the 2021 Stromlo Running Festival is a great opportunity to step off the road and into nature. And you may leave the roads forever. This year's festival, to be held on 20-21 November, will see runners head for the hills...

Every time rugby league has a ‘vision’ to help the league, it has the potential to cause heart palpitations among Raiders supporters. Remember Super League? That period in the Raiders' history is lamentable and resulted in fans walking away from the code and the team. So naturally, there is an element of scepticism in the proposal to split the NRL...

A famous bush football competition that flourished after the Great War for 50 years then disappeared is returning - at least in book form. A Group Nine, Saturday afternoon contest, the Maher Cup ignites rugby league full-throated fanaticism among anyone who played or followed the game until the early 1970s. Recently at Tumut, where the late Ted Maher launched the...

Dimity Douglas was just 12 years of age when she competed in the 100 metres breaststroke at the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane. Dimity was in Year Six at Canberra Girls Grammar Junior School when she was selected in the Australian team. The selection was just three years after she started training in a squad at the Deakin Health Spa....

Memories of last year's shortened, but successful, AFL Canberra season will be long forgotten when the Queanbeyan Tigers eye back-to-back premierships ahead of the competition's first round on Saturday, 1 May. Queanbeyan's proud Tigers will again have plenty of bite ahead of a full home-and-away schedule of 15 games, plus a full finals series, for all competitions. Only 10 games were...

The beachside town of Dalmeny on the NSW South Coast seems an unlikely home for a champion snowboarder. Yet its 16-year-old resident, Valentino Guseli, recently made international headlines for breaking the world record for the highest snowboard halfpipe air. The teenager jumped a staggering – and terrifying – 7.3 metres on the halfpipe (see video below) at Laax in Switzerland, where he's...

Canberra-based firm CK Architecture has been awarded the job of designing the long-awaited Cooma Sports Hub. Snowy Monaro Regional Council's recreational planner Alannah Dickeson said CK Architecture was selected after a local government open tendering process. It was highly contested, with 21 submissions but ultimately council considered prior experience on a range of sporting infrastructure projects to be the deciding factor. The state-of-the-art...