Sports Poets Society

https://eu.blueridgenow.com/story/sports/nba/2021/01/25/harthorne-wingo-polk-countys-only-nba-player-passes-away-73/4246138001/ ANDY RHINEHART | POLKSPORTS.COM January 25, 2020 Tryon High School’s 1964-65 basketball squad. Harthorne Wingo is in the first row, far left.  PHOTO COURTESY OF POLK COUNTY HISTORICAL ASSOCATION Harthorne Wingo, the only Polk County native to ever play in the National Basketball Association, died Saturday, Jan. 23 at the age of 73. The New York City Office of the Chief Medical Examiner confirmed Wingo’s death. A cause of death was not immediately available. Polk County's only NBA player, Harthorne Wingo, passed away on Saturday in New York.  LUCAS VIA/ FOR POLKSPORT.COM Part of the first integrated class at Tryon High School, Wingo would travel from the courts of Polk County to the famed playground at Rucker Park in New York City to the bright lights of the NBA, playing for the New York Knicks. He was part of the Knicks’ 1973 world championship team, ...

The 1985 edition of the Tour of Flanders featured  such heavy rain that only 24 riders finished the race The Koppenberg is slick on the best of days, even the dry days, when thin dust covers stones laid at 22 percent. Then it rains, and slick turns to impossible. Oh, did it rain in 1985 . It started as a drizzle, normal Belgian weather, then morphed into a downpour. Then it went biblical. Two hundred kilometers into the race, there were 50 riders left in the field . Only 24 finished, the smallest number in cycling’s modern era. What happened?  Eric Vanderaerden, 23 years old in April of 1985 , suffered a bro ken wheel early and was chasing as the Koppenberg approached and the rain began to come down. He was near the back of the thinned-out peloton when he hit the berg’s stone slopes. As the grade rose, rear wheels began to spin. Riders on the front lost grip and tipped over, some still stuck in their pedals. Thus began a game of human dominos. Vanderaerden, through luck or s...

Johan Museeuw won his final Flanders title with a display of  dominance  by his Mapei team, which ruled the classics in the 1990s. https://www.velonews.com/news/studying-flanders-1998-lion-of-flanders-roars-for-the-last-time/ In the 1990s, the Ronde van Vlaanderen saw the emergence of classics powerhouse Johan Museeuw . Though his legacy was later tainted with doping allegations, no one was bigger or more commanding than the “Lion of Flanders” during his heyday. During his run, he reached the Flanders podium eight times . Three of those finishes were victories , making him one of six riders to have a trio of Flanders wins . His most emphatic victory was his last, in 1998 , when he and his Mapei team pummeled the field into submission. Museeuw put down a searing attack on the Tenbosse and no one could answer . What happened:  By 1998, Mapei riders were the undisputed kings of the cobblestones . Though there were efforts by rivals Andrei Tchmil and Peter Van Petegem , no on...

Tom Boonen won his first Tour of Flanders in 2005,  arguably one of the biggest seasons of his storied career https://www.velonews.com/news/studying-flanders-2005-tommekes-first-step-toward-legend/ Tom Boonen finished third in his Paris-Roubaix debut in 2002 . He won two stages of the Tour de France in 2004. Then, in 2005, the kid known as “Tommeke” took proper steps down the path to becoming a legend. He won the Tour of Flanders for the first time, and completed the double the following week by winning Paris-Roubaix. He later went on to win stages and the green jersey at the Tour, and then became world champion in Madrid. What a year . It all started in Flanders. How it happened:  With 17 kilometers to go on the feared Kapelmuur , a handful of riders remained in the front group, including favorites Tom Boonen and Peter Van Petegem , T-Mobile teammates Erik Zabel and Andreas Klier, Roberto Petito, and Alessandro Ballan . A substantial group was chasing a minute behind. Boone...

https://www.velonews.com/news/studying-flanders-2012-new-route-winner/ Cycling fans were up in arms in 2012, when a new Tour of Flanders route was introduced, but a familiar Belgian won the day. Let’s step into our time machines and zip back a few years. We find the peaceful Flemish region of Belgium overcome by chaos. Pitchfork-toting cycling fans surround the Ronde van Vlaanderen museum in Oudenaarde, demanding that the race’s new owners, Flanders Classics, return the decisive Kapelmuur and Bosberg climbs to the course (OK, I made that up). Goofballs stage a mock funeral for the departed climbs (that actually happened). Pundits question whether this new Flanders route — which includes three trips up the Paterberg and Oude Kwaremont — is blasphemous. Former champions chide the new course , saying Flanders has lost its luster. Everyone wonders whether the Tour of Flanders has jumped the shark. What nobody knows is that the new Flanders route will be rad. What happened:  Yes, remo...

https://www.velonews.com/news/studying-flanders-1992-breakaway-stuns-the-favorites/ Take a look back at the 1992 edition of the Tour of Flanders, which featured a 212km breakaway. If you watched pro cycling in the 1990s and early 2000s, it was easy to catch a glimpse of Jacky Durand , often wearing a pirate-style bandana, always off the front in a suicidal attack . French magazine Vélo even tracked his kilometers in the break with a “Jackymètre.” He rarely won out of those breaks , especially not on one of the biggest days of the season, a monument race, up against former winners such as Ed wig van Hooydonck or Moreno Argentin and champions in waiting like Johan Museeuw . But at Tour of Flanders 1992 , an important appointment for those cycling superstars — among others — Durand’s Gallic pluck shown through and he rode the breakaway of his life to the first French victory since 1956 in De Ronde . What happened:  Durand’s early breakaway went after around 45 kilometers of racing o...

di MARCO TAROZZI American Runners Pre oggi avrebbe 69 anni. Non possiamo immaginare con esattezza quello che sarebbe stato nella vita: probabilmente un alto dirigente dell’azienda che contribuì a lanciare col suo nome, il suo volto e la sua iniziativa, e che oggi è diventata una multinazionale dello sport. Sappiamo, in ogni caso, che metterebbe trasporto nel suo mestiere. Con idee sempre nuove, con creatività. Sarebbe un trascinatore, un capobranco. Era così allora, quando era un re della corsa. In pista e nel mondo fuori. Non sapeva stare fermo, era incapace di restare seduto più di cinque minuti. Riuscì a fermarlo solo il destino, in una maledetta notte di fine maggio del 1975. Pre aveva ventiquattro anni, aveva appena corso nella “sua” Eugene, all’Hayward Field che era la sua tana, quella in cui si sentiva in grado di battere chiunque. Il migliore al mondo. Aveva vinto, battendo Frank Shorter, l’ultima tappa di una serie di meeting che lui stesso aveva contribuito a far decol...