Sports Poets Society

Belgian takes stage seven but Slovene’s solo success on Thursday still reverberates 11 Jul 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport Jeremy Whittle Tim Merlier of the Soudal-quick Step team won the seventh stage of the Tour de France in a classic sprinter’s finish on the banks of the Garonne in Bordeaux. As the Tour headed away from the Pyrenees, through Gascony towards the Atlantic coast, a lull settled over a shell-shocked peloton as it came to terms with the demonstration of domination from Tadej Pogacar in Thursday’s mountain stage to Gavarnie-gèdre. “What now?” was the question on most lips as the convoy gathered the morning after Pogacar’s Tourmalet masterclass, which took him into a seemingly unassailable lead over his perennial rival Jonas Vingegaard, the winner of this year’s Giro d’italia. The consensus is that, unless the defending champion crashes or gets ill, victory is already assured. It’s a measure of his superiority that with only six stages of 21 raced so far, the conversation has...

Bjørge Lillelien’s famous rant after 1981 clash stemmed from Norwegian obsession with English football ‘A week ago we thought it couldn’t get bigger than Norway-brazil, but there you go’ 11 Jul 2026 - THE GUARDIAN / Sport Lars Sivertsen What do Lord Nelson, Lord Beaverbrook, Sir Winston Churchill, Sir Anthony Eden, Clement Attlee, Henry Cooper and Lady Diana have in common? On 9 September 1981 they were all beaten by Norway. At least that is according to the iconic Norwegian radio commentator Bjørge Lillelien. His triumphant, giddy and slightly unhinged rant after Norway beat England 2-1 in a World Cup qualifier has gone down in Norwegian folklore. It has also attained something of a cult status abroad, with the Observer declaring it in 2002 the greatest bit of commentary ever. “We have beaten England! England, the birthplace of giants!” Lillelien enthused, before listing some of said giants. Henry Cooper may seem an odd man out among the various statesmen and Lady Di, but then Lilleli...