A DRAMATIC SURPRISE ON A QUIET SQUARE

Bad behavor from Iker Casillias to a small child, during APOEL – Real Madrid

Usually elite football players like European and World Champion Iker Casillas sign autographs to young children. Look what he did to a small kid, during his visit to our country Cyprus, for Uefa Champions League match Apoel – Real Madrid. I used to like Casillas,  but definetly not any more, as no one else from Cyprus is

People are awesome

My favorite is the little girl with the bike!

8 Athletes Who Retired In Their Prime

Found in the e-advisor blog

There’s enough drama in professional sports to script a thousand melodramatic films, with retiring in your prime possibly being the most dramatic. Sports fans never want to see their heroes, be they male or female, age and lose their game and drive. With that in mind, many athletes have retired at the just the right time, and gone on to enjoy successful careers outside of professional sports. Still others have retired in their prime, only to experience unexpected surprises and setbacks. The reasons for retiring can be complex. Consider these 8 athletes and their stories.

1. Michael Jordan

   Now former professional basketball player Michael Jordan holds the distinction of retiring not once, not twice, but three times over the course of his career. Each time, fans were surprised. Jordan first retired in 1993, after the murder of his father, with whom he was close, earlier that year. He returned to the Chicago Bulls, leading them to three championships. But with teammates Scottie Pippen and Dennis Rodman preparing to depart, Jordan chose to retire again in 1999. He returned to the game in 2001 to play with the Wizards, with the intention of donating his salary as a player to victims of the September 11 attacks. He retired for a final time in 2003. At his final game on his old home court in Chicago, Jordan received a four-minute standing ovation.

2. Rocky Marciano

   Legendary boxer Rocky Marciano is the only heavyweight champion to hold his title and remain untied and undefeated for his entire career. In fact, 43 of his 49 victories came from knocking out his opponent. Marciano retired at the age of 32 in 1955, and only briefly considered returning to the sport. He was able to avoid chronic and debilitating injuries as a result of bowing out of the sport when he did.

3. Jim Brown

   Hall of Fame member Jim Brown played from 1957-1965 for the Cleveland Browns before retiring, and enjoying a second career as an actor. Brown helped pave the way for other African-American athletes who faced discrimination and rejection in the 1950s era of professional sports. He is considered the best running back ever to play football, and his retirement took fans by surprise. Brown went on to break new ground in the movies, filming the first interracial sex scene with Raquel Welch in 100 Rifles.

4. Barry Sanders

   Detroit Lions running back Barry Sanders retired, not without some controversy, in 1998, healthy and having come extremely close to Walter Payton’s career rushing mark of 16,726 yards, second only to Emmit Smith’s record. After news of his retirement reached his hometown newspaper, The Wichita Eagle, Sanders was later quoted as saying he left the Lions because he felt the front office wasn’t committed to building a winning team. Sanders entered the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2004.

5. Pat Tillman

   Pat Tillman was a linebacker for Arizona State University before debuting with the Arizona Cardinals in 1998. He distinguished himself with the Cardinals, with a record totaling 238 tackles, 2.8 sacks, and three interceptions. In 2001, after the September 11 attacks, Tillman turned down a $3.6 million dollar contract to instead enlist in the U.S. army and fight the war in Afghanistan. He was killed by what the Pentagon ultimately ruled as “friendly fire” in 2004.

6. Annika Sorenstam

   Annika Sorenstam is one of the most successful golfers in history, having won 72 official LPGA tournaments, including 10 majors and 18 other international tournaments. She retired in 2008, choosing to focus on her family and her own ANNIKA brand, which combines her passions for golf, fitness, and charitable work into ventures that include designing golf courses, and partnering with other businesses to produce a clothing line, wine label, and fragrance.

7. Lorena Ochoa

   Mexico-born Lorena Ochoa took up golf as the age of five, and left college in her sophomore year to pursue a career as a professional golfer. Over the course of eight years, she finished in the top-10 in her 2003 rookie season, and eventually surpassed fellow golfer Annika Sorenstam as the No. 1 female golfer. By then, Ochoa had compiled 27 wins and two majors in seven seasons on tour, and was earning more than $4 million in a season. In 2010, she retired in her prime.

8. Bjorn Borg

   Disregarding a brief and unsuccessful post-retirement comeback, tennis rock star and fashion label owner Bjorn Borg left the sport at the age of 26, mentally and physically exhausted from annexing 11 Grand Slam singles, six French and five Wimbledon, in the space of just eight years. After spinning out of control shortly after his retirement, Borg somehow got it together and debuted his own fashion label that has gone on to outsell Calvin Klein in Borg’s home country of Sweden.

VERY INTERESTING UNKNOWN FACTS

Since last Sunday’s half marathon, where i run, i am in a recovery mood, both physically and mentally. So, instead of sports post i will post something else this time. Here are some interesting, but true facts, that you may or may not have known:
1. The Statue of Liberty’s index finger is eight feet long.
2. Rain has never been recorded in some parts of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
3. A 75 year old person will have slept about 23 years.
4. Boeing 747′s wing span is longer than the Wright brother’s first flight. The Wright brother’s invented the airplane.
5. There are as many chickens on earth as there are humans.
6. One type of hummingbird weighs less than a penny.
7. The word “set” has the most number of definitions in the English language; 192 Slugs have four noses.
8. Sharks can live up to 100 years.
9. Mosquitos are more attracted to the color blue than any other color.
10. Kangaroos can’t walk backwards.
11. About 75 acres of pizza are eaten in in the U.S. everyday.
12. The largest recorded snowflake was 15 Inch wide and 8 Inch thick. It fell in Montana in 1887.
13. The tip of a bullwhip moves so fast that the sound it makes is actually a tiny sonic boom.
14. Former president Bill Clinton only sent 2 emails in his entire 8 year presidency.
15. Koalas and humans are the only animals that have finger prints.
16. There are 200,000,000 insects for every one human.
17. It takes more calories to eat a piece of celery than the celery had in it to begin with.
18. The world’s largest Montessori school is in India, with 26,312 students in 2002.
19. Octopus have three hearts.
20. If you ate too many carrots, you would turn orange.
21. The average person spends two weeks waiting for a traffic light to change.
22. 1 in 2,000,000,000 people will live to be 116 or old.
23. The body has 2-3 million sweat glands.
24. Sperm whales have the biggest brains; 20 lbs.
25. Tiger shark embryos fight each other in their mother’s womb. The survivor is born.
26. Most cats are left pawed.
27. 250 people have fallen off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
28. A Blue whale’s tongue weighs more than an elephant.
29. You use 14 muscles to smile and 43 to frown. Keep Smiling!
30. Bamboo can grow up to 3 ft in 24 hours.
31. An eyeball weighs about 1 ounce.

Thanks for visiting!

On March, 13.3.2012 my blog christostriathlon1 received its 175,000 visit.

People from 153 countries have tuned in so far this year.

Thanks for visiting. Thanks for participating in the conversations. And thanks for letting others know about the my endurance sports blog.

Before I was a Dad

As a parent my self, this poem has really touched me, so even if is not about any sports, i am posting it, since parenting is more intense and needs much more commitment than any sport does:

Before I was a Dad
I made and ate hot meals.
I had unstained clothing.
I had quiet conversations on the phone.

Before I was a Dad
I slept as late as I wanted
And never worried about how late
I got into bed.
I brushed my hair and my teeth everyday.

Before I was a Dad,
I didn’t worry whether or not my
plants were poisonous.
I never thought about immunizations.

Before I was a Dad
I had never been pooped on,
Spit up on,
Chewed on,
Peed on,
Or pinched by tiny fingers.

Before I was a Dad
I had complete control of myself;
My thoughts,
My body,
And my mind.
I slept all night.

Before I was a Dad.
I never held down a screaming child
so that doctors could do tests or give shots.
I never looked into teary eyes and cried.
I never got gloriously happy over a simple grin.
I never sat up late hours at night watching a baby sleep.

Before I was a Dad
I never held a sleeping baby just because I didn’t
want to put it down.
I never felt my heart break into a million pieces
when I couldn’t stop the hurt.
I never knew something so small could affect my
life so much.
I never knew that I could love someone so much.
I never knew I would love being a Dad.

Before I was a Dad,
I didn’t know the feeling of having my
heart outside my body.
I didn’t know how special it could feel
to feed a hungry baby.
I didn’t know that bond between a
Father and his child.
I didn’t know that something so small
could make me feel so important.

Before I was a Dad,
I had never gotten up in the middle of
the night every ten minutes to make
sure all was okay.
I had never known the warmth,
The joy,
The love,
The heartache,
The wonderfulment,
Or the satisfaction of being a Dad.

I didn’t know I was capable of feeling so
much before I was a Dad.

Huge Blunder By CNN

An incredible blunder made the CNN, and placed  Nicosia, Cyprus in Sicily, Italy.

American news network, one of the largest in the world, was caught unread on where is the capital of our country.

Specifically on the phone with the Portuguese ace APOEL, Nuno Morais, CNN had the map of Italy in Nicosia and placed in Sicily.

APOEL – living the dream….again!

APOEL – living the dream…..

I am not fun of Apoel, but i am a Cypriot, and that team last night has managed to get into the best 8 team of Europe. First time in history a team from Cyprus, has done that. Read what a good friend of mine has written in his blog, at the link below:

APOEL – living the dream…..

Road Riding vs. Mountain Biking, The Trail To Fitness

Reblogged from Fit Recovery:

• 

When I started riding again seriously, for the first time since I was knee-high to a grasshopper, I began on a mountain bike.  Where I reside, many of the good back roads to ride are dirt so it made sense to go with something that could handle wash board roads, potholes and gravel.  Once I invested in some slicks and aero bars though, I quickly discovered that I like speed.  

Read more… 803 more words