Sport

The first official title match was held back in 1886 in the United States between Wilhelm Steinitz and Johannes Zukertort.

The first five games were played in New York City, followed by the next four being played in St. Louis and the final eleven in New Orleans.

The winner was to be the first player to gain ten wins. Wilhelm Steinitz finally won the match 10–5, after winning his tenth game during the twentieth match and there were also five draws.

However in 1946 following the death of Alexander Alekhine, FIDE (Fédération Internationale des Échecs) the world chess association had the opportunity to bring the contest under their control.

They organised a tournament in 1948 featuring five of the world’s top players and it was won by the Soviet star Mikhail Botvinnik.

Following on from this, FIDE organised a title match every three years, with a series of qualifying tournaments and matches being used to determine who would become the official challenger.

A drawn match would favour the reigning champion, who would retain his title. A defeated champion was given the right to a return match one year later, but this was abandoned in 1963.

Players from the Soviet Union dominated the title matches from 1951-1972.

America’s Bobby Fischer ended the long run of Soviet victories in 1972 when he beat Spassky, but then Fischer did not play again for 20 years.

Meanwhile Anatoly Karpov and Garry Kasparov went on to dominate the title for the next 25 years.

In 1993, Garry Kasparov and his new challenger England’s Nigel Short, decided to break away from FIDE and played their match under the auspices of the Professional Chess Association.

FIDE held a rival match in the same year, which saw Karpov beat Jan Timman of the Netherlands.

The split in the chess world led to a confusing situation with two people claiming to be the reigning champion of the world.

Additional confusion was created by the astonishing return of Bobby Fischer in 1992, when he played a second match with Boris Spassky, 20 years after their epic 1972 clash.

Fischer also claimed to be world champion, as he had not been beaten since 1972, but nobody really took his claim seriously and Fischer never played chess again.

The split in the chess world was finally repaired in 2006 when Veselin Topalov of Bulgaria and Vladimir Kramnik played a unification match, which was won by Kramnik.

Viswanathan Anand then became the undisputed champion by winning a tournament for the title in 2007, followed by victories against Kramnik (2008) and Topalov (2010).

Since those messy times, title matches have been back on schedule.

The world chess champion for 2018 is Norwegian Magnus Carlsen who has retained the title since 2013.

Over a three week period Magnus Carlsen played against the American Fabiano Caruana and for 20 days the world’s two best grandmasters sat in a studio in central London.

Finally, after 15 games, 773 moves and 51 hours, Carlsen yet again beat Caruana.

The first Welshman to win one of the cycling worlds toughest challenges is a 32 year old cyclist named Geraint Thomas from Birchgrove in Cardiff, Wales. He won the Tour De France in 2018.

Geraint started cycling at the age of 10 at the Maindy Flyers velodrome and was soon noticed by Rod Ellingworth, performance director at Team Sky around three years later.

When Geraint Thomas was 14 years old his coaches realised that he could go very fast around the speed track.

Geraint had some competitive success in under 14’s & 16’s events, which including National Championships. In 2004 he won his first notable success when he won a silver medal in the points race at the 2004 UEC European Track Championships.

Geraint Thomas was the youngest member to join the British pursuit team during the world championships in 2006. In 2008 and 2012 alongside Bradley Wiggins, he won Olympic gold medals. Geraint Thomas decided to leave track cycling and focus more on road racing.

In 2007, Thomas made his Tour de France debut becoming the youngest rider in the race as Barloworld picked up one of the three wildcard spots allocated for the race.

Before Geraint Thomas, the last Welshman to compete in this race was Colin Lewis in 1967. In this year, Thomas completed his first Tour de France, finishing 140th out of 141 finishers.

Geraint opted not to take part in the 2008 Tour de France and trained in Britain instead for the Olympics in Beijing.

Great Britain’s team of Thomas, Paul Manning, Ed Clancy and Bradley Wiggins, broke and set new world record times in the semi-final and claimed gold in the final. They were more than two seconds ahead of second-placed New Zealand.

Also in 2008, Thomas was part of Great Britain’s gold-winning team pursuit squad at the Track World Championships.

However, in 2009 Geraint suffered a terrible crash during the time trial stage at Tirreno–Adriatico in Macerata, Italy. He misjudged a corner and crashed into a safety barrier breaking his pelvis and fracturing his nose in the fall.

After recovering from his injuries, 2010 saw Thomas join the newly-formed Team Sky and helped them make a winning debut at the Tour of Qatar.

He was one of six riders confirmed at the founding of the team, alongside Steve Cummings, Chris Froome, Russell Downing, Ian Stannard and Peter Kennaugh. More riders soon joined, which including Bradley Wiggins.

Thomas went on to win the British National Road Race Championships and earned his best ever finish at the Tour de France, coming 67th.

He went several better in the Tour De France of 2011, finishing 31st overall and earning a new three-year contract with Team Sky. He was also performing brilliantly at the Tour of Britain, until a crash ended his chances of victory.

In 2017 Geraint Thomas won the first stage of the Tour de France, so not only was he the first Welshman, but he was only the eighth cyclist from the United Kingdom, to wear the yellow jersey.

Unfortunately, during Stage 9 of that same year he crashed out on a slippery wet hill descent which left him with a broken collarbone.

Thomas was named as joint leader with Chris Froome in the 2018 Tour de France for Team Sky. But Froome had a crash at stage 1 and lost time to Thomas. Thomas with Team Sky finished second behind BMC Racing Team in the team time trial on Stage 2, and remained in second place when they started the Alps races at Stage 10.

At Stage 11, Thomas attacked in the final kilometre to take the stage win and the race leader’s Yellow Jersey. The following day, Thomas again won Stage 12 with a sprint finish at Alpe d’Huez ahead of Dumoulin and Froome.

Thomas became the first rider to win a Tour de France stage on Alpe d’Huez in the Yellow Jersey and the first British winner on Alpe d’Huez in the Tour de France.

Thomas kept on extending his lead throughout the three Pyrenean stages, being placed third behind stage winner Nairo Quintana and consolidated his position in the yellow jersey by picking up six bonus seconds in the sprint, extending his lead over Dumoulin to 2 minutes, 5 seconds.

The penultimate stage was a 31 km time trial, which Dumoulin won. Thomas survived a scare when his back wheel locked, but without injury or accident he completed the time trial successfully, finishing fourteen seconds behind Dumoulin, which still meant Thomas lead by 1 min 51s into the final stage.

Thomas held on to his lead all the way to Paris. He became only the third ever British, first British-born and first Welsh cyclist to win the Tour de France.

In September 2018, the Wales National Velodrome in Newport was officially renamed the Geraint Thomas National Velodrome.

Thomas attended the renaming ceremony after he completed the first stage of the 2018 Tour of Britain which finished in the city.

In December 2018, Thomas won the BBC Wales Sports Personality of the Year for the second time

He also won the main BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award that same year and was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2019 New Year Honours for services to cycling.

An interesting fun fact is that he attended the same school, Whitchurch High School, as Wales and Real Madrid footballer Gareth Bale and Welsh Rugby international Sam Warburton.

Despite there being rules and guidelines on the size of football pitches used by clubs to play in the English Premier League games, several clubs do not meet the regulation size of 105 metres long and 68 metres wide.

The club with the smallest pitch in the Premier League (during the 2016-2017 season) is Tottenham Hotspur, whose home ground – White Hart Lane – has a pitch size of 100 metres x 68 metres. Perhaps that is understandable though as the club first moved to the ground in 1899.

In fact Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Everton and Liverpool also have pitches which don’t meet the required legal size required by the Premier League.

However, they don’t contravene Premier League regulations by abiding to the following five rules relating to football pitches in Premier League:

K.15. – Unless otherwise permitted by the Board, in League Matches the length of the pitch shall be 105 metres and its breadth 68 metres.

K.16. – The Board shall only give permission to a Club for the dimensions of its pitch to be other than as set out in Rule K.15 if it is impossible for it to comply with Rule K.15 due to the nature of the construction of its Stadium.

K.17. – A Club shall register the dimensions of its pitch before the commencement of each Season by giving written notice thereof in Form 8 to the Board.

K.18. – The Board may at any time require a Club to obtain and submit to the Board a report by an independent expert certifying its pitch dimensions.

K.19. – No Club shall alter the dimensions of its pitch during the Season without the prior written consent of the Board.

There’s one thing for sure however that regardless of the size of the pitch, groundsmen have a lot of grass to cut during the football season!