ABC Radio National
THE SPORTS FACTOR

Chronological Index of summaries and transcripts – 2002

December 2002

• The Running Shoe - Symbol of Our Time 
  27/12/2002
  Once, any old canvas plimsoll would do for a jog around the park. Now, the sports shoe is big business, serious technology and high fashion. How did the humble runner become a cultural icon? [ more ] 

• Netball Culture and the Western Wildcats 
  23/12/2002
  Playing the girl's game: how and why Netball came to embody a feminine ideal about team sport for girls. Sports historian Tracy Taylor, former Australian coach Joyce Brown, and Australian team player Eloise Southby talk about the the distinct development and unique sporting features of netball. [ more ] 

• Body-Builders and Body Image 
  13/12/2002
  This week, the psychology of BODY-BUILDING. What prompts a person to become a competitive body-builder? Can the quest for a superhuman physique become an unhealthy obsession? A new study reveals a condition known as ‘muscle dysmorphia’, where body-builders with gigantic muscles still think they’re puny. [ more ] 

• Origin of the Ashes 
  06/12/2002
  This week, how sports organisations are now trying to address the “insurance crisis”, which has caused the cancellation of numerous community sports events this year. [ more ] 

November 2002

• Gen Y Athletes 
  29/11/2002
  This week, some current trends and challenges for sport. [ more ] 

• The Spirit of Cricket 
  22/11/2002
  This week, the spirit of cricket. Former Australian captain BRIAN BOOTH, on “the curse of sledging”; sports writer GREG BAUM on whether Australia’s dominance in international cricket can last for much longer; and former England captain MIKE ATHERTON, on what kept him buoyant through the criticisms and up and downs of his captaincy. [ more ] 

• Horsey Sports 
  15/11/2002
  As the dust settles on the Melbourne Cup for another year, a couple of other horsey sports feature this week, each of them with their origins in the military. [ more ] 

• Bodyline - 70th Anniversary 
  08/11/2002
  With the First Test of the current Ashes series underway, we remember back 70 years, to another time when England toured Australia to play cricket. In a climate of tense economics and politics between the two countries, the summer of 1932/33 produced the high drama of “Bodyline”. [ more ] 

• The Shooting Range and the Racetrack 
  01/11/2002
  This week, people who shoot guns for sport. In the face of the continuing debate around guns laws, are sporting shooters being unfairly stigmatised and stereotyped? Or are they part of the problem? There’s a lot of tension around issues of gun ownership at the moment, but sporting shooters at the Western Sydney Rifle Club say competing with guns is soothing and relaxing.
  
  Plus, as we approach the first Tuesday in November, Australia’s pre-eminent writer on horse racing, Les Carlyon, discusses how and why the Melbourne Cup became Australia’s pre-eminent horse race. [ more ] 

October 2002

• Married to the Game 
  25/10/2002
  With the British TV series “Footballer’s Wives” currently screening in Australia, a look at what it is like to be married to a professional sportsman. There’s status and glamour – but do women know what they’re getting themselves into when they marry a man who’s married to the team? [ more ] 

• Boxing - the Continuing Debate  
  18/10/2002
  This week, our most lyrical sports writer, Martin Flanagan, acknowledges and reflects on the significant number of young Australian football players among the injured, missing and dead in the terrorist bombing in Bali. [ more ] 

• The Whirlwind Ebony Trundler 
  11/10/2002
  At the World Master Games underway in Melbourne, we meet the Grand Master of them all, 99-year-old sprinter, Charles Booth. As a runner, he’s in a class all of his own. He’s also the inventor of the runner’s starting blocks. [ more ] 

•  Football in the Age of Instability 
  04/10/2002
  At the end of the Australian Football League and National Rugby League seasons, a look at how both codes are faring. Why are a number of AFL clubs in financial strife? Is the salary cap in the NRL too low? [ more ] 

September 2002

• The Science of Winning 
  27/09/2002
  This week, the science of winning. All those blokes playing in the weekend’s football finals will do it with as much science as guts and determination. But when did Australian sport go all scientific? [ more ] 

• Sport & Community 
  20/09/2002
  It’s often said that sport delivers a huge range of social benefits, from community cohesion to crime reduction. But what’s the evidence? Are too many untested claims made for the positive effects of community sports programs? [ more ] 

• Sports of the Warrior 
  13/09/2002
  This week, re-visiting the ancient and noble sports of fencing and archery, the “warrior sports”. [ more ] 

• Olympic Sports - What's Hot & What's Not? 
  06/09/2002
  What’s hot and what’s not when it comes to which sports are in or out of the Olympic Games?
  
  A recent report by the Programme Commission of the International Olympic Committee puts baseball, softball and modern pentathlon on the chopping block. The new favourites are golf and rugby. [ more ] 

August 2002

• FASTER, HIGHER...OLDER 
  30/08/2002
  With the World Masters Games underway in Melbourne soon, veteran athletes everywhere are getting into some serious training.
  
  A whole bunch of rowers from all over the world, who competed as young men in the 1956 Olympic Games, are once again returning to Lake Wendouree to participate in the Masters Games, including a complete crew of 8 from Japan. [ more ] 

• Oz Soccer - The Saga Continues 
  23/08/2002
  This week, the continuing saga around Australian soccer. The Federal Government has weighed in with a major review about to get underway of this sport – the sport that’s commonly regarded as the most dysfunctional in the country. But will this new inquiry bring about the radical reform that many before have tried and failed to achieve? [ more ] 

• Sporty Science 
  16/08/2002
  In celebration of National Science Week, The Sports Factor goes scientific. Since 1994, the Australian Institute of Sport has been using scientific methods to identify potential elite athletes. This now includes research into the genetic make-up of champions. JASON GULBIN, the AIS National Talent Search Co-ordinator says the global race is definitely on to find performance-enhancing genes. But what are the ethical implications? [ more ] 

• The Running Shoe - Symbol of Our Time 
  09/08/2002
  Once, any old canvas plimsoll would do for a jog around the park. Now, the sports shoe is big business, serious technology and high fashion. How did the humble runner become a cultural icon? [ more ] 

• Bowling - The New Glamour Sport? 
  02/08/2002
  Let’s go bowling! It’s the new hip and happening sport. Lumbered with the Fred Flintstone image for years, tenpin bowling has recently found a retro-cool status among the young and the fashionable. [ more ] 

July 2002

• The Empire Strikes Back  
  26/07/2002
  As the XVII Commonwealth Games get underway in Manchester, an assessment of the relevance of these games in the 21st century. Do the Commonwealth Games hold any credibility as an international sports events anymore, or are they now just a colonial relic, an imperial anachronism? Can and should the Commonwealth Games be re-invented to find a new and distinct place in the political and sporting cultures of the countries of the Commonwealth? [ more ]  

• Green Sport 
  19/07/2002
  This week, green sport. The Australian Conservation Foundation is working on its first-ever policy on sport and the environment. ACF national councillor and author of the draft policy PHIL McMANUS tells us why. [ more ] 

• Bend It Like Beckham 
  12/07/2002
  With the recent release in Australia of the comedy feature film “Bend It Like Beckham”, a discussion about girls, sport and transgression. [ more ] 

• Lacrosse - Little Brother of War 
  05/07/2002
  Although it has a French name, LACROSSE is an American Indian sport. And while its origins became less and less known as the game was westernised and formalised, lacrosse is now proudly reasserting its heritage. [ more ] 

June 2002

• Blowing the Whistle on World Cup Referees 
  28/06/2002
  As the World Cup for soccer draws to its conclusion, a look back on the standard of refereeing at this tournament. It’s been the hot topic of the World Cup, with accusations and conspiracy theories flying thick and fast as powerful teams have fallen to lesser soccer countries. So has the refereeing been unjustifiably bad? [ more ] 

• Official Abuse 
  21/06/2002
  This week, umpires and referees speak out. They reckon the abuse and intimidation they’re getting has gone way too far. As a consequence, there’s been a huge drop off in the number of people now prepared to do the job. [ more ] 

• Soccer, Italian-style 
  14/06/2002
  Author TIM PARKS has lived in Italy for over 20 years. His latest book, “A Season With Verona”, follows a year with the Hellas Verona Football Club. The team is desperately trying to avoid relegation. And the hard-core fans, the Brigate Gialloblu, formulate the most insulting chants they can fling at opposition teams and supporters, with all the passion and parody that typifies Italian soccer. [ more ] 

• The Balancing Act 
  07/06/2002
  What makes a top female gymnast? Serious training from about 5 years of age for a start. Plus having parents who’ll devote their lives to the quest as well.
  
  ALLANA SLATER and SARAH LAUREN are two of Australia’s best gymnasts, based at the Western Australian Institute of Sport. They’ve devoted their childhood to excelling in a sport with enormous physical and emotional demands, and a competitive career that’ll be over by the time they reach 20. And, as their parents have discovered, life’s as much of a balancing act for them as it is for their gymnast daughters. [ more ] 

May 2002

• Tie Me Kangaroo Down, Sport 
  31/05/2002
  As the World Cup is about to kick off in Japan and Korea, how soccer
  evolved from an English village game to the most popular and widely played
  sport in the world. [ more ] 

• The Sporting Imagination 
  24/05/2002
  For years, the name “BOB NEIL” has appeared on banners at sports events around Australia, and around the world. And a portrait of Bob Neil has just been entered in Australia’s best-known and most prestigious art award, the Archibald Prize. But who is this sports legend, and what’s he done to deserve this sort of attention? [ more ] 

• East Timor: Sport and Reconciliation 
  17/05/2002
  As East Timor’s Independence Day draws near, a look at the role of sport in nation-building, celebration and reconciliation. We’ll hear from a couple of Australians who are there, coaching in villages and refugee camps and arranging sports events for the independence festivities. [ more ] 

• Harry Gordon - 50 Olympic Years 
  10/05/2002
  Australian journalist Harry Gordon reported on his first Olympic Games 50 years ago. Combining a career as a war correspondent with sports writer, he went from the Korean war to the Helsinki Olympic Games, the Algerian civil war to the Rome Olympics. He’s now revising and updating his definitive history, “Australia and the Olympic Games”. [ more ] 

• Reading, Writing & Arithmetic 
  03/05/2002
  In a recent poll Sports Business International magazine lists the most influential women in sport. All except one of those named are sports executives based in Europe and North America. The exception is SARAH LUCAS, Executive of Sport Industry Australia. Sarah talks about her own role in sport, and women in sports management. [ more ] 

April 2002

• Wheels on Fire 
  26/04/2002
  For more than 10 years, LOUISE SAUVAGE has been Australia’s world champion wheelchair racer. She’s transcended the label of ‘athlete with a disability’ to simply become one of our best-known athletes, though not without controversy. Here, she reflects on her life in sport. [ more ] 

• Lest We Forget - Sport and War 
  19/04/2002
  This week, in anticipation of ANZAC Day, the role of sport in the First World War, and in the commemoration of war. [ more ] 

• Ugly Parents, Dangerous Nutrition 
  12/04/2002
  The contents of sports nutritional supplements have been tested by the medical commission of the International Olympic Committee, and revealed that 15% of them secretly contain banned substances. JOHN MENDOZA, from the Australian Sports Drug Agency, discusses the implications for athletes. [ more ] 

• The Way of the Sword 
  05/04/2002
  KENDO is the ancient Japanese martial art of fencing, banned in Japan by the occupying forces after World War 2. It’s less well-known than other martial arts like Judo and Taekwondo, which are Olympic sports. But Kendo has found its way into western popular culture, through the “Star Wars” movies!
  
  Competitors at last weekend’s Australian Kendo Championships discuss the philosophy of “the way of the sword”, and the influence of this philosophy on western sport. Plus, what might be lost and gained if Kendo were to move closer to western-style sports, in the way that Judo and Taekwondo have. [ more ] 

March 2002

• Good Sport, Bad Sport 
  29/03/2002
  Why are some of the most negative memories adults have of childhood to do with sport? How does being good or bad at sport when you’re a child affect you as an adult? [ more ] 

• TV Sport Takes A Reality Check 
  22/03/2002
  According to MICHAEL MAGUIRE, sports business writer for The Australian newspaper, the bubble has burst on the ever-increasing prices being paid for TV sports rights. Even Rupert Murdoch, the man most responsible for inflating the market, now says TV sports rights have gone “beyond an economic level”. So, what will a downturn mean for sports organisers and viewers? [ more ] 

• Football Culture, Netball Culture 
  15/03/2002
  This week, issues in the cultures of men's and women's team sports. [ more ] 

• Winter Rap 
  08/03/2002
  What sort of effect might Australia's unexpected gold medals at the Winter Olympics have on the future of snow and ice sports in this country? Aussie speed skaters used to have to train at 3.30am, the only ice time they could get. The aerial skiers trained by jumping into a leech-infested pool. [ more ] 

• Gay Pride, Gay Prejudice in Sport 
  01/03/2002
  On the eve of the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, a look at gay pride versus gay prejudice in sport.
  
  The Gay Games are also being held in Sydney this year, in November. But why have a dedicated international gay sports event, and what sorts of difficulties and dilemmas do homosexual sportspeople face that others don't? [ more ] 

February 2002

• Amateurism in Sport 
  22/02/2002
  This week, a fresh look at AMATEURISM, and what brought about its decline in elite sport. [ more ]

• Muhammad Ali and the Spirit of the '60s 
  15/02/2002
  In the turbulent and politically charged 1960s, the heavyweight boxer
  Cassius Marcellus Clay changed his name, politicised his identity, and made his victories symbolic of his beliefs. Reviled and exiled at the time,
  Muhammad Ali is now regarded as a great humanitarian, and is celebrated in a new feature film.
  
  MIKE MARQUSEE, author of a book about Ali called "Redemption Song", discusses the ways in which this brash young boxer both reflected, and shaped, the social movements and conflicts of the 1960s, and whether there could emerge in sport today such a figure as Muhammad Ali was in his time. [ more ] 

• Winter Olympics - Sports of Snow and Ice 
  08/02/2002
  This week, sports of snow and ice, as the Winter Olympic Games open in Salt Lake City. [ more ] 

• Rock Climbing in Australia 
  01/02/2002
  Do you have a head for heights? Like facing physical danger? Love being active, but not interested in traditional, organised sports? [ more ] 

January 2002

• Issues in Tennis and Fantasy Leagues 
  25/01/2002 
  As the Australian Open reaches its climax, veteran tennis commentator BUD COLLINS teases out some of the issues facing professional tennis: the huge number of injuries, the lack of depth in women's tennis, and what he calls the game's "massive PR problem". [ more ] 

• Coach Gallagher 
  18/01/2002
  Harry Gallagher, the man who coached swimmers like Dawn Fraser, Jon Henricks and Michael Wendon to numerous Olympic medals and world records. [ more ] 

• Dawn Fraser 
  11/01/2002
  'The one that came the longest way!
  A gold medallist across three Olympic Games, and named World Female Swimmer of the Century in 1999, Dawn was the youngest of eight children of a working class family. Tough and streetwise, she was an SP bookie's runner at 9 years old, and received her first ban from swimming when she was just 12 years old. Thus began her tempestuous relationship with swimming's officaldom. [ more ] 

• Orienteering: The Thinking Sport 
  04/01/2002
  Every year, thousands of orienteers gather in bushland somewhere in Australia for the biggest event in their competitive calendar, the Australian Three Day Championships. Originating in Scandinavia, aficionados describe orienteering as like 'doing a cryptic crossword while you're running to catch the bus'. [ more ] 

This is an archive copy of a document originally located at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/8.30/sportsf/index/SportsFactorChronoIdx2002.htm
All copyright remains with the creator.

The National Sport Information Centre Web Archive provides access to archive copies of materials in electronic forms. There is no inference that these materials necessarily reflect the current policy of any of the institutions or agencies that created them.