ABC Radio National
THE SPORTS FACTOR

• Past Greats and the Most Graceful Girl (rpt)
  31/12/2004
  A look back on the lives of the Rose Boys (through the eyes of author Peter Rose) and legendary cricketer Keith Miller who died earlier this year. We also meet The Most Graceful girl. [ transcript not available for this program ]

• Stop Being Serious, This is Funny (rpt)
  24/12/2004
  This week, the funny business of sport and humour - and occasionally even a bit of music. [ more ]

• Game, Set, Glory
  17/12/2004
  Next month is the Centenary of Australian Open tennis - we reflect on tennis' ups and downs in this country. Also if you still haven't figured out what to get Uncle Tom, we wade through a few of the plethora of sports books out this Xmas. [ more ]

• Australian Sports System
  10/12/2004
  This week we take a look at the Australian Sports System - contributions to it are recognised in sports awards but what is it and how does it work. We also find out how cricket plans to bring good behaviour back into the game through the Spirit of Cricket and visit the tiny community tennis club on the Gold Coast which beat the big guns to win one of Australian sports biggest awards. [ more ]

• Doping and Chucking
  03/12/2004
  Today we find out what life's like for a sportsman after a positive drug test - Justin Charles was the first AFL player to be suspended for steriod use and he says he'd do it again tomorrow. And chucking in cricket, what is it and why does it matter? [ more ]

November 2004
 

• The Fairway Within
  26/11/2004
  Want to find your inner swing? Keen on playing a round of golf without smashing your clubs in frustration? A new approach to improving your golf technique just might save you from this. And it's applicable to other forms of activity as well. [ more ]

• Thanks for the Memories
  19/11/2004
  Sports memorabilia has become a multi-million dollar industry. Investors are now buying Olympic medals for the price of a 3-bedroom house. What's driving this market, and how has it changed the relationship between sport and fans? [ more ]

• Last of the Great Amateurs
  12/11/2004
  National Netball League players train and compete like professionals, but in reality, they're amateurs. This sets up all sorts of tensions in their lives. Can netball ever become a truly professional sport in Australia? [ more ]

• Round the world in 100 days
  05/11/2004
  Victorian sailor Nick Moloney will be one of the starters in one of the most dangerous ocean yacht races, the Vendee Globe, which starts in France early next week. He chats to Sports Factor producer Maria Tickle about sleep deprivation, how to sew on your own tongue and writing your obituary. [ more ]

October 2004
 

• The Mozart Maulers
  29/10/2004
  Depression is the most common mental disorder. It's responsible for half of all suicides in Australia. The prescribing of antidepressants costs the government, through the PBS, around $155 million a year. [ more ]

• Good darts!
  22/10/2004
  Darts wants to get out of smoky bars and and into the Olympics. They've even started drug-testing to make it all happen. But how are they going to wean competitors off their nerve-soothing alcohol? [ more ]

• The gods created Keith Miller ... then threw the mould away.
  15/10/2004
  The death of Keith Ross Miller this week created an outpouring matched in recent times only by the death of Sir Donald Bradman or the retirement of Steve Waugh. So what is it about this fellow, who played his last game of cricket more than 40 years ago, that caused more people in two countries, Australia and England, to so lament his passing. [ more ]

• Shake those Pompoms!
  08/10/2004
  You might be surprised to learn that cheerleading, that all American thing, is Australia's fastest growing sport. You might also be surprised to learn it is a sport, but yes, you can get points for shouting and shaking your Pompoms. And on this edition of The Sports Factor, we'll even give you lessons. [ more ]

• The Philosophy and Philosophers of Coaching
  01/10/2004
  Wayne Bennett doesn't say a lot, but what he does say is always worth listening to. In a rare interview, rugby league's most successful coach gives insight into his successful coaching methods, the things he does to inspire others ... and also the things that have inspired him. And we also talk to Tracey Menzies about the challenges of coaching Ian Thorpe [ more ]

September 2004
 

• The Nightmare on Collins Street!
  24/09/2004
  Last Sunday morning, the half million Victorians who buy the local tabloid newspaper were confronted with a variation of Edvard Moonch's famous painting, The Scream. It was wrapped in Brisbane Lions and Port Adelaide colours under the headline "Nightmare At The MCG". Normally Victorians love their grand final, but apparently not this year, when it will be contested by two teams from outside the "home" of the game. So what does all this mean? And is just Melbourne enduring a nightmare. What about all the Adelaide folk who not only don't barrack for Port Adelaide, but have been taught since birth to despite the club. [ more ]

• Win one for the Gipper!
  17/09/2004
  Politicans and that photographic opportunity with a sportsperson - preferably a successful one: they're ubiquitous these days, and not just during election campaigns. So what is the attraction of sport to the pollies? [ more ]

• Howzat Ma Man?
  10/09/2004
  We don't normally associate cricket with the United States, even though the game was popular among the early colonials from England. George Washington's troops played cricket in between battles with the Redcoats. However, its Englishless counted against it after the Revolution. Ironically, in 2004, it is this very same Englishness which is helping create a special place for the game among homeless people on the streets of Los Angeles where the murder rate is four times the national average. Jason Ford's report is a fascinating look at cricket LA style just three days before Australia plays the United States in an historic ICC Champions Trophy game in Hampshire in England, the very cradle of the game. [ more ]

• The Olympics and the search for meaning in the 21st Century
  03/09/2004
  The Olympic Games went off without any of the many hitches that were feared - there was no terrorist attack, the venues were pretty well finished and the transport system worked. And the head of the IOC, Jacque Rogge, dubbed the return of the modern Olympics to their original venue as the dream games. Those original games in 1896 came about on the coat-tails of muscular Christianity. Over time in the 20th century the Games have also been used to further other ideologies - Hitler's Germany in 1936, Communism in Moscow in 1980, and capitalism at any number of Games. But what do the Games stand for in the 21st century? We hear a fascinating discussion between Professor John Carroll from La Trobe University and Olympic author Glenda Korporaal. [ more ]

August 2004
 

• The Famous Radio National Quiz Factor
  27/08/2004
  This week, we've joined up with the Famous Radio National quiz. You've got to hear this. [ more ]

• Afghanistan! The unveiling of a new era in sport.
  20/08/2004
  Robina Muqimyar's arrival in the main Olympic stadium at Athens, carrying the Afghani flag was a powerful symbol ... but to whom. And what about young Muslim women in Australia? How easy is it for them to get involved in sport. [ more ]

• To the Acropolis via the Yarra - the Ginn/Tomkins story
  13/08/2004
  Apparently a very major international sporting event is starting this weekend. Somewhere in Greece ... it will have lots of tacky music, undiluted triumphalism even in the pool (especially in the pool) and commercialism on steroids. The Sports Factor will eschew all of the above, preferring instead a look at the noble and distinctly un-commercial lives of rowers James Tomkin and Drew Ginn ... even if they have appeared in a TV commercial. Find out a few of the things they've encountered in a decade of training sessions on the Yarra River in Melbourne - like two bodies. Also we'll go behind the hype to find out what it's really like in Athens. Just where is the CuplaDays Restaurant? [ more ]

• From Russia With Love
  06/08/2004
  Irina Lashko was born in the old Soviet Union 31 years ago. But this month, she will represent Australia at the Athens Olympics, giving this country the chance to win its first ever gold medal in diving. The story of her journey from Moscow to Melbourne has all the ingredients of a good novel ... political intrigue, spies and romance. It was love for an Australian, Carol Furzer, that turned Lashko's world upside down. And talking of having your world turned upside down ... how's Steve Bradbury coping with life after his unexpected gold medal at the Winter Olympics two years ago. Producer Maria Tickle put on her skates to find out. [ more ]

July 2004
 

• Athletes caught in political crossfire
  30/07/2004
  It was one of the most controversial and divisive moment in Australian sporting history, as the Federal government called on athletes to boycott the the Moscow Olympics in protest at the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Olympic movement was split, and the athletes discovered themselves in the middle of some very hostile crossfire. [ more ]

• Amanda Carter and Alan Patching ... a couple of rare gliders
  23/07/2004
  Amanda Carter was a member of the Australian wheelchair basketball team - the Gliders - that won a silver medal at the Sydney Paralympics. But in that game she suffered an injury which has caused her to spend 18 months in hospital and even further restricted her mobility. Her story - she's had to meet most of her medical expenses herself - reveals how Australia's paralympians in Athens could be left exposed if they get injured. [ more ]

• Brigitte Muir - Attitude at Altitude
  16/07/2004
  This week, as the movie Touching the Void reminds us of the dangers of high altitude mountain climbing, The Sports Factor drove all the way to Natimuk in the Wimmera region of Western Victoria to speak with Brigitte Muir, the first Australian woman to climb Everest. In the kitchen where Simon Yates and Joe Simpson, the "stars" of Touching the Void have sat, Brigitte told of her own moments on mountains when death appeared a possibility; of how the death of another friend convinced her her days of high altitude climbing were over and of the day she might have found God in the foothills of the Himalayas. [ more ]

• Most Graceful Girl
  09/07/2004
  This week, we go in to the world of Calisthenics and the most graceful girl. [ more ]

• Jonah
  02/07/2004
  Jonah Lomu describes his early family life as like a scene from Once Were Warriors. His story of how he overcame that violent upbringing, even using it as movitation, to become the greatest rugby union player in the world, is moving enough. But when you add his battle against the kidney disease that still threatens to end his sporting career, his story becomes even more poignant. It's all in a revealing and dramatic interview. [ more ]

June 2004
 

• How Australia got its own drug scandal
  25/06/2004
  Australia has suddenly found itself embroiled in all the drug scandals rocking the sports world, particularly the Olympic Games. This week Athens bound cyclist Mark French has been banned for life after a number of banned drugs were found in his room at the AIS Cycling Annexe in Adelaide. We talk to an athlete who was in the first intake of athletes in the AIS about the pressure put on him back then to use drugs. And also why he said no. And what is Equigen, the apparent new drug of choice for the cheats. [ more ]

• Ali Bacher's Journey to the Rainbow Country
  18/06/2004
  In the 1980s, when Ali Bacher was one of the most reviled people in international sport for his role in organising the rebel cricket tours in South Africa, he could never have believed that in 2004 Nelson Mandela would write the foreword for his biography. The story of how it happened is the story of South Africa's transition from a racist and benighted land to the rainbow nation. [ more ]

• The plea(-bargain) for a clean Olympics
  11/06/2004
  Just a couple of months from the Athens Olympics, the United States is embroiled in the biggest drugs in sport scandal in its history. Already it has cost sprinter Kelli White her medals from last year's World Championships in Paris. Others under suspicion include the world's fastest fella, Tim Montgomery, and the darling of the Sydney Olympics, as she was known, Marion Jones. As embarrassing as it is though, it might just lead to the cleanest Olympics ever. A lot hinges on a plea-bargaining agreement between the US Attorney-General and Victor Conte, the man charged with providing banned drugs to a host of leading runners, footballers and baseballers. We'll investigate this and also George W. Bush's role in cleaning up American sport. [ more ]

• The Coach
  04/06/2004
  Zane McKenzie's story is a poignant one. It's also the basis for a play, and maybe soon a movie. Zane is a quadriplegic. Despite that, or maybe because of it, he's determined to become a senior Australian football coach. [ more ]

May 2004
 

• Leaps and Bounds
  28/05/2004
  Get out the air guitar, or the air footy or cricket bat, because we exploring the fascinating relationship between musicians and sport. Paul Hester, former drummer with Split Enz and Crowded House, reckons every musician he knows wants to play in front of a huge sporting crowd, and every sportsmen he knows just wants to get up on stage in front of an audience and "flang out". Why? Paul Kelly talks about his love of cricket, David Bridie talks about big Jimmy Stynes and Mark Seymour explains how he became as regular a fixture at grand finals as the national anthem. [ more ]

• The Black Dog
  21/05/2004
  Depression is the most common mental disorder. It's responsible for half of all suicides in Australia. The prescribing of anti-depressants costs the government, through the PBS, around $155 million a year. [ more ]

• Hitler, Nero and the Olympics
  14/05/2004
  There were plenty of tyrants linked with the Ancient Olympics, but did you know Nero and Hitler were among them? We've got the scoop on an Olympian edition of The Sports Factor. [ more ]

• Ethics, is that a place in England?
  07/05/2004
  Drunk-driving, drug-dealing, assaulting police, and the worst of them all, rape. The allegations continue to crop up on a daily basis in football in Australia. So are those codes facing the biggest ethical and moral dilemma in their history? And on the question of morality, should the Australian cricket team be going to Zimbabwe later this month? [ more ]

April 2004
 

• The Mile of the Century
  30/04/2004
  It's 50 years since Roger Bannister, the young English medical student, and John Landy battled to break the four-minute mile barrier. We talk to John Landy, now the Governor of Victoria, about his memories of those heady days. [ more ]

• Obesity - Of Primary Concern
  23/04/2004
  Obesity levels among Australian children continue to rise ... recent figures show that in some areas of Sydney, the number of obese or overweight children is one in three. Despite this, only one state, Victoria, has compulsory PE in primary schools. But even there, having a trained PE teacher to conduct the activities is optional. To counter the arrival of the obesegenic environment caused by a range of factors including computer games, television, fast foods and time-poor parents, we need to make school sports as accessible and meaningful to as many children as possible. So why isn't it happening? [ more ]

• Brave souls and battered soles
  16/04/2004
  Follow four generous souls as they attempt to walk 100 kilometres in one weekend to raise money for charity and get not just tired soles, but blistered heels and creaky knees ... and lots of moments wondering why they're doing it, and if they'll ever make it.
  
  
  [ more ]

• Swell Dreaming
  09/04/2004
  As the world's best surfers roll into Bell's Beach, we look back on the history of surfing in Australia - to a time when the boards were nearly as big as ocean liners. And we meet the woman who was the first Australian surfer. [ more ]

• The Equaliser
  02/04/2004
  The St Mary's Football Club has been at the forefront of breaking down racial and social barriers in Darwin for the past 50 years. An uplifting story from Carmel Young of what sport can still achieve. [ more ]

March 2004
 

• Blood on the running tracks!
  26/03/2004
  Under-performing athletes, million dollar losses, public slanging matches between coaches, athletes and officials ... and all this just five months away from the Olympic Games in Athens. No wonder the Federal Government, which tips $3.8 million a year into Athletics Australia, wants to know what's going on. [ more ]

• No Rain Stops Play - How the drought is hurting rural sport
  19/03/2004
  Central and North Eastern Victoria are receiving drought relief. So too, is about 80 per cent of New South Wales. Southern Queensland and Western Australia have similar stories to tell. In many country towns across Australia, sport is the main social outlet. But when the bowling greens turn brown, or the lakes get so low you can't water-ski anymore, the social fabric of a small community can start to unravel. [ more ]

• Meeting the Standard - sport and community attitudes
  12/03/2004
  [ more ]

• I Am Woman !
  05/03/2004
  This week Mianne Bagger made history by becoming the first transexual to play in a professional women's golf tournament. But the Australian Women's Open is the only tournament in which she can compete anywhere in the world. Why is this still the case as the International Olympic Committee moves to change its rules to allow transexuals to compete at future Games? [ more ]

February 2004
 

• Nuclear Bouncers
  27/02/2004
  Next month, India is undertaking its first cricket tour of Pakistan in 15 years. If it all goes well, the chance of a permanent peace between the two nuclear partners is improved. But if a terrorist attack destroys the tour, the ramifications could be disastrous. [ more ]

• Fast and Feisty - The Singular Shirley Strickland
  20/02/2004
  This week, the life and fast times of Shirley Strickland, the champion runner and hurdler who has died at the age of 78. We look at her place in the legend of Australian sport and ask if her contribution is not properly valued because her main event, the 80 metres hurdles, doesn't quite have the glamour of the 100 metres dash. [ more ]

• The Fight Against Sexual Abuse In Australian Sport
  13/02/2004
  Few issues are as sensitive or as emotionally charged as sexual abuse in our community. When it happens in sport, all of those elements are magnified, particularly when either the person abused, or the person accused of the abusing, has a high media profile. [ more ]

• The Return of the Capuccino Kid ... and a certain leg-spinner!
  06/02/2004
  Next week Shane Warne returns to competitive cricket after serving a 12-month suspension for testing positive to a banned slimming agent. Now that he's done his time, how should he be treated? And as Warne heads down the come-back trail; the long road back for Alex Watson. [ more ]

January 2004
 

• Greg Chappell - Over and Under again, 20 years on!
  30/01/2004
  It was 20 years ago that Greg Chappell played his last Test for Australia. Since then much has changed, not least Greg Chappell. [ more ]

• Richard Lapchick and The Race Against Racism
  23/01/2004
  Richard Lapchick, civil rights activist, is known as the conscience of American sport. This is his story. [ more ]

• Can you think and love sport at the same time?
  16/01/2004
  This week on The Sports Factor we’re asking the big question: Can you love sport and think at the same time? [ more ]

• Surfer Girl
  09/01/2004
  Australia’s world champion surfer Layne Beachley made what she believes was the shortest cameo appearance ever in the surfing film, Blue Crush [ more ]

• Stop Being Serious, This Is Funny
  02/01/2004
  This week, the funny business of sport and humour - and occasionally even a bit of music. [ more ]