Outside Edge: Sniffer dogs with noses in front

Andrew Tong
Sunday 23 January 2011 01:00 GMT
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It was in Romford, not Barking, where they couldn't keep their dogs in the lead. There was an unprecedented three-way dead heat at the greyhound track in Essex last week – a photo-finish couldn't split Killishan Masai, Ayamzagirl and Droopys Djokovic.

"It would be like winning the National Lottery, then getting struck by lightning minutes later," said bookmaker spokesman Simon Clare.

In Florida, two greyhound trainers, Richard Alves and his son Casey, have had their licences suspended after seven of their dogs tested positive for cocaine at the Daytona Beach Kennel Club. Alves Snr, who has 40 years' experience and trains 115 dogs, denies drugging the coke canines to enhance their performance, so the kennel employees face drug tests too.

One dog who must be on something is Tilly the Jack Russell from Newbury, Berkshire, who has found 18,000 golf balls in the last five years. He finds up to 40 balls a day when owner Garry Carr takes him for a walk near the local course – most of them in the rough.

80

Age of Jack Cagney from Nazeing in Essex who has released a DVD entitled "Get Fit With Gentleman Jack".

He advocates using a broomstick instead of barbells, employing the power of the mind to convince yourself it carries a 50kg weight. He even throws in a motivational rap. Hip-hop replacement?

Shock tactics spark camel outcry

Camel racers have predictably got the hump in Dubai after three men were arrested for selling robot jockeys which cheat. In this prestigious sport, robots have been used to ride the dromedaries ever since the barbaric practice of using slave children was banned in 2005. But the offending automatons were found to be delivering electric shocks to their mounts in a bid to make them run faster.

Meanwhile the equally ancient sport of camel wrestling – they fight each other, not humans – has experienced a big revival in the Turkish town of Selcuk. One innovation used to broaden the sport's appeal is the introduction of beauty contests.

Elsewhere the Boston Blazers lacrosse team have tried to bring in more spectators by making strippers give their team mascot "Scorch" lapdances on the pitch at half-time. It's like managers throwing D-Cups around.

Good week

Will Gadd and Christian Pondella, extreme sports enthusiasts, became the first people to climb the ice wall in Eidfjord, Norway – a 650ft-high frozen waterfall twice as tall as Big Ben...

Great Britain handball teams will be allowed to compete at London 2012 after meeting performance and legacy criteria, while Horse Guards Parade in Whitehall has been approved as the venue for the Olympic beach volleyball...

British Fencing has received

£1 million in sponsorship in a five-year deal with Beazley after seeing its Government funding cut by 59 per cent last year.

Bad week

Samit Patel, Nottinghamshire all-rounder, was not selected for England's Cricket World Cup squad after failing to meet coach Andy Flower's target of "getting into reasonable shape"...

Oleg Oriekhov, Ukrainian referee, failed in his appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn his life ban after Uefa found him guilty of involvement in match-fixing in a 2009 Europa League fixture between Basel and CKSA Sofia...

Konstantin Papazov, coach of the Levski Sofia basketball team in Bulgaria, conducted a post-match interview in mime after being fined for bringing the game into disrepute.

It's a relief but not as nature Nintended

Thumbs up for the Guinness World Records Gamers' Edition published last week, which revealed that 85-year-old John Bates of Onalaska, Wisconsin is the Wii Bowling champion with 2,850 perfect games despite not having played an electronic game until 2009.

Jo Eley of Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk, had a surprise when she created her avatar – a personalised electronic representation – for Tiger Woods PGA 11 on PlayStation and saw herself appear topless wearing only a pair of hotpants.

"It could have been worse," she said. "She has bigger boobs than me."

The game is already notorious for dropping Tiger's face from the cover following his extra-marital affairs. Sony have created a new brand of Wee games called Toylet which you play standing at a urinal.

Among them is "Milk From Nose", where you compete with the previous user to see who has the stronger "flow" – represented by sumo wrestlers with milk squirting out of their noses. Dairy Leak, anyone?

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