Compiled by MARY HANNIGAN

So who really won the 'Tours de Lance'?

CONSIDERING THE number of cyclists – many of them Tour de France stars – banned from the sport over the years for doping, the consensus after Lance Armstrong was stripped of his seven titles was that there really was no point in trying to figure out who should inherit them.

Eurosport’s Blazin’ Saddles blog, though, gave it a go with their ‘Who really won the Tours de Lance?’ effort, skipping any riders who were ever involved in a doping scandal.

1999: Daniele Nardello (seventh). Finished more than 17 minutes behind Armstrong.

2000: Nardello again (10th). “Above him are a veritable Who’s Who of doping dastardliness.”

2001: Andrei Kivilev (fourth). The Kazakhstan cyclist died two years later from injuries after falling during the Paris–Nice race. His team, Cofidis, were later thrown off the Tour after evidence of a doping programme, but there was no direct evidence against Kivilev.

2002: Carlos Sastre (10th). “Like in 2000, you have to sink to lowly 10th place to find a worthy winner of this Tour.”

2003: Haimar Zubeldia (fifth). Among those who finished ahead of the Spaniard, apart from Armstrong, were Jan Ullrich, Alexandre Vinokourov and Tyler Hamilton.

2004: Carlos Sastre (eighth). This “makes Sastre a virtual double winner of the Tour three years before he finally mounted the podium for good in 2008 – a sorry state of affairs for a dedicated rider who always gave it his all.”

2005: Cadel Evans (eighth). He went on, in 2011, to become the first Australian to – officially – win the Tour de France.

The sequence of winners, then, according to Blazing’ Saddles should be “Nardello, Nardello, Kivilev, Sastre, Zubeldia, Sastre, Evans”, not one them finishing in the top three the years they ‘won’ the Tour de France.

The details are on Eurosport’s Blazin’ Saddles blog – make sure you’re sitting comfortably.

Sideline cut brings the best out of St Vincent's Murphy and St Enda's Griffin

It’s a thing of rare enough sporting beauty, a player scoring a point direct from a sideline cut, so earlier this year – June, to be exact – the Camogie Association decided to bring in a rather excellent rule that would reward such scores with two points.

“Until recently,” said the association, “there have been no reported accounts of direct scores.”

And then . . . Nadine Murphy of St Vincent’s and Anne Griffin of Ballyboden St Endas? Take a bow. The association reports that both players achieved the feat, Murphy, who is on the Vincent’s under-14 panel, scoring while representing Dublin in the All-Ireland Blitz against Galway, and Griffin doing so against Naomh Uinsionn in the Senior Championship final played earlier this month. Both Dubliners, you’ll note. We’ll wait to see if the association is now inundated with YouTube clips of non-Dubliners sideline-cutting points months ago.

Japanese go nuclear over French joke

The France 2 channel had a bit of apologising to do this week after the Japanese failed to see the funny side of a gag about the damage sustained by the Fukushima nuclear power plant during last year’s earthquake and subsequent tsunami, which resulted in the deaths of more than 15,000 people with another 3,000 left unaccounted for.

And sure, who wouldn’t laugh at that?

During coverage of Japan’s 1-0 friendly victory over France, while complimenting Japanese goalkeeper Eiii Kawashima’s performance, a (need it be said?) Photoshopped image was shown of him with four arms, presenter Laurent Ruquier declaring: “It’s the Fukushima effect!”

Cue a mass outbreak of giggling in the studio.

Japan promptly lodged a protest about the carry-on, “many people were hurt in the nuclear crisis. I don’t know how people can make fun of it,” said education minister Makiko Tanaka.

France 2 apologised, although their director, Jean Reveillon, insisted no offence was meant, that Ruquier had not intended being disrespectful to the Fukushima victims. “He was mostly trying to mock the French football team. In any case, given the emotions that this has sparked, France 2 presents its regrets and reaffirms our friendship to the Japanese people,” he said.

For Kawashima, there was a déjà vu feeling to it all. Earlier this year, while playing for Belgian club Lierse, the referee temporarily stopped the game against Beerschot after their supporters began taunting him with chants of “Kawashima! Fukushima!”, which left him in tears.

Beerschot’s initial response to the chants, a kind of a ‘he-asked-for-it’ version of events, didn’t do them a great deal of good – “There was a mutual incitement of the minds, including by the Lierse goalkeeper who challenged the Beerschot supporters with gestures and facial expressions.” They eventually, though, had a bit of sense, condemned the supporters and asked them to contribute to the Red Cross fund for Japan.

Some day soon, Kawashima will trust, folk might stop seeing the funny side of the Fukushima meltdown.

Belts of no interest to Taylor

“Whats the purpose of winning a gold medal? To have it and to show it off?

“You need to go pro and win a belt,” Mike Tyson advised Katie Taylor last week, and with that she opted to remain amateur and set her sights on a second gold medal at the next Olympics.

And even if she doesn’t achieve it, you’d wonder who’ll be the more contented fighter come the end of their careers?

Whether Tyson’s advice and her decision were connected, we’ll probably never know – you’d love to think they were, though.

The notion that Taylor will miss out on a whole heap of loot, something you suspect is not the God she worships, was partly dispelled on the day of her announcement with the news that Sky said she would be their ambassador for its digital switchover campaign.

The contract might not equal a big pay-day in Las Vegas, but still, she’s doing fine.

(Tyson lest we forget, was declared bankrupt a few years back, having earned in or around $400 million during his career, so hopefully Taylor will never hire him as a financial advisor).

“TV plays such an important role in Irish peoples lives so Im pleased to help Sky raise awareness of the need to switch to digital TV,.”

Kanal 5 steered up the right channel by TV4

Reddest cheeks of the week? They were most probably found at Swedish television channel TV4 after the national team’s gobsmacking comeback against Germany in their World Cup qualifier in Berlin.

TV4 had bought the rights to the game, but then decided to sell them on to rivals Kanal 5 – so, it was they who had the honour of beaming the 4-4 draw, Sweden coming back from 4-0 down, in to the living rooms of over one tenth of the population.

“These figures are bizarre, magic,” Kanal 5 spokesman Dan Panas told media website Resume, but TV4’s head of football Emir Osmanbergovic was, understandably, less chirpy about the whole thing. “Business is business,” he said, “I do not think anyone could have predicted how the situation would develop.” German manager Joachim Löw echoed that view – well, in footballing terms (“For us, this should be a life lesson”) – while his Swedish counterpart Erik Hamren said of the night: “I didn’t want it to end.” You’d imagine TV4 thought it would never would.