Well, the rugby world is in mourning as former Tongan rugby union player & broadcaster Willie Los'e (Who played for Auckland, North Harbour, the New Zealand under 21s & played for Tonga when he appeared at the 1995 Rugby World Cup & has worked for Sky as a rugby commentator until this year) has died recently in South Africa when he was due to commentate in the Rugby Sevens World Cup (Won by reigning twice Olympic champions Fiji in the men's section of the tournament for the 3rd time in history to tie with the All Blacks sevens & for the 1st time since 2005 & Australia in the women, to follow up to their success in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham this year, as well as their gold medal winning triumph in Rio 2016, beating both the New Zealand men's & women's teams in their respective finals) being held in that country (Our thoughts are with their whanau & friends), then in all of a sudden, the whole world is in shock & in mourning as Her Majesty the Queen of Queen Elizabeth II (Who took over from the late His Majesty King George VI from 1952 until this year on September the 8th at half past 5 New Zealand time where she was the longest serving monarch in the British Commonwealth but she met all but one US Presidents & she served 15 UK Prime Ministers & of course she visited New Zealand 10 times (And her most recent visit to our country was 20 years ago way back in 2002) has passed away at her residential retreat at Balmoral in Scotland aged 96, 2 days after she appointed a new British Prime Minister of Liz Truss in which the last pictures were being shown to the Queen & now, her son His Royal Highness, Prince Charles (Who is preparing his speech that he had done for 17 years waiting for this) is now taken over as His Majesty King Charles III with a state funeral being held in a couple of days (And there is going to be security arrangements all over the place (And it can be expensive according to the price estimates of security costs) especially the visiting world leaders that there's going to be a heavy security prescence dubbed as Operation London Bridge that they must provide protection to them (And I think that the royal family have made the right decision to heighten security in time for the Queen's state funeral, especially when there is a law enforcement & military guidelines in place for people who are gathering, wanting to catch a glimpse of it) especially the US & French presidents attending the state funeral while palace gates have been closed at Buckingham Palace where a crowd gathered to pay tribute to the great humble woman who had a decent life for the remainder of about 10 days until after the state funeral) but there will not be a coronation of a new King until next year but all extended thoughts, condolences & prayers to the family of Her Majesty the Queen, Rest in peace (And there is going to be changes with the British national anthem going to be God Save the King now from God Save the Queen & there's alterations to loose change in Britain & especially New Zealand changing heads from the Queen to the new King but it will not happen a couple of years to come but a state funeral has taken place last Monday New Zealand time as Her Majesty has being farewelled & has been laid to rest at the heavily secured Windsor Castle, where she is buried with her father, His Majesty King George the VI).
Willie Los'e
1967 - 2022
& Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
1926 - 2022
And moving on to the tennis stuff that female Polish tennis star Iga Swiatek (Who claimed her 3rd grand slam win to add to her success of winning the French Open twice in 2020 & this year) has ended Ons Jabeur's hopes of her maiden grand slam in the women's singles final at the US Open a day before the young 19 year old Spaniard of Carlos Alcaraz (The teenager known as Charlie or Carlito who shocked the tennis world, especially in his home country of Spain) has claimed his maiden grand slam title in the men's singles final against Norwegian Casper Ruud, on the same day of the 21st anniversary of the 9/11 tragedy on September 11th, 2001 (4 planes had taken off before they were hijacked by armed terrorists forcing both planes to crash into the iconic twin towers of the World Trade Center, then one crashed into the Pentagon buildings & the other into the state of Pennsylvania), in the midst of a polio outbreak in New York (First it was COVID-19 then mpox & now polio).
And in Indycar news such as both New Zealand drivers of Scott Dixon & Scott McLaughlin have missed out & fell short on claiming the Indycar title on that occasion (If Will Power (Who had gone into the final round with a 20 point lead ahead of both Dixon & another one of his Penske teammates of Josef Newgarden) failed to finish on the podium, the championship would've gone to Dixon for his record tying 7th Indycar Series championship, but the all time record for most American open wheel racing championships set by the great AJ Foyt, remains intact) after they both had disappointing results but there was joy, jubilation & elation throughout the Team Penske (Who returned to Indycar Series glory after 3 years with their driver Newgarden winning the title, ending Chip Ganassi Racing's 2 year dominance on top of the Indycar world (Dixon won in 2020 followed by Spaniard Alex Palou last year) camp as one of McLaughlin's Australian teammates of Will Power (He dominated in qualifying in which the man from Toowoomba in Queensland broke the record for most pole positions in Indycar after his title rivals were unable to match Power's pole winning time), who successfully just won his 2nd Indycar Series title (His 1st since 2014) to add to his Indianapolis 500 win in 2018 after he finished on the podium in the season finale at WeatherTech Raceway Laguna Seca in Salinas, California in the United States of America (Although the Indycar season may be over because 2022 may not be our year for both of these Kiwis of Dixon (Who had a disappointing result, therefore he missed out on a record tying 7th championship with Foyt) & McLaughlin who is the favourite to win the Indycar Series crown next year after Aussie Will Power had conquered the 2022 season & lived the American dream again in Indycar just like in 2014, but we always have the next, bring on 2023) but in Supercars Championship news such as twice reigning Supercars champion & 2020 Bathurst 1000 winner, Shane van Gisbergen (You may remember SVG (The man they always call him but he is now the number 1 driver in the Supercars Championship following the departure of his former main rival & fellow countryman Scott McLaughlin to Indycar in late 2020) who is half Kiwi, half Dutch unlike the New Zealand rugby union player of Rieko Ioane (Best known as the brother of loose forward Akira who plays for the All Blacks as well as the Blues in Super Rugby Pacific & Auckland in the Bunnings NPC) who is part Maori & part Samoan) of Triple Eight Race Engineering, goes into the next event which is the Repco Bathurst 1000 as winner of the previous 2 races in both race 28 & 29 (Race 27 went to DJR's Will Davison (Whose hopes of winning race 29 proved costly as he got pinged by the driving standards observer for an unsafe release at a pit stop during the race which went horribly wrong (And both the race & the JR trophy could've gone to him if he didn't make that crucial error but let's hope that he doesn't rebound his hopes of Bathurst 1000 glory (The last time Ford had triumphed at the mountain, it was in 2019 with McLaughlin & his French co-driver who won the great race under controversial circumstances in a Mustang) but I'm going to remember race 29 for a long time because of van Gisbergen's heroics in front of his adoring home crowd (Compared to the great Greg Murphy (The 4 time Bathurst 1000 winner in 1996, 1999, 2003 (Same year that he produced the lap of the gods during the top 10 shootout at the 2003 edition of the great race, cementing his status in New Zealand motor racing folklore) & 2004) in which he dominated the event from 2001 to 2003 & 2005 with 9 wins to his credit & of course McLaughlin in 2018 during his tenure in the Supercars Championship) when he passed Tickford Racing's Cameron Waters for the lead with 3 laps to go in which the race had turned into a supposed contest after SVG (Although his post race interviews are like he spoke like a true cricket captain at a coin toss) started 8th on the grid) as well as being declared the winner of the Jason Richards trophy for the 3rd time (He did it in 2016 & 2019 before) in his home race at Pukekohe Park Raceway in Pukekohe, in an emotional farewell to the race track which is due to close by next year after it opened in 1963 as a replacement for the aerodrome at Ardmore as host circuit of the New Zealand Grand Prix with Hampton Downs likely to take over the New Zealand round of the Supercars Championship starting from 2023.
And there was an coronavirus isolation bus that killed 17 people & 20 injured on their way to an isolation facility in Sandu Shui Autonomous County, Qiannan Prefecture, Guizhou, China which sparked outrage from the people of China about the zero corona virus loophole (The pandemic may be over world wide except China (Well, they're not done yet due to the shutdown in most areas of China that they imposed already as well as a travel ban in effect to that country) which criticized the zero COVID-19 framework after a bus carrying 47 people flipped onto its side when the incident took place on a highway in a rural province in Guizhou but there is a curfew in place in most Chinese cities like Beijing or Shanghai that people must remain at their homes).
And finally in Tennis news such as Swiss tennis star Roger Federer is announcing his retirement due to the injuries that he had recently until after the Laver Cup (And I mean, what a player that he is being given the GOAT status as he follows both female tennis players of Australian Ash Barty earlier in the year & American Serena Williams whose career is winding down where she lost to a Croatian born Australian opponent in the 3rd round of the US tennis open women's singles of Ajla Tomljanovic).
So that is my 465th blog of the year 2022 (MMXXII) & my 13th of this year, stay safe & one love, viva Ukraine.
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