by Jason Atherton
in Sports (submitted 2009-07-10)
The soccer season might be over, but hey, what a time of year for sports fans in the UK. Having already witnessed the French Open tennis championship, courtesy of Eurosport and the red button on BBC, attention will quickly turn to Royal Ascot and the five glorious days of racing held there. This magical racing festival alas clashes with the daily dose of the Twenty20 cricket, World Cup, but fortunately it will not clash with theUS Open Golf Championships. This huge golf tournament also starts during Royal Ascot week, but for UK sports fans this is evening viewing over four solid days as the world's best Golfers battle it out at Bethpage State Park, New York, for the second major of the season, where only one man is fancied to win the championship and that is Tiger woods.
After Ascot and the US Open, the cricket World Cup continues into the semi final stages, but the big sports event to follow will of course be Wimbledon and the chance for British fans to support a potential men's winner in the form of Scot, Andy Murray.
There is also the small matter of the British Lions tour of South Africa going on as well of course, the three test series begins on June 20th and ends a fortnight later and the Lions will be hoping to win their first tour since they were last in South Africa in 1997.
Wimbledon will hold the nations attention for a full two weeks, during which time the Twenty20 World Cup will have been decided and many of the top three year old colts and fillies will have lined up and ran in the Irish Oaks and Irish Derby respectively.
British sports fans cannot be blamed if their attention is diverted towards Silverstone the weekend before Wimbledon starts. The British Grand Prix takes place and for the second successive year there is every chance of saluting a British winner. Jenson Button has won five of the six races that have taken place so far in the F1 season.
Wimbledon concludes at the end of the first week in July and then after a sharp intake of breath, its all systems go for the Ashes series against Australia. That begins on July 8th and takes place throughout the summer concluding towards the end of August.
Of course, sports fans will not only have to suffer the Ashes during this period, but Glorious Goodwood is also in July as is the world famous Galway Races on the beautiful West Coast of Ireland.
Then, notwithstanding the soccer season gets underway once more and sports fans will realise that they will need at least three TV sets and three sets of eyes to take it all in. It is a truly wonderful time of year which as always will produce the talking stories of the summer and be responsible for many tears and cheers as champions are produced and losers forgotten no matter what the sport.
The great British summer is here at last!
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