Blast on the Grass: 

Bournemouth Rugby 7′s 
20,000 people, 250 teams, 3 days, 1 BIG PARTY!! 

Football Fusion
Launching in 2010, a brand new football festival with live music from world-famous bands and international DJ’s. 

Rock and Snow: 

The Big Snow Festival
Nestled in the mountains between France and Spain, Arinsal is easy to get to and has some of the best slopes around for beginners and more experienced skiers. 

The Altitude Festival
 A festival packed with hilarious comedy talent performing in a fantastic skiers paradise. 

The Snowbomber
“It’s not really apres-ski at all. This is a full-on music festival that just happens to be taking place in the mountains.”
- The Observer. 

Get fit and have fun all for a good cause: 

Swimathon
World’s largest swimming fundraising event. 

Run to the Beat
Run around London to the rhythm of live bands along the way. 

Etape Caledonia 2010
The Etape Caledonia is an 81 mile cycle challenge taking place on traffic-free roads in the stunning scenery of Highland Perthshire for Macmillan Cancer Support. 

Image from X in the City: Facebook Fan Page

With an anticipated crowd of 24,000 plus, X in the City is a new way to experience extreme and urban adventure sports in London alongside music and fashion shows.

Taking place on October 22-24 2010 at the ExCel Centre, X in the City (also referred to as XTC) will be presenting live demos, street performances and taster sessions for a number of adventure sports including;

• Mountain Boarding
• Long Boarding
• BMX
• Skateboarding
• Snowboarding
• Freestyle Skating
• Wakeboarding
• Jet Skiing
• Windsurfing
• Football
• Basketball
• Paintball

and lots more…

Those who don’t want to attend the “how to masterclasses” can sit in the XTC music lounge and relax or experience the Theatre of Exremes. To get more information and to enter a competition to win a solar backpack go to www.xinthecity.co.uk.

Follow XTC: Twitter @xinthecity / Become a fan on Facebook / Become a friend on MySpace

Congratulations to Zoe Gillings as well I thought you did great despite the last minute injury.

Picture from mcgillsnowboardclub.com

 This annual event is an opportunity for snowboard (and general snow-sport) lovers to open the winter season with a bang and celebrate the snowboarding sport globally. In addition, the World Snowboard Day Team has launched a video competition with the theme “Girls powDer” where you can submit as many fun and original videos as you wish to try to win prizes from famous snowboarding brands! 

You can get involved at www.world-snowboard-day.com - all the information you need is online if you want to find out more about hosting you’re own party as well! 

I would love to hear what people are doing to celebrate so please let me know. Also, I can’t wait for my next snowboarding lesson – I will try to get some photographs, preferably of me standing!

My previous blogs have concentrated more on mainstream sports but my intention wasn’t to write this blog to introduce wild swimming as a new sport because reality is it isn’t. The reasons I thought I’d mention the programme and link it into The Sports Squire is because for me, watching Robson Green swim to Holy Island and achieve his childhood dream is tremendously inspiring. It’s made me feel and recognise that I should view every challenge as a motivation to achieve more. This is something I will try to remember when I hit that famous ‘brick wall’ and as Robson says “the current will eventually take you, go with it”.

The World Motor Sport Council (WMSC) banished the former Renault boss from Formula One for his part in the “Crashgate” scandal. However the fiery italian was so appalled at being found guilty he decided to launch a multimillion pound appeal against the ban and is demanding damaged against the FIA and the Formula One ruling body of up to £900,000. 

In response to the documents seen in The Guardian, Briatore claims that the FIA judgement was “a tool to exact vengeance on one man”, as well as a “manifest excess and abuse of power”. 

Briatore’s claim against the FIA World Council and Max Mosley stems from his involvement in plans for a breakaway series, an issue that rumbled on through much of last season before an agreement was reached for manufacturers to stay in Formula One.

Pat Symonds, Renault’s former executive director of engineering who was also implicated in the scandal, looks to be following in Briatore’s footsteps and will appeal in an effort to have his five-year ban overturned.

Only time will tell if Briatore and Symonds are to return…

http://www.freshersskiweek.com/

Forget Wii Sports, Fresher’s Ski Week set up by the Association of Snow Sports Countries (ASC), are giving 650 ski beginners the chance to learn the skills for free at a holiday resort – amazing! I think I shall learn how to ski now as well…watch this space!!

A match commentator was heard uttering the words “This is unbelievable, this is what is it.” I completely agree. I can’t believe her ladette behaviour went unpunished until the 77th minute – perhaps Sir Alex Ferguson should show this to the referees to justify his remarks last month. More surprising is the rest of her team appear so unfazed by her abrupt reactions to everything that I wonder whether her excuse of her emotions getting in the way is simply that, an excuse and not a true apology.

Lambert’s been named as “The world’s most dangerous player” and I can’t think whether Lambert’s antics has hindered Women’s Football as a respectable sport, encourage the use if violence as a poor role model or indeed brought much needed publicity to women’s football – there’s no such thing as bad publicity right!?

I admit that I haven’t exactly been hot with keeping on top of The Sports Squire recently but without revealing all the gruesome details of my personal life, here’s my reasons (all true I promise!) for my lack of blogging:

I’ve been learning how to snowboard (I’ll try and get some pictures to put them up);

October was a busy month for birthdays (one every week!);

I spent a weekend down in Bournemouth for my graduation (whoop!);

I’ve been researching an opportunity for a networking event in the South for young professionals in the media; and

I’ve been planning my around the world trip in March 2010!

So  now that my cards are laid out on the table I’m going to make a real effort and get back to what I like to do and my most challenging hobbie…The Sports Squire! But remember, just because I haven’t blogged about it for a while, doesn’t mean I haven’t been following the sports news!

photo from metro.co.uk

Last season Formula One was more about politics than racing. This year is no different with the latest allegation to hit motorsport reporting that Nelson Piquet was ordered to crash his Renault in Singapore last year to help his team-mate Fernando Alonso win the race.

‘Bloodgate’ and sport is probably most famous for a rugby game than in motorsport but recently with Piquet reportedly being asked to drive his car into the barriers by Flavio Briatore and Pat Symonds, it looks like one of the biggest “cheating” crisis is about to unfold in Formula One.

The allegation against Renault is that the team “conspired”, in the words of the FIA, the governing body, with their driver in order to make him take a course of action which would not only endanger his life but also put the other drivers, marshals and spectators of the Grand Prix at risk. Subsequently, the crash caused the safety car to be deployed on lap 14 out of a 61-lap race, meaning team mate Alonso, who claimed to be unaware of such discussions, would be at the front of the pack for the restart since he had already pitted for fuel.

It’s been a tough season for Renault so far and to add fuel to the fire, it is understood that the team are preparing to take legal action against Piquet for his claims. Speculation suggests that this outburst is a result of Piquet getting his own back on Renault having been sacked back in July this year, and replaced having failed to score a single point in ten races. In a statement from the Renault, Piquet and his father are making false allegations and it is an attempt to blackmail the team into allowing Piquet to drive for the remainder of the 2009 season.

The case against Renault is to be heard in a meeting at the FIA’s World Motor Sport Council in Paris on September 21, 2009. In the mean time, make up your mind on the allegation and read Piquet’s crash confession here.