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Today was the annual sports day at Big Girl’s school. I think they do sport twice a week anyway, but one day a year the whole school migrates to the local football oval for a day of competition sports. The kids all wear their house colours and compete for house points.

I think for Big Girl (and in fact, most students) it’s more of a fun social day than a competition. The second disco of the year is this evening too, so it’s a big social day.

Here’s Big Girl halfway through the long jump. She loves running and jumping, and although she’s not the quickest in her class she’s always in there having fun.

In the hurdle race she clipped the top of the first hurdle, but recovered on the second and third.

They also had a bucket race, where you have to pick up small bean bags and run them back to a bucket in a relay fashion.

This afternoon they’ll be having the final competitions after the morning practice.

Gocky rolled her ankle at school today. It’s either a really bad sprain or it’s broken. We saw the doctor this evening and she’s getting an X-Ray first thing tomorrow. She’s feeling pretty crappy. If anyone wants to call her to offer condolences I’m sure she’d appreciate it.

The Kid and a school friend met up at the velodrome again after dinner last night. Photos on SmugMug.

Tomorrow is a big day for The Kid. School starts again, so it’s her first day back as a grade 1 kid. A new set of classmates and a new teacher. She’ll do just fine though.

Also starting up tomorrow is the Friday afternoon basketball skills clinic for little kids. It isn’t an organised game — more of a basic skills session so that in a few years when she’s able to compete she’ll know what she’s doing. I actually think she’s more excited about the basketball than going back to school.

What an excellent second test we’ve just seen in Sydney.

A thrilling finish, and a very well deserved win to Australia.

A few overs before the end I figured it would play out to a draw, but Clarke’s 3 late wickets were brilliant. Once the first fell I thought we had a slight chance, and when the second one fell next ball I knew it was a done deal. There was no way Sharma would last the over.

I think that this was one of the classic test matches; we’ll remember this one for a long time. Five days of excellent cricket, and for Australia to take this victory after being 6/134 in the first innings is a credit to the whole team.

In the dying stages of qualifying for tonight’s Hungarian Grand Prix, a spat has erupted between Britain’s Lewis Hamilton and his Spanish team mate Fernando Alonso.

Hamilton was the quicker of the two throughout qualifying, but was beaten to pole position by Alonso in controversial circumstances.

Late in the session Alonso pitted for a fresh set of tyres, and Hamilton followed him in. Alonso’s tyres were duly changed, and the team released him from the pit box. But he sat. And waited. And waited. When he finally left, there wasn’t enough time left in the session for Hamilton to leave the pits and put in another flying lap on fresh tyres.

McLaren boss Ron Dennis was clearly furious at what had transpired. After the session ended he had very stern words with Alonso’s race engineer, then proceeded to take the headphones off his head and march him to the back of the garage with a very firm grip on his arm.

In the post session conference Hamilton was understandably annoyed, but played the situation very diplomatically. When asked whether he was aware of the reason Alonso held him up he immediately replied “Er, no. I think you should ask the team that.“

The sport’s governing body did just that, and four hours after the session, said this:

The actions of the team in the final minutes of qualifying are considered prejudicial to the interests of the competition and to the interests of motor sport generally.

The penalty to be applied is that such points (if any) in the 2007 Formula One constructors championship as accrue to the team as a result of their participation in the 2007 Hungarian Grand Prix will be withdrawn.

Because of the delay caused by Alonso, Hamilton was unable to complete his pit stop in time sufficient to enable him also to complete a flying lap.

The stewards find that he unnecessarily impeded another driver, Hamilton, and as a result he will be penalised by a loss of five grid positions.

When Alonso was asked about the incident he explained that the team had timed his pit departure so that he’d re-enter the track between the two Ferraris. However, at the time of the incident, only one Ferrari — that of Finn Kimi Raikkonen — was on the track. The second Ferrari was in its pit box having failed to make the cut for the final qualifying session.

Alonso and Hamilton have had an uneasy relationship at McLaren this year.

After winning driver’s championship for the last two years at Renault, everyone believed that Alonso would clearly be the lead driver, and that in his rookie year Hamilton would build his skill and racecraft while picking up occasional points. Midway through the year, however, Hamilton has dominated, and is leading the driver’s championship having been on the podium for 9 of the 10 races run so far.

Alonso has struggled to come to terms with the McLaren’s characteristics, and clearly feel’s he’s under extreme pressure from a vastly less experienced teammate. The cracks in his psyche have been visibly building all season, and we’ve now seen yet more evidence of his fragile state of mind. Hamilton is clearly winning the mental game between the two team mates.

You can’t help but feel that last night’s incident is one step further to outright war between the two drivers, reminiscent of the Senna/Prost battles of the late 80′s.

Riders and teams have already started preparing for the 2007 RACV Energy Breakthrough. The Kid and I saw a few of them practicing around the circuit yesterday.

The official “What is the Energy Breakthrough” article on the website describes the event:

The BREAKTHROUGH is an exciting program designed to provide opportunities for students, teachers, parents and local industry to work together to design and construct a vehicle, a machine or innovation in technology that will represent an energy breakthrough.

The program encourages participants to examine and use the latest technology while considering its impact on the environment and the way people live locally and globally. The RACV Energy Breakthrough isn’t just a once-a-year event! 

School groups work throughout the year to design, build and test vehicles or machines within detailed specifications. It requires a team effort and an across-the-curriculum approach. These groups then bring their vehicles and machines to Maryborough in November, for a huge celebration in which they can demonstrate and trial them in action.

In essence, school teams compete against each other using either pedal powered recumbent bikes (as in the photo above) or super economical petrol/human hybrid vehicles. There’s no real energy breakthrough actually happening; it’s more about giving kids who will be vehicle engineers in 10 years time a place to start thinking about design, power and the kinds of tradeoffs required to balance vehicles against environmental cost.

For the town it means an influx of several thousand teenagers, most of them drunk, and a whole bunch of cash. All the carnie folk come to town as well; there’s a big fair on the Saturday night with rides and the usual sideshow stuff.

Last night’s Spanish Grand Prix wasn’t a particularly exciting race.

But check this out:

Picture says it all.

Four podiums in his first four races (never done before). Now the youngest driver ever to lead the world championship, a record previous held by Bruce McLaren, founder of the team he’s driving for.

Weird way to get your thrills…