In the UnitedStates of America: the Indianapolis 500. The Indianapolis500 is an automobile race held annually at Indianapolis Motor Speedway inSpeedway, Indiana, an enclave suburb of Indianapolis. The event is held overMemorial Day weekend, which is typically the last weekend in May, and annually hasthe highest attendance of any sporting event in the world. The raceway has aseating capacity of 250,000, and today attendance figures will surge past300,000. This year's guests of honorinclude Vice President Mike Pence, former governor of Indiana. The 2017 Indy500 could live up to last year's 100th running of The Greatest Spectacle inRacing, thanks to Formula 1 star, and twice world champion, Fernando Alonso. He has skipped Monte Carlo this year to partner with Indycar's Andretti Autosport. Following impressive speed throughoutpractice, Alonso secured a fifth-place starting position during last weekend'squalifications. After a scary scene atthe qualifying rounds last week, withSebastien Bourdais suffering a broken pelvis and right hip, Sunday's race isstill shaping up to be a great one. Bourdais was pacing to take the pole, butafter the terrifying wreck, has had to give up his position in Indianapolisthis year. The first racewas run in 1911, and 2017 sees the 101st running of the storied race. It is part of the "triple crown" ofauto racing, one of the other two tiers, the Grand Prix of Monaco, is also runtoday (see below), the third is the 24 Hours of Le Mans. 500 miles is 200 laps at the course. 3 drivers have won 4 times each, and the teamwith the most wins overall is Penske, at 16. In Monaco: the Grand Prix of Monaco. Today a 3.3 kilometer circuit through thestreets of Monte Carlo will see the competition of the Grand Prix. This is the sixth event of the 2017 Worldcompetition. 78 rounds are planned inthe competition, which equals more than 260,000 kilometers. Mercedes-GParrive in Monaco on a high after Lewis Hamilton’s hard-fought win in Spain tocut Sebastian Vettel’s advantage at the top to six points. The German marquehave been the winning team around the tight streets of Monte Carlo the pastfour years and are bidding to be the first team since McLaren (1988-93) to winthe race five times in a row. Hamilton prevailed 12 months ago for his secondrace win in the principality, the previous one having come in 2008 when he waswith McLaren. Given they arethe most successful team in the sport’s history, it is something of a surprisethat you have to go back to 2001 for the last time Ferrari won in Monaco, withMichael Schumacher triumphing that day. Sebastian Vettel, despite four worlddrivers’ titles to his name, has won the race only once, in 2011, but he hasbeen in superb form this season and will be confident that he is well placed toend his team’s drought on Sunday. Twoastounding days of auto racing on the same day... In Italy: The historic hundredth running of the Girod'Italia wraps up today, with an exciting individual time trial. It is even more exciting this year, with thetop racers all being within a few seconds of each other, and the trial coursebeing long enough to make those differences meaningful. Dutchman Tom Dumoulin was leading the raceuntil the last few stages, when Colombian Nairo Quintana retook the lead.Yesterday's thrilling win by Frenchman Thibaut Pinot changed the racestandings. Quintana wears the pinkleader’s jersey after the last mountain stage, but breathing down his neck arethree men: the defending champion, Italian Vincenzo Nibali, Pinot and Dumoulin.Respectively, the trio are 39, 43 and 53 seconds behind Quintana. Two others are also, in the running, RussianIlnur Zakarin and the Italian Domenico Pozzovivo, who are 1min 15sec and 1min30sec back. Today's thrilling finalstage may be the closest finish in any Grand Tour in history, 8 seconds beingGreg LeMond's Tour de France cushion in 1988. Dumoulin has been considered a time trial specialist until this year, sothe flat 29.3km from the Monza race track to Milan’s Duomo is just his cup oftea. More than three weeks on the road,however, can change a man, so the finalists, all riding under that fatigue, areunpredictable. Pay attention for a fineMilan finish! In ItalianSoccer: Roma wraps up its season today,which also means the last regularly scheduled game for storied player Totti.Since the administration announced his retirement, Totti has refused tocomment, preferring instead to reserve participation in the circus until afterthe season end. This last game in theOlympic Stadium for the season, however, has been sold out for weeks, and thesilent Totti may find himself in the midst of his own glorification at today'sgame. Then again, he could play a BrettFavre. When the administration of the GreenBay Packers American Football team unceremoniously forced him into retirement, after faithful, lifelong service, yet unwillingto end his football playing days, he did the unthinkable and signed with two successiveteam, playing well for other teams well into his forties. Perhaps Totti is next to be signed by RealMadrid, or cross-town rivals Lazio. Probably,though, he will probably valiantly accede to what has been forced upon him andjoin next year's Roma management team. -- Posted By Rex to SR at 5/28/2017 12:59:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
