Monthly Archives: October 2017

What the St Louis Rams, Miracle on Ice and Rulon Gardner have in common

The Miracle on Ice, dubbed after Al Michael’s famous commentary on the 1980 Winter Olympic Games Ice Hockey match between the United States and Soviet Union is one of the most famous sporting events in American history, and one of the biggest upsets worldwide.

The Soviet Union had won the Gold medal at six of the seven previous Winter Olympic Games and headed to the games in Salt Lake City as the clear favourites.

By contrast, Team USA consisted of amateur players. Soviet Union had thrashed USA 10-3 in a pre-tournament friendly between the two.

On 22 February 1980 USA would stun the world with a shock 4-3 victory in the medal-round group game on their way to a Gold medal. Al Michael’s commentary lives in history:

To give you some idea of how much of an upset it was, bookmakers gave Team USA odds of 1,000/1 at the start of the match! Rarely in sports history has such an upset happened.

The longest shot to win the Super Bowl were the 1999 St Louis Rams and even then they only rolled into the season as 300/1 outsiders.

Dick Vermeil’s side had finished 4-12 the previous season and had lost starting Quarterback Trent Green to injury heading into the 1999 season. It was decided that the undrafted Kurt Warner would be the starter for the campaign after a successful spell in NFL Europe.

The Rams made a surprise start to the season going 6-0 before losing to the Tennessee Titans in Nashville. It would prove to be just a small blip as Vermeil’s side would finish the regular season 13-3, which included losing their final game to the Philadelphia Eagles when they had nothing to play for.

St Louis started the playoffs with a 49-37 victory over the Minnesota Vikings, as they were dubbed the ‘Greatest Show on Turf’ with their high octane offence lead by the leading passer and MVP that season, Kurt Warner. Running back Marshall Faulk was elusive in the backfield whilst Isaac Bruce and rookie Torry Holt proved to be excellent targets downfield.

They defeated the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 11-6 in the NFC Championship before beating the Tennessee Titans 23-16 at Super Bowl XXXIV with Mike Jones stopping Kevin Dyson 1 yard from the goalline in the final play of the game.

Bigger odds than both the Rams and the USA Men’s Winter Olympic Ice Hockey team? Fast forward to the year 2000 and the Sydney Olympics.
In the 130kg wrestling category, Russia’s Aleksandr Karelin was heavily expected to win Gold. After all, he was undefeated in international competition, on a 13-year winning streak and hadn’t even given up a single point in 10 years! Up stepped American Rulan Gardner, a 2000/1 shot at the start of the competition, to upset Karelin 1-0 in the final.

Though the greatest upset in sporting history, according to the bookmakers, happened very recently. Over in Europe and the English Premier League, Leicester City became the soccer champions in 2015-16 after starting the season at a staggering 5,000/1!

Usually the league is decided between the biggest clubs – Manchester United, Arsenal, Chelsea and Manchester City. But two seasons ago Leicester, who had only narrowly avoided relegation from the EPL the season before, pulled off a stunning campaign to upset the soccer world by becoming champions of England.

Leicester have inspired many punters in Europe to take a long shot bet on football in hope to win some serious money if any team can accomplish the heights the Foxes reached in 2016.

These four shock victories and six more are all included in the graphic below from Betfair which shows the biggest winning odds in sporting history:

Who Will Win the 2017 Betfair Chase?

Credit: Racing Post via Twitter

The 2017 Betfair Chase is the first Grade One chase of the season in the three-mile division in the UK and Ireland and takes place at Haydock. Last season’s Cheltenham Gold Cup winner Sizing John is set to make his return to action at the Lancashire track and is likely to take all the beating on his seasonal reappearance.

Sizing John not only impressed at Cheltenham in the Blue Riband event of the festival, but he proved that win was no fluke just weeks later with victory in the Punchestown Gold Cup in Ireland, where he beat Djakadam by a short head in what was the end of a long campaign for the seven-year-old.

Jessica Harrington’s runner hadn’t run over 3m before until he scored in the Irish Gold Cup at Leopardstown last February. In the three starts at that distance, he is unbeaten and has shown huge improvement. Sizing John can be backed at +200, which looks to be a fair price in what could be a small field at Haydock.

The winner of the Betfair Chase at Haydock will be on course to pick up the Chase Triple Crown during the 2017/18 campaign, which carries a £1 million bonus for winning connections. The second leg of the series is the King George VI Chase at Kempton on Boxing Day, while the last race that needs to be won is the Cheltenham Gold Cup in March. Sizing John looks committed to running in all three of those chases this season.

This is the stage of the year where many of last season’s national hunt stars such as the Oddschecker-tipped Diego Du Charmil, Ballyandy and Might Bite appear again – the latter of which was successful in the RSA Chase back in March and has an entry in the 2017 Betfair Chase.

Might Bite is expected to step out of novice chase company for the first time at Haydock. He has won on four of his seven starts over fences so far in his career and is likely to pose a big test for Sizing John. There are still question marks over his jumping, though, as we saw at Kempton last season in the Kauto Star Novices’ Chase where he fell at the last fence.

Nicky Henderson’s runner almost threw away his lead at Cheltenham in the RSA Chase going up the hill as he veered across to the right of the track, allowing Whisper to make a late challenge. Fortunately for connections, jockey Nico De Boinville managed to straighten up in time and find a little extra to get back up at the line.

Credit: ITV Racing via Twitter

This year’s Haydock feature is also set to include the three-time winner of this race and defending champion Cue Card. Colin Tizzard’s runner is likely to be given one more campaign before he is retired. The 11-year-old has an excellent record early in the season and is sure to have his supporters at +600 in the betting.

The Betfair Chase takes place on November 25 on a card which also features the Grade Three Fixed Brush Handicap Hurdle.