sport watch
Should we play for #ao1?
Jonny Reid
Is there a problem with playing for an audience of one?
Scroll through any Christian sports players’ social media and you’ll likely see #ao1 in their posts. It stands for ‘Audience of One’ and is a phrase that has been around for a few decades. It started in America with the organisation Athletes in Action saying:
18-year-old Christian cyclist dies
Luke Randall
An 18-year-old Christian cyclist from Switzerland has died while competing in the World Championships in Zurich.
Muriel Furrer was competing in a junior race when a bad crash in a wooded area left her with an eventually fatal brain injury. No one had witnessed the accident and she had been lying in the area before she was found during the next race. Furrer had regularly spoken of her faith on social media, with her Instagram profile declaring ‘all things through Christ’. She regularly posted about how God had helped her during competitions.
Call for action on betting surge
Luke Randall
Evangelical organisation Christian Action Research and Education (CARE) is calling for the government to ‘step in and hold the betting industry to account,’ following the revelation that the number of gambling adverts featured during the Premier League season's opening weekend has tripled since last year.
A study by the University of Bristol, funded by Gamble Aware, found that the opening round of fixtures across the weekend of 17 August saw 29,000 advertisements promoting gambling across the ten matches, marking a 165% increase on the previous year. West Ham’s evening clash with Aston Villa featured 6,500 ads, which works out to about 30 every minute.
What does this top snooker player teach us about true enjoyment?
Amid the biggest recent sporting headlines, such as Liverpool’s relentless march towards the Premier League title and Jannik Sinner’s doping ban, you may have missed the news from the snooker circuit that John Higgins won his first title in four years at the World open.
The veteran, 49, had not won on the tour since winning the 2021 Players Championship, but his triumphant run in Yushan, China made him the second oldest ranking event winner ever and oldest ranking event finalist since 1986. He defeated Joe O’Connor 10-6 in the final, having also equalled Ronnie O’Sullivan’s record of reaching 146 ranking event quarter finals earlier that week.