A look back over the last week in sadness
I’m a bit down in the dumps at the moment. We lost a really close friend this week, who, being over 80, might be considered to have had a decently long life. But he was one of those indefatigable characters for whom mortality was simply not considered. He had suffered terribly over the past few months, but you would never have known it from his public face, his elan, his full-on dignity, charm and charisma. He was a huge supporter and mentor to Boyd's Own, Madame, and me, full of insight, comment, and advice, and he was always a delight to be with; I shall miss him dreadfully.
Enough.
As I write, there is serious discussion about delaying the Winter Olympics because of the wrong type of snow. The very possibility is delicious! Meanwhile, the Olympics are on their way out, and no sooner had I mentioned my ennui with the usual cycle of Team GB hype and underperformance, than everything changed. Chemmy headed for the door; then a sour-puss sprinter came on to deliver studio links and interviews of such insincerity that she might have been discussing the manufacturing of cat litter; and then we simply banged in a couple of Golds in a matter of nanoseconds!
Firstly, Charlotte Bankes and Huw Nightingale won Britain’s first-ever gold medal on snow. This was after they failed their overhyped individual snowboard events, which led them to go to a local pub to drown their sorrows. No one is suggesting they got trollied - but they relaxed enough to put their cares aside and take Gold. On the other hand, Matt Weston, with two gold medals, is now the most decorated British Winter Olympian in history and cannot go anywhere in the village at the moment, let alone a pub, without being hounded by sponsors, fans and sports agents.
Lots of complaints about the absence of condoms, with 10,000 being taken in just 72 hours and a huge cri de coeur for Valentine’s Day! In Paris for the Summer Olympics, they provided 300,000… just saying. One potential consumer was Norwegian biathlete Sturla Holm Laegreid, who apparently used a post-race interview to confess to being unfaithful to his girlfriend. His now former mate met the news with “cold consternation.” One thing I hadn’t realised was that every athlete was given a free Samsung Galaxy Z Flip7, the ultimate Olympic TikTok tool. On it, one could apparently see the American downhill star Breezy Johnson being proposed to by her skiing partner on the finish line, just after she won Gold. Similarly, Dutch star Jutta Leerdam and her partner Jake Paul have been a constant fixture on social media, with their “heart gestures” during her record-breaking runs.
This year’s most coveted village “currency”? The plush toys of mascots Milo and Tina are apparently harder to find than a gold medal; they sold out in the official stores almost immediately, and a good signed medal-winning athlete’s own toy is going for $thousands.
The closing ceremony kicks off at 7:00 pm and will include the usual parade of athletes, and at 8:45 pm, the handover to The French Alps 2030. There are strong rumours that Taylor Swift is being brought in secretly to sing her new single Opalite, the unofficial anthem of the Athletes’ Villages, and will join Achille Lauro and Gabry Ponte at the concert. The French section might have Daft Punk doing a stunt, and there are also rumours about the Beckhams, who are here, and about Tom Cruise.
This won't be on anyone’s front page tomorrow, but in Bahrain today, there will be two meetings that will decisively affect the outcome of the 2026 F1 season. As we suggested in recent articles, the new engine designs required for the 2026 season are directly affecting car performance. Nowhere was this more apparent than last week in Bahrain, when the FIA were running through the full range of flags and starts, especially the actual race start after a warm-up lap. During the first round of testing, it emerged that in order to avoid stalling, drivers now need to rev the engine very hard for longer periods, sometimes as long as 10 seconds, in order to get the turbo in the right window for a launch. From the time the last car comes to a stop on their grid position, after the warm-up lap, to the last red light going out is rarely more than 7 seconds. This means that - and as was shown at Bahrain last week - the cars on the front of the grid have had more time to bring their turbos up to power, but impacting their battery charge, whilst those at the back of the grid have not had the chance to get their turbos going and thus risk stalling. From an 11-car practice start last week, three stalled at the rear. Most teams believe drivers need more time than is currently permitted before lights-out and want the governing body to intervene. Ferrari is understood to oppose any rule changes.
The second meeting inevitably involved Mercedes and The Woolf. If anyone can rid a very complicated set of rules and find a loophole that allows an interpretation of Green to mean Red, then it is Mercedes. There has been widespread speculation that Mercedes has found a loophole in the new engine regulations that allows the Silver Arrows to exceed the stated limit on compression ratio when their new power unit is at full temperature. Crucially, however, Mercedes is said to comply with the 16:1 ratio limit during FIA checks.
Drivers have had to adjust quickly to the new regulations, adopting a technique of shifting down through corners to increase revs and recharge the battery more efficiently. Max Verstappen seems to have already perfected this approach, with Red Bull’s engine and gearbox package particularly well adapted to dropping into first gear when required.
Meanwhile, Red Bull has lost their chief F1 designer, Craig Skinner, who worked closely with Red Bull’s former design guru Adrian Newey, who is now team principal at Aston Martin. There appears to be no notice period, and the Red Bull announcement was bland in the extreme.
This pre-season testing has been riveting so far… I repeat, I’d be going long on seasonal red flags and race yellow flags for the first four or five races.
Only a couple of more days to wait to see Constitution Hill run at Southwell. I am slightly underwhelmed because I simply don't understand the reasoning. Is he incapable of hurdling because he’s second-guessing his hurdles because of his falls? What impact has Yogi Breisner had on schooling? What reports on his jumping, if any? Has he tried any country hunt or point fences? Is this to keep him race fit, pre-Cheltenham? Is he going to become a Cup Horse? Until we have some greater insight, everything else is just a guess.
Given that he’s never been in stalls before, never ridden in a tactical flat race, never been to Southwell - of which even I’ve got a third more experience - if he goes big odds-on before the race I’ll lay him like billy-o and then wait to see what the mastro tells us. As regards his future… I have a view, but I’ll keep it to myself for now. This is not an “I told you so” moment.
Expect a huge brouhaha to burst in the next 48 hours over Chagos. Threatening to lock up the Islanders for going back to their Island is not a good look. Arresting British Citizens of Colour for going to their home might possibly make some people sit up and ask whether Starmer is simply the stupidest man on the planet or really doesnl;y undferstand any element of the UK’s immigration issues.
What has been discovered, as Trump wakes up to the realities of having a Chinese harbour next door to his radar station, is the discovery that one of the architects of The Chagos Catastrophe, Jonathan Powell, was working on the deal for the Government before he was even appointed to the Civil Service. Indeed, he was receiving Government papers and briefings while employed by the Chinese, which raises all sorts of ugly questions and draws direct comparisons with Mandelson’s own insecure behaviour. Powell received government meeting notes, briefings, and information prior to his formal appointment and was, at the time, working for his controversial consultancy, Inter Mediate. There is evidence that dozens of emails and briefings were sent to his commercial address at Inter Mediate, which would surely constitute a potential security breach. The dissemination of this material appears to have beenthroughout mandelson’s company - and one assumes - his client. One Chagos briefing took place between Powell and FCDO civil servants from the Overseas Territories and Polar Directorate just over a month after the 2024 general election, held on 4 July 2024! All this suggests that either the Chinese or Starmer, via Inter Mediate, had already initiated discussions on Chagos before the election. If yes, whose back was being scratched, and how?