Worlds: Spain rued the way they let Rui Costa go

There is a saying in cycling that you have to prepare to lose in order to win. And Portugal's Rui Costa was ready to do that and that's why he is now the World Champion.

In the closing kilometers of the 270km road race, after more than seven hours of racing in the cold and the wet, it was down to a quartet- Costa, Joaquim Rodriguez and Alejandro Valverde of Spain and Italy's Vincenzo Nibali.

With numerical superiority, It was Spain's WC's to lose and so when Rodriguez attacked, it was up to Nibali and Costa to chase but Costa, again, ready to lose, didn't. He had ice in his veins. Nibali blinked and did the chasing giving Costa and Valverde an armchair ride to the line. But when Nibali slowed down, frustrated, Costa attacked. This time, it was Valverde who, for reasons beyond comprehension, didn't go with Costa. Spain's coach was so frustrated that after the race he said that Valverde should have chased anything that moved at that point, even the motorbikes! Costa did catch up with a tired Rodriguez with 600m to go and while Rodriguez put up a strong challenge in the sprint, he was no match for the Portuguese.

Poor Valverde became the World's favorite whipping boy but in his defense, I think it would have been better if Rodriguez had worked for Valverde, not the other way around since Valverde was the better sprinter of the four. But then again, ego can sometimes get in the way in such a prestigious event.

Costa is the first Portuguese to ever win the Worlds. He will be wearing the rainbow stripes for the next 12 months. For the San Antonio Spurs, er, Spain, they'll have next year to make up for their mistakes.

Tom Clancy

Tom Clancy, the best writer about the cold war as far as I'm concerned, passed away last week. If I had any literary hero in those days, it was Clancy. This former insurance salesman hit the jackpot with his first novel, “The Hunt for Red October”, about a Soviet submarine captain torn between his loyalty to the “Rodina” or the Motherland and disillusionment of communism and decided to defect to the US, gifting them with the most sophisticated sub in that era, without telling his crew, except for one officer. He created a new genre, “technothriller” far from the likes of Robert Ludlum, John LeCarre or Frederick Forsythe could ever think of.

What was exciting about Clancy's books was his uncanny sense of describing in detail weaponry that didn't seem to exist but really did exist. In “Patriot Games”, he described a satellite camera that showed US forces attack a terrorist training camp while US Officials back home were watching it “live”. That was in 1992 and it was only later that we knew that it existed. Now, its Google Earth! In fact, when he met former US Navy Secretary John Lehman in 1986, his first question to Clancy was, “Who the hell cleared it?”

I also loved the fact that his characters remained the same, and I intimately know Jack Ryan and John Clarke and their families like they were my relatives. I just hope that no one would even try to ghost-write and reincarnate Jack Ryan, that would be the most disrespectful thing to do.