Festive fun in short supply for world's top sports stars
Father Christmas pays a visit to the Stamford Bridge home of English Premier League leaders Chelsea.
English Premier League football players have particularly hectic schedules with three games in little more than a week over Christmas.
Most clubs insist their
squads train on Christmas Day itself ahead of the traditional Boxing Day
(December 26) program, while just two days later the likes of Wayne
Rooney and Diego Costa are back in action again.
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Costa's Chelsea and reigning title holders Manchester City are involved in a tense battle at the top of the EPL and a run of poor form in the holiday period can prove a decisive factor at the championship race.
At the bottom of the
table, it's also a critical period and statistics point to the team
bottom of the EPL at Christmas being relegated, although last season
Sunderland escaped.
While their EPL counterparts are straining every sinew, Bundesliga
players have their feet up, taking a five-week mid-season break with
Bayern Munich 11 points clear at the top and heading for yet another
German title.
Spain's La Liga takes a fortnight break with Real Madrid in the middle of a 22-match unbeaten run which has seen Cristiano Ronaldo and his teammates clinch the Club World Cup and top the table ahead of arch-rival Barcelona.
It's the same story in the other major football leagues of Italy and France,
leaving the EPL as the odd one out, but with little sign there is any
appetite for a change to bring it into line with its European
counterparts.
Sports fans in the U.S. are also promised a glut of action, with the National Basketball Association (NBA) hosting a daily program with the exception of Christmas Eve.
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But five NBA games are scheduled for Christmas Day, with TV coverage stretching throughout the day for the armchair fan.
Many will be tuning in
to watch LeBron James on his return to the American Airlines Arena as
his Cleveland Cavaliers plays Miami Heat.
James, who became a free agent in the summer after helping Heat to win two NBA titles, opted to rejoin the Cavs -- which did not endear him to Miami fans.
The National Football League (NFL)
regular program also concludes, with playoff berths still up for grabs,
on Sunday December 28, with the countdown to the Super Bowl XLIX in
Arizona on February 1 in full swing.
New Year's Eve and New Year's Day also sees crucial Bowl games in the U.S. College Football season, drawing vast TV audiences.
You have to go "Down Under" to Australia for a pair of Boxing Day events which are forever etched into the sporting calendar.
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The cavernous Melbourne
Cricket Ground (MCG) hosts a cricket Test match between Australia and
India, particularly poignant in the light of the recent death of Phillip Hughes.
Last year's Boxing Day Test drew a world record crowd for a cricket match as Australia was on its way to humbling the old enemy in the shape of England.
While the cricket gets underway, Sydney Harbor is a flurry of activity as the fleet in the punishing Rolex Sydney-Hobart yacht race begins its 628 nautical miles journey.
Thousands of people and
hundreds of small craft watch the competitors on the way in the
"Bluewater Classic" which first started in 1945 and was won last year by Wild Oats XI.
For other sports stars Christmas remains a time to pause for thought ahead of 2015, with the Australian Open tennis championship in Melbourne the first major global event of the year.
Rafael Nadal is set to take part in the big exhibition event in Abu Dhabi
which starts on New Year's Day ahead of yet another comeback from
injury, with the regular ATP and WTA seasons beginning in earnest in the
first week of January.
Source: By Paul Gittings, CNN, re-posted by Abdulgafar (www.econsforumnews.blogspot.com)
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