Finally, a team at an international football tournament that manages not to make England look not just good, but like a bunch of under-blown, over-achieving Premier League virtuosos. Step forward the England Under-21s, who last week exited the European Championships at the earliest possible moment after a 3-1 shellacking at the hands of Norway. Head coach Stuart Pearce has been quick to blame everybody except head coach Stuart Pearce – including, in a textbook case of getting your retaliation in first – his current employer, the Football Association. On the more football-resembling side of things, a fantastically well-equipped Spain edged out a marginally less fantastically well-equipped Germany 1-0 in Netanya.
Australians outclassed
It's not quite the Ashes. But you get the feeling we've kicked off as things are likely to go on. England outclassed Australia at Trent Bridge in the first of innumerable meetings between the two sides over the next nine months, with Ian Bell's medium-paced 91 at the top of the order enough to set up a quietly insistent 48-run Champions Trophy victory. Elsewhere, India began their campaign with a hugely impressive 26-run defeat of South Africa, who look on course to finally kick the chokers tag by this time simply going out at the first hurdle instead; and West Indies beat Pakistan by two wickets in a thriller at the Oval.
A Tour double whammy?
What could possibly enrage a Frenchman more than an English winner of the Tour de France? Yes, it's two English winners of the Tour de France, a possibility that looms larger after Chris Froome's steamrollering victory in the Criterium du Dauphine warm-up schlep. Froome braved freezing rain and two thigh-crampingly huge climbs to ensure Team Sky took the Dauphine for the third year running, following on from Sir Bradley of Seems Like a Very Long Time Ago Now Doesn't It this time last year. The tour starts on 29 June. Still time to book a jolly old gîte.
Vettel still going full throttle
A first in Formula One – this counts as a first around here – as Red Bull won an inaugural race in North America, Sebastian Vettel coasting home in the Canadian Grand Prix. "I love Canada," Vettel shouted as he crossed the finished line, although he shouts that every time (he doesn't), to complete a 29th career victory and open up a 36-point lead over Kimi Raikkonen in what must, for form's sake, still be called the race for the championship. Fernando Alonso came second, overtaking a strop-ridden Lewis Hamilton seven laps from the end. The race was marred, however, by a fatal accident to a track marshal.
