Take two of the greatest contests in sport, and plonk them down in two of the
planet’s top holiday destinations. The Cricket World Cup in the Caribbean,
the Rugby World Cup in France: a pair of the best reasons you could ever
have for taking a sporting holiday, and they’re both taking place next year.
But it’s not only those headline-grabbers that will make 2007 a classic for
sporting travellers. There are plenty of other contests that showcase the
world’s finest athletes, and give you an insight into the cultures that
stage them into the bargain. From the cycling-mad French to the surf bums of
Hawaii, via the down-under derring-do of Australian Rules Football, here’s
how to catch the most gripping and competitive events of the next 12 months.
SKIING
JANUARY 26-28
Every skier worth their powder should go to the Hahnenkamm, in Kitzbühel, at
least once in their lives. It’s the fastest, toughest race of the World Cup
season, and anyone watching the downhillers on Saturday streaking down the
near-suicidal drops of the Streif is witnessing the acid test of skiing
greatness. There are three big questions this year: will the American former
wunderkind Bode Miller redeem himself after his lacklustre Olympics? Can
Finlay Mickel, the best Brit in a generation, crash into the top 10? And
will you remember any of it anyway?
We only ask that last one because this isn’t just a sporting classic. It’s a
cracking party, too. The action starts on Friday and culminates in and
around the Londoner pub on Saturday night, where tradition dictates that the
exhausted winners have to put in a stint behind the bar at the riotous
post-race bash. Good-natured bad behaviour is mandatory — watch out for the
flying bras, they’ll have somebody’s eye out one day. Accommodation in town
is as hard to find as a sober skier, but Inghams (020 8780 4433,
www.inghams.co.uk) can rustle up a fortnight in Kitzbühel, from January 20,
for £1,034pp, including flights from London.
CRICKET
MARCH 13-APRIL 28
Forget reggae and calypso: for seven weeks, the dominant sound across the
Caribbean will be the thwack of leather on willow, as 16 teams play 51
matches in the fight for the Cricket World Cup.
This being cricket, though, the procedure is a touch labyrinthine. The gist is
this: England will play their first three matches in St Lucia, on March 16,
18 and 24. Assuming they don’t mess up too badly, they go on to the Super
Eight group stage, playing six more matches against the top sides at venues
in Guyana (one game), Antigua (two) and Barbados (three). After that, the
wildly optimistic might want to think about the semis in Jamaica or St
Lucia, and the final in Barbados.
Seeing the whole lot is clearly a tall order, so all but the real fanatics
will want to combine a game or two with a classic Caribbean beach break.
Individual tickets can now be bought only at local outlets, so to be sure of
seeing the games you want, it’s best to take a package with an authorised
agent. It isn’t cheap: Sporting Journeys (0870 708 2001,
www.sportingjourneys.com) has two-week packages for the first St Lucia
stage, including two games, from £2,350pp, while Gullivers (01684 293175,
www.gulliversports.co.uk) can do 14-day packages to Antigua, including two
games (probably Australia and Sri Lanka), from £3,305pp. Or, if you want to
do it in real style, ITC Sports (01244 355390, www.itcsports.co.uk) has
chartered the luxury boutique cruise ship SeaDream, and will have Graham
Gooch and Allan Lamb on board: an eight-day voyage, including three matches
in St Lucia and St Kitts, costs £6,230pp.
AUSTRALIAN RULES FOOTBAL
MARCH 30
Not only is Australian Rules Football one of the most exciting, flowing,
physical team sports around, it could only have been born down under, where
physical prowess and the larrikin spirit combine to turn a game that
sometimes looks like a pub brawl into an art form. It’s as Australian as
cold lager, roos and barbies.
The eye-catching league fixture this season is the Sydney Swans v the West
Coast Eagles, a rematch of this year’s final, at the Telstra stadium.
Tickets will be available in the new year from www.sydneyswans.com.au, with
prices starting at £8. Austravel (0870 166 2070, www.austravel.com) has 10
nights in Sydney from £975pp, including flights.
FOOTBALL
APRIL 29
It’s going to be a tense year for football fans following the home nations’
struggles to qualify for Euro 2008 — so take a break from the nail-biting
and simply enjoy the spectacle at a big European club game. Barcelona v Real
Madrid at the Nou Camp is a traditional favourite, but the tiny away-fan
contingent means it can be lacking in atmosphere. You certainly can’t say
that about Roma v Lazio: it’s the local derby to end them all, with 40,000
of Roma’s rowdy inner-city lupi fans doing their best to outroar 20,000 of
the more suburban, well-heeled laziali. It’s passionate, edgy, deafening and
not for the faint-hearted. The atmosphere fairly crackles — all the more so
if the Italian authorities make one of their late switches and decide to
play the game in the evening (watch out for the flares and fireworks).
Fan Fare Events (0161 437 0002, www.fanfare-events.com) can get seats in the
Monte Mario section — the best in the house — with two nights in a central
four-star hotel and flights from London, for £349pp.
SAILING
JUNE 23-JULY 7
When the biggest contest in sailing comes to Europe for the first time since
1851, it’s worth making a fuss about. And that’s exactly what Valencia has
done, creating a spanking new port for the America’s Cup. It should be
cracking when it’s finished, with a new quayside park to watch the pre-race
hustle and bustle before making for Malvarrosa beach to see the real action,
which is planned to be crowd-pleasingly close to shore.
Twelve boats are entered, with the defending Swiss (yes, really) most
concerned about the much-fancied Americans and New Zealanders. It should be
fascinating stuff, from the pre-start jockeying for position, to the
tactical tacking to the first mark, to the full-pelt charge downwind for the
finish line. Watch from the beach, then retire to one of the string of
excellent seafood restaurants at the back of the sand — our favourite is
L’Estimat (Avenida Neptuno 16). Stay in the lovely old town, a couple of
miles from the shore, at the Petit Palace Bristol (www.hthoteles.com;
doubles from £120) or Ad Hoc (www.adhochoteles.com; doubles from £100); get
there with British Airways (0870 850 9850, www.ba.com), EasyJet
(www.easyjet.com) or Ryanair (0871 246 0000, www.ryanair.com).
TOUR DE FRANCE
JULY 7-29
No event is more physically punishing than the Tour de France. The statistics
are daunting enough — 2,204 miles in 20 stages, with six of those in the
mountains — but to understand the herculean nature of the riders’ task,
you’ve got to join the 20m vélo-mad Frenchmen who line the route and see the
pain on the faces as the peloton flashes past.
This year, you can do it without even crossing La Manche — the tour kicks off
in London on July 7 — but the real drama lies far to the south, in the
Pyrenees. The toughest of the lot is stage 15, on July 23, which takes the
riders 122 miles over five serious mountain passes, including the fearsome
Port de Balès. It’s never been included in the Tour before, and we might be
about to find out why.
The same rugged scenery that tortures the competitors makes this an
outstandingly pretty area for a summer holiday in the mountains: take one at
Juzet-de-Luchon, a mile or two from the toughest stretch of the stage, where
Hoseasons (0870 526 2262, www.hoseasonsvillas.com) has a pretty Pyrenean
house, sleeping 12, for £1,405 for the week starting July 21.
RUGBY
SEPTEMBER 7-OCTOBER 20
The Rugby World Cup in France is a mouthwatering prospect: 48 matches, 12
stadiums, more than 2m spectators, sport of the highest calibre in a
destination to match. Okay, England are looking a touch ropey, but there’s
still time to rebuild, and the other home nations — especially the resurgent
Irish — will hope to give favourites New Zealand a run for their money.
It’s no surprise that tickets are like gold dust. Individual ones went on sale
on November 9, and 170,000 were snapped up on the first day. But all is not
lost — there are still two ways to get in on the action.
First, you can buy online from the organisers at www.rugbyworldcup.com. Okay,
you’ll be lucky to scoop one of the glamour games this way — fixtures such
as England’s Pool A clash with South Africa in Paris on September 14 sold
out instantly — but at the time of writing there were still some intriguing
matches available, especially at the two non-French venues, Murrayfield, in
Edinburgh, and the Millennium Stadium, Cardiff. At the former, try Scotland
against the All Blacks on September 23; at the latter, Wales v Australia on
the 15th should produce some quality play. Tickets start at £38.
In France itself, the most attractive venues to combine with a holiday are
Bordeaux, Toulouse, Marseilles and Montpellier, all of which had some single
tickets for minor matches left at the time of going to press. It’s tempting
to opt for a villa break: French Affair (020 7381 8519,
www.frenchaffair.com) and Dominique’s Villas (020 7738 8772,
www.dominiquesvillas.co.uk) both have plenty of properties across the south
of France during the tournament.
Not good enough? If you’re set on the top games, you’ll need to go to an
official travel agent, which will sell tickets packaged with a trip — and
yes, they can still get you into that England-South Africa game. Travelscope
(0870 380 3333, www.travelscope.co.uk) is offering a two-day trip from
£699pp, including tickets and Eurostar travel. Or try Gullivers (01684
293175, www.gulliversports.co.uk).
RACING
OCTOBER 7
It’s the aristocrat of race meetings. Dubai may offer bigger prizes,
Cheltenham wilder crowds, but nowhere oozes equine class quite like
Longchamp on the day of the Prix de l’Arc de Triomphe. Europe’s finest will
be here to face their most testing mile and a half, hoping to follow in the
illustrious hoofprints of Dalakhani, Dancing Brave and Urban Sea. Horse
Racing Abroad (01444 441661, www.horseracingabroad.com) will offer day trips
to the race: prices have not been set, but expect to pay about £160pp,
including Eurostar travel.
NEW YORK MARATHON
NOVEMBER 4
The world’s biggest road race is also the world’s best sightseeing tour. From
Staten Island, through Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Manhattan, the New
York Marathon provides inspiring views from five bridges and numerous
shoreline stretches. If only the runners had the leisure to take them in.
For non-running visitors, a good plan is to watch the competitors toiling onto
Manhattan island over Queensboro Bridge, follow them for a stretch along the
swanky Upper East Side, then saunter over to Central Park (while they take
an eight-mile diversion via the Bronx) to see them gasp their way to the
finish line.
If you’d sooner appreciate all that effort from on high, the perfect perch is
the 35th-floor lobby lounge of the Mandarin Oriental hotel
(www.mandarinoriental.com; doubles from £350), at mile 26: a grandstand view
over the park in its autumn finery, and the runners pouring through Columbus
Circle just a few hundred yards from the finish.
SURFING
DECEMBER 8-20
About half a million Brits are active surfers, a number that’s grown rapidly
over the past five years, and UK waters provide them with plenty of
challenges. For the really gnarly tubes, though, you’ve got to head overseas
— and there’s nowhere better than the highlight of the pro-surfer’s tour,
the Rip Curl Pipeline Masters in Oahu, Hawaii: from December 8-20, you can
rely on 30ft waves pounding onto the north shore, and see the cream of the
riders defying the power of nature to carve graceful patterns on the roaring
water. Even for non-surfers, it’s an awesome sight. The real dudes would
hitch a lift there on a banana boat and sleep on the beach, but the rest of
us can go the easy way, taking a package with Pure Vacations (01227 264264,
www.purevacations.com). Prices for next year have not been set, but expect
to pay about £1,600pp, including flights and car hire.
All details correct at the time of writing
