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Sportshour: Should England Boycott the World Cup?

Discussion & Talk

Shark Attack to Winter Paralympian

17/03/2018 GMT

Should England Boycott the World Cup?

BBC World Service - Sportshour, Should England Boycott the World Cup?

Calls for England to boycott the world cup following the attempted murder of a former spy

Calls for England to boycott the world cup following the attempted murder of a former spy.

The fall out to the attempted murder of a former spy continues with UK police contacting a number of Russian exiles to discuss their safety 
That's after Prime Minister Theresa May said it was highly likely the Russian State was responsible for posioning Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the English City of Salisbury. In response, amongst other sanctions, came the decision this week that no member of the British government or Royal family will go to this summer's Football World Cup in Russia
 
But should England pull out of the tournament completely? We speak to sports historian John Hoberman.

The increase in media coverage of Paralympic sport since London 2012 is clear. NBC in the United States aired a record 250 hours of coverage from these games in PeyongChang. But how accessible are some of the Winter Paralympic sports below the very elite level? We sent Richard Fleming along to join a ski group on the slopes of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado.  

We also speak to US snowboarder Amy Purdy, who was only given a 2% chance of survival when she had meningitis when she was 19 years old. This week, she won silver and bronze at the Winter Paralympics. She tells Caroline about her journey which involved dancing at the Rio Games Opening Ceremony with stomach flu and TV show Dancing with the Stars.

Less than three weeks away from the Commonwealth Games and for the first time in the Games history, there will be a women's competition in Rugby Sevens. Sharni Williams will be part of the Australia team and will be looking to add to the gold medal she won at the 2016 Olympics in Rio but as she tells Caroline, rugby was not Sharni's first love - instead she has a real passion for getting her hands greasy and fixing cars.

After clinching her first win at the Cheltenham Festival in March as an amateur, 22-year-old Bryony Frost is the talk of the racing world, with 30 victories since April 2017.  As a child, Frost was riding the family donkey by the time she could walk and often her parents would let the donkey effectively be Bryony’s babysitter when they went out. When she was 15, after a fall, the infection turned into septicaemia and went to the lungs. She was in hospital for two months and was close to death. But Bryony recovered and became an amateur jockey at the age of 16. Now Frost is expecting to compete in the Grand National. Frost’s success has brought up a lot of headlines about the lack of professional female jockeys. A recent study showed that roughly one in 10 race jockeys with a professional license are women, with female jockeys only taking 5% of available rides. 

Ruqsana Begum is from a strict Muslim family in East London, who fell in love with kick-boxing but kept her participation secret from her parents for five years. Ruqsana Begum went on to become a world champion despite a disastrous arranged marriage and a mental breakdown. No wonder Hollywood are interested in taking her story to the big screen. On Saturday, Ruqsana starts a new career with her first contest in professional boxing, and hopes the extra expose can inspire more Muslim girls to take up sport.

Despite having no professional league, and not even another side to play against. And despite making do with second hand kit, the countries only ice-hockey team have their sights set on the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing. They practise every Wednesday night in Nairobi, led by captain Robert Opiyo.

Picture - World Cup draw (Credit - Getty Images)

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