Recent letters Francis De Cort has a snippet of opinion on all of our recent letters page topics, so we'll start off today with his offering that covers foot and mouth, women's cycling and the question of what constitutes sport. Problem with that is that lots of things that are physically hard are not sports. Moving furniture, for example. Sports generally include a non-trivial physical ability and an element of competition. Chess isn't a sport because the skills it requires are mental, not physical.
Golf includes a physical skill, and competition.
Maybe someone should invent 'sprint golf' or 'extreme golf' to sort this out once and for all. He notes Gian-Matteo Fagnini's role in both Zabel and Cipollini's wins. After the crash in the closing stages of Milan-San Remo, Joris Versteppen wonders what happened to the usual rule in these situations. We'll try and find out. Finally, a smaller batch this time of letters on women's cycling.