That Week In Sport. A Review Of the Last Seven Days In Sport. All delivered with the appropriate level of baffled awe, misplaced confidence, and the sense that humanity probably shouldn’t be allowed near competitive sport.

Ladies and gentlemen, sports fans, and people who only watch Match of the Day so they can complain about the pundits’ trousers what a week it has been. 

A week so chaotic, so gloriously unhinged, that I’m starting to suspect the entire sporting calendar is being written by a committee of caffeinated geese.

Let’s begin with the moment that caused every bookmaker in Britain to clutch their chest like they’d just been told the price of a pint in London: Crokes Cross, a 300‑1 shot at Kelso, equalled the UK racing record for the longest‑priced winner. Three hundred to one. That’s not a betting odd  that’s the probability of successfully assembling IKEA furniture on the first attempt. That’s the likelihood of your printer working when you really need it. And yet, this horse who was presumably expected to finish sometime next Tuesday decided to win. WIN. Somewhere, a man who put £2 on it as a joke is now Googling “how to retire early” and “can you buy a yacht in Scotland.”

Meanwhile, in the world of football economics, we learned that tickets for the World Cup final are going for £8,000, which is roughly the cost of a small car, a large wedding, or a moderately sized kidney on the black market. Eight grand to watch 22 exhausted millionaires kick a ball while you sit so far from the pitch you need binoculars and a Sherpa. At that price, the ticket should at least include a complimentary foot massage, a personalised VAR decision in your favour, and the right to borrow the trophy for weekends.

But fear not there is still purity in sport. Or at least, there was this week, when for the first time in 28 years, no athlete at an Olympics was found to have taken a banned substance. This is astonishing. This is historic. This is the sporting equivalent of discovering a unicorn doing its taxes. For nearly three decades, the Olympics has been less “celebration of human excellence” and more “pharmaceutical arms race,” so the idea that everyone was clean feels like the plot twist in a feel‑good Disney film. I fully expect a montage of athletes hugging, inspirational music swelling, and a stern anti‑doping official wiping away a single proud tear.

Back on home waters, Cambridge won their fourth consecutive men’s Boat Race, proving once again that if there is one thing Cambridge students excel at, it’s moving backwards very quickly while shouting in Latin. Oxford, meanwhile, will have to regroup, rethink, and possibly recruit rowers with arms the size of telegraph poles. The Boat Race remains one of Britain’s most cherished traditions: thousands of people lining the Thames to watch two teams of extremely posh men reenact a very intense version of synchronised furniture moving.

In football, Southampton stunned Arsenal to reach the FA Cup semi‑finals, which is a polite way of saying Arsenal fans spent the afternoon making noises normally associated with malfunctioning machinery. Southampton, who were not expected to do anything other than “try their best and go home politely,” instead decided to play like a team possessed by the spirit of their 1976 FA Cup winning team,Though it must be pointed out this time they didn't rely on a clearly offside winner. Arsenal, meanwhile, played like they’d accidentally wandered into the wrong stadium and didn’t want to cause a fuss.

But the most inspiring story of the week belongs to Jane Asher, a 95‑year‑old woman from south London who broke FIVE age‑group world records in swimming. Five. At ninety‑five. When most people her age are arguing with the TV remote or telling the same story for the 14th time, Jane is out there obliterating records like she’s auditioning for Aquaman. She has been swimming competitively for decades, which means she has more medals than most nations and probably stronger shoulders than half the Premier League. If she ever challenges you to a race, decline politely and pretend you’ve pulled a hamstring.

Speaking of legends, Rachel Blackmore the first woman to win the Grand National has declared that crossing the finish line first in 2021 was better than her wedding day. This is a bold statement. This is the kind of statement that makes your spouse look up from their tea and say, “I’m sorry, WHAT?” But honestly, fair enough. Winning the Grand National is a once‑in‑a‑lifetime achievement. Weddings, on the other hand, involve seating charts, relatives who shouldn’t drink prosecco, and someone inevitably crying in the toilets.

And finally, in the world of sports equipment, badminton’s governing body has approved synthetic shuttlecocks due to a shortage of duck and goose feathers. Yes, we have reached the point where even birds are refusing to participate in sport. Apparently, demand for feathers has skyrocketed, and ducks have unionised.

The new synthetic shuttlecocks promise to behave “almost like the real thing,” which is reassuring, because nothing says elite athletic competition like hitting a tiny plastic missile that looks like it escaped from a novelty desk fan.