Gerrard delivered Rangers the title while Freeman verdict

HOT OR NOT: Steven Gerrard proved he was right to take a big job in management straight away by delivering Rangers’ first title in 10 years while Richard Freeman’s guilty verdict has left a dark cloud over British Cycling and Team Sky

  • Steven Gerrard led Rangers to their first Scottish Premiership title in 10 years 
  • Jodie Williams returned to the podium by winning bronze in Poland last Saturday
  • Dr Richard Freeman’s guilty verdict is damaging for British Cycling and Team Sky

It’s Hot or Not time again as Sportsmail’s Riath Al-Samarrai reveals what’s been making him feel warm and what’s been leaving him cold this week.

STEVEN GERRARD

A thought occurred as Steven Gerrard drove through a party in full swing outside Ibrox. Aside from the Covid breach, the sight made you wonder what untold joys may have existed in the theoretical universe where top players must start out at the bottom in management. It’s a curmudgeonly gripe that has been mangled in this case by Gerrard leading a giant to a first title in 10 years.

Steven Gerrard’s Rangers side were confirmed as Scottish champions last weekend

LEE WESTWOOD 

Three months after winning the Race to Dubai, he pushed Bryson DeChambeau to the last green at the Arnold Palmer Invitational and he opened with a 69 at the Players Championship. He’s 48 next month. What price his season includes another playing role at the Ryder Cup?

JODIE WILLIAMS 

They used to call her Money Legs. She was the prodigy who won 151 straight races in her teens, before it all went horribly awry. Last Saturday, aged 27, she won 400 metres bronze at the European Indoors for her first medal since 2014, and for once no one in athletics was moaning.

NOT 

BRITISH CYCLING AND TEAM SKY

Marginal gains and one almighty whopper of a verdict. On the back of the Richard Freeman case, the best that Sir Dave Brailsford and the other main characters in this saga can expect is that they will see out their careers in a fog of innuendo. The worst? Well, who knows where all this will lead?

Ex-British Cycling and Team Sky doctor Richard Freeman (second left) was found guilty of ordering banned testosterone ‘knowing or believing’ it would be used to dope a rider

IRISH HORSERACING REGULATORY BOARD  

They say Denise Foster is now ‘entirely’ responsible for training the horses at Cullentra House stables during Gordon Elliott’s suspension. They also say: ‘Gordon is not supposed to be involved in training.’ Where it gets interesting is that Elliott has a house at the stables. Feels watertight, this.

IOC 

You might have seen the tributes. They followed Thomas Bach’s re-election as president, whereby more than 30 IOC members took turns to pay gushing homage to their glorious leader. You almost had to marvel at how an organisation that pretends to insulate itself from politics has successfully morphed into North Korea.




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