After completing the 13-jump course as a part of the fourth leg of the Rolex Federation Equestre Internationale World Cup, Eric Lamaze’s Hickstead collapsed and died. Eric Lamaze was ranked as the No. 1 show jumper in the world by the Rolex rankings. This was for the third time that Eric Lamaze was declared as the No. 1 show jumper in Rolex rankings. The Rolex Federation Equestre Internationale World Cup was being held in Italy, on Sunday. Hickstead and his rider Eric Lamaze had completed a flawless round of show jumping till Hickstead crashed to the ground under his rider and breathed his last in the ring. Spectators all over the grandstand watched the incident in absolute horror and were feeling extremely sorry for the beautiful stallion. Hickstead was considered to be one of the top athletes in Canada.

Eric Lamaze had won an individual gold and silver medal for his Canadian team with the stallion at the Beijing Olympics in 2008. Hickstead looked absolutely fine after it had started losing its strength in its legs and almost started giving up as it started to walk unsteadily. This was quite evident during its jumps between two brightly colored jumps in the arena in Verona. A Dutch Warmblood, Hickstead was carried out of the ring as soon as he died. Both Eric Lamaze, Hickstead’s rider for a long time and John Fleischacker and his family, who co-own the horse disagreed to talk to the press. Tonya Henning, a 26 year Canadian grand prix rider said that Hickstead was born to compete and win. Tonya Henning owns Mill Creek Stables in Cambridge, Ontario. She said that she was previously trained under Eric Lamaze. Tonya Henning said that Hickstead was known for his intense and active demeanor in the ring. He was always ready to be as bad as the rider wants him to be – added the 26 year old Canadian.

Experts believe that Hickstead was the trump card for Eric Lamaze. The stallion was responsible to shoot up Eric Lamaze’s career to the next level. He was declared as the no. 1 show jumper in the world in the Rolex rankings last summer just above Sweden’s Rolf-Goran Bengtsson and the American Olympian Mclain Ward. Hickstead’s death was a dramatic one as he lay shaking on his back with hooves trembling in the air for several minutes. The incident was not only witnessed by the thousands and thousands of spectators in the grandstand, but it was also broadcast on television and on Federation Equestre Internationale’s website also. The video spread like a fire in the internet. An autopsy is still pending on Hickstead’s death. However, Karyn Malinowski, the director of the Equine Science Center at Rutgers University in New Jersey said that immense coronary. According to him, horse is a natural blood doper. So, when it is engaged in an athletic event, it automatically dumps tons of red blood cells into the bloodstream. This is what makes a horse a wonderful athlete. AT the same time, due to this increase in blood formation, the blood does become thicker, and if the horse was prone to a weakened heart, it might have burst out.

On the request of the competitors, the show jumping World Cup competition has been suspended for this Sunday. Princess Haya bint al-Hussein of Jordan, the president of the federation, said that Hickstead’s death was a terrible loss.

The Shanghai Rolex Masters has an eventful history to traverse upon. Better known as the Shanghai ATP Masters 1000 and now sponsored by Rolex, the event was designed to encourage the sport in China and its market in the country and other Asian countries. This was possible only through the assistance of Association of Tennis Professionals and the Chinese Tennis Association. Following a sponsorship deal in 2010, the event was renamed as the Shanghai Rolex Masters. The Hong Kong Open was the first tennis tournament held in China in the year 1973. In this year’s Shanghai Rolex Masters, Canada’s Milos Raonic lost to Spain’s David Ferrer in straight sets of 7-5, 7-6(7) in the second round.

Shanghai is considered to be the largest city in China. In the year 1996, a professional tennis tournament was held for the first time in Shanghai. Andrei Olhovskiy from Russia defeated Mark Knowles of Bahamas to win the first Tennis tournament held in the largest city of China. 2002 onwards, the Tennis Masters Cup was held in the city. The Tennis Masters Cup was won by the World No. 1 Lleyton Hewitt from Australia. This particular event prompted the ATP to award Shanghai the right to organize the event from 2005-2007. The Tennis Masters Cup was abandoned in Shanghai for a couple of years before that.

Canada’s Milos Raonic started off well in this year’s Shanghai Rolex Masters. The Canadian tennis star roared in with 11 aces in the one hour and forty three minute long match, but he also had three broken serves which added to his defeat. After suffering from a hip injury for three months, the Shanghai Rolex Masters was his first tournament. He was also out of the second round in Tokyo, a few weeks before the Shanghai Rolex Maters. Currently ranked 31st in the world, Milos Raonic won his first ATP Tour in San Jose earlier this year in the month of February.

While the ATP International Series tournament of Shanghai was held for two more years (2003 and 2004) at the Shanghai New International Expo Center created for the 2002 Tennis Masters Cup, a new facility, the Qizhong Forest Sports City Arena was built to host the year-end championships starting from 2005.

ATP declared its 2009 rebranding in the year 2007. This year was also considered to be the apt occasion to use the Qizhong facility and the Shanghai Tennis Masters Cup organization to host an ATP World Tour Masters 1000 event in the city. This event was the equivalent of the ATP Masters Series. Shanghai was allotted for the October spot in the calendar, previously held by the Mutua Madrileña Masters Madrid indoor hard courts event. Later on the Tennis Masters Cup became the ATP World Tour Finals and moved to the O2 arena in London, United Kingdom.

After winning a silver medal in the Pan American Games held in Mexico’s Guadalajara, Selena O’Hanlon said that she is eagerly looking forward to the Rolex Kentucky meet to be held in April, 2012. The Rolex Kentucky meet is one of the main qualifying events for the London Olympics, 2012. This was Selena O’Hanlon’s second international silver medal in just over a year. The hunger to perform better is the only reason behind the Canadian team banking upon the 30 year old Selena O’Hanlon for a better show in the upcoming Rolex Kentucky meet in April, 2012. In the Pan American Games, she was a riding an inexperienced horse called Foxwood High and was fourth in the five-rider Canadian team. The Canadian team managed to attain the second position just behind the team of United States.

Selena O’Hanlon had also won a silver medal earlier with her top horse, Colombo, with Team Canada at the World Equestrian Games in Lexington, Kentucky held in the month of October last year. According to Selena O’Hanlon, her new horse Foxwood High was on his training level with a different rider and that she was riding the horse from the last nine months only. Just before two weeks of the Pan American Games, Selena O’Hanlon was summoned to represent the Canadian team in the event. The Foxwood High was the youngest among the five horses of the Team Canada. In the cross country event of the second day of the Pan American Games, Foxwood High made one mistake at the water obstacle. This resulted in 20 penalties for the team, but both Selena O’Hanlon and the horse recovered quickly to avoid further time penalties.

On the final-day show of jumping, Foxwood High hit a rail which gave them three time penalties. Selena O’Hanlon was 18th individually after the first of two rounds of show jumping. The top 25 usually come back to decide the individual medals, but it’s restricted to the top three riders per nation, leaving O’Hanlon out of the final part of the event. Canadian Jessica Phoenix of Uxbridge, aboard Pavarotti, won individual gold. John Rumble and Judy Rumble of Schomberg, Ontario had won a bronze medal with Canada in eventing at the 1956 Melbourne Olympics. Selena O’Hanlon will return to Kingston’s Balsam Hall farm after almost a month away on Monday. Selena O’Hanlon’s mother Morag O’Hanlon hopes that Foxwood High will be a candidate for the 2014 World Equestrian Games in Normandy, France and the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

The Pan American Games are considered a two-star level event, while the Olympics and World Equestrian Games are four-star events. It was the third medal for a Kingston athlete at the Pan American Games. Rower Isolda Penney captured bronze and silver medals last week.

2011 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year nominee Ben Ainslie will head the team of United Kingdom in Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships to be held in the month of December. Ben Ainslie is the only 2011 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year nominee who has been selected by his MNA (Member National Authorities). Also, four other 2011 ISAF Rolex World Sailor of the Year nominees is also likely to participate in the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships. Among the 850 expected entries in the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships, 798 boats MNA entries have already been confirmed. Among the ten sailing events in the 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships, five of them are now at capacity. All five events have good entry numbers this year. Also, the Perth 2011 ISAF Sailing World Championships will witness the largest women participation in its entire history of sailing. Women’s RS: X, Laser, Finn and Star classes along with other teams comprise of a total of 32 women sailing teams who will be a part of these sailing championships.

Australia will be sending the biggest team to Perth this year. The Australian team will have 47 entries in the Perth sailing championships, 2011. Following Australia will be the team of New Zealand which will have 39 entries in the championships. Thereafter, Canada and Great Britain teams have registered 36 entries each which bring them in the list of highest entries after Australia and New Zealand. Team USA has 30 entries, followed by other MNAs of Netherlands which has 27 entries, France with 26 entries, Germany with 26 entries, 26 entries from Italy, 25 entries from China, 24 from Brazil, 24 from Poland and 23 more from Japan. According Perth 2011 Competition Manager Skip Lissiman, the number of entries for the competitions is really pleasing and sailing fans all over the world are looking forward to the championships. Competitors from as many as 77 countries will be a part of this auspicious occasion.

Five sailing events are already knocking the door of the sailing participants. Most of the teams have started to land on Perth on a regular basis. This has helped in increasing the excitement level of the sailing fans not only in Perth, but all over the world too.

The Great Britain sailing team has selected athletes for each of its confirmed entries at Perth 2011 and the list, as expected, reads like an honor role for Olympic class sailing. Ranked third in the world of sailing, Nick Thompson will join Paul Goodison in the Laser class in this season of sailing in Perth. Paul Goodison was the Beijing 2008 Olympic champion. Brazil has selected Robert Scheidt to race the Star in December and has also selected world number five in the Laser class Bruno Fontes. The Netherlands has confirmed one representative for one entry, with Marit Bouwmeester being named to fill one of its three current entries in the Laser Radial fleet. Kyrgyzstan will send a representative to the ISAF Sailing World Championships for the first time, with Laser sailor Ignatev Ilia confirmed by his nation. Japan has also confirmed many of its representatives.

Before taking part in the Shanghai Rolex Masters, 2011, Canada’s rising star Milos Raonic lost to the world no. 2 Rafael Nadal. Milos Raonic defeated Japanese wild card Yuichi Sugita in the first round of Rakuten Japan Open tennis championships. The 2011, Shanghai Rolex Masters is all set to start next week. Though it was a quite a loss for the rising Canadian star, but Milos Raonic said that he is quite confident about his performance in the upcoming Shanghai Rolex Masters. This was his second straight year in the Rakuten Japan Open tennis championship. The world no. 2 defeated Milos Raonic in straight sets of 7-5, 6-3. The 20 year old native from Thornhill, Ontario was also defeated by the Spaniard last year by 6-4, 6-4. Since his hip injury at Wimbledon, this week is Milos Raonic’s first tournament on the ATP Tour. Canada’s rising tennis star is ranked no. 30 in the world. Rafael Nadal admitted the fact that Milos Raonic was very aggressive in the initial phase of the game. According to the world no.2, the Canadian’s serve was quite impressive in the first round.

Milos Raonic was born in Podgorica, Montenegro. When he was three years old, he moved to Canada along with his family. Since the beginning of computerized rankings in the year 1973, Milos Raonic is considered to be Canada’s highest ranked male singles player. He is also the highest ranked tennis player from the country till date. Milos Raonic qualified for his first ever grand slam title in 2010 U.S Open. Milos Raonic has come a long way after picking up his performance and catapulting his world rankings from no. 152 to 30 in a short span of time.
He achieved this feat after reaching the fourth round of the Australian Open this year itself and winning his first ATP title at the 2011 SAP Open. With his powerful an accurate serving abilities, he one of those unique tennis players who prefers to play in hard courts. Barcelona’s Galo Blanco, a former Spanish champion has been coaching Milos Raonic since 2010.

Milos Raonic grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. In Canada, Hockey is the most popular game among all the other games in the world. According to Milos Raonic, he chose tennis as his favorite sport because it is a game of individuality and he was quite confident about the fact that tennis would soon become his life if he continued to train himself alone on a ball machine with his father. Both his parents are engineers and live in Canada. His father is a PhD in Engineering and his mother holds a Masters in Engineering. Real Madrid C.F., Toronto Raptors, and Toronto Maple Leafs ice hockey teams.