Hold the Back Page:HEADPHONES PLUGGED into Ipods are as common in the gym and training ground these days as training shoes and coloured laces. But according to research the music can be as important a training tool as the rest of the equipment, and not simply a hip accessory for fashion-conscious gym bunnies.

As sports everywhere gear up for the 2012 Olympics, a UK company called “PRS for Music” has shown the perceptions of athletes are that music is a key influencing factor in motivating and energising professional sportsmen and wannabe Olympians.

A sample of 3,000 people were asked and of those 88 per cent said listening to music when they train makes them feel more motivated, while 41 per cent will train longer if they find a list of songs they enjoy.

Fifty eight per cent said music inspires them, 33 per cent said it distracts them and 27 per cent believed music made them feel less tired. That’s a crazy vibe and a ripe area, you would think, for the sports psychologist.

Go downhill and sometimes braking is not your friend

TWENTY OR so years ago Paul Kimmage, Olympian, professional cyclist and decorated sports writer described the downhill sequence of a mountainous stage of Le Tour. He spoke about the sweat, heat and utter fatigue of getting to the top of the climb and then facing the prospect of negotiating the bike down the other side, sometimes for many miles. He spoke of the decent racers being so fast on the bikes that the team support cars following could never keep up.

The death of Wouter Weylandt this week lends weight to what at the time seemed to be a cautionary description of what actually takes place. Kimmage spoke about the drop in temperature as the decent begins for the riders. From soaring heat on the slow upside under belting sun, suddenly the cyclist is faced with a long, fast down-hill cold decent.

Back then they used to put newspapers down the front of their shirts to prevent the chill getting too close. But Kimmage also mentioned something that has remained a fascination for two decades.

He spoke of using the brakes on corners. This may not occur anymore with new technology but in the 1980s the riders pulled the brakes sparingly because the pads heated up the rim of the wheel and as the rim of the wheel rose in temperature due to friction, the glue that held the tire to the metal wheel frame started to melt. The more the rider pulled the brakes, the more the heat transferred from the wheel to the tyre and the more it melted.

If a rider was brake happy the metal rim would heat so much that the glue would entirely loose its sticky quality and allow the tyre to separate. The rider was faced with the total dissolution of tyre and rim as he sped down the canyons.

The point is that going down the mountain wasn’t a free wheeling tourist ride but a measured gambol. Weylandt’s crash during the dangerous decent of Passo del Bocco in this week’s third stage of the Giro de Italia suggests Kimmage’s caution was well placed.

The blue-eyed motorbike boy from Toomebridge

“THERE’S NE’ER a tear in his blue eyes, fearless and brave are they.”

Roddy McCorly and Eugene Laverty share a similar history. One is the blue-eyed motorbike racer, who won twice in Monza last weekend in the World Superbike Championship, the other a Presbyterian radical who fought in the 1798 United Irishmen rebellion.

Both of them come from Toomebridge, located in Antrim on the northern west corner of Lough Neagh. After last weekend, the trajectory Laverty is currently on should make him the most celebrated man about his home town. And that’s more difficult than you might think even though the 2001 census tells us that only 722 people lived in the town 10 years ago. Laverty goes head to head with rugby’s Ireland and Lions captain Willie John McBride, who is also a native of Toomebridge but now lives in Ballyclare.

Laverty has been spoken about for some time as an outstanding talent in a county where racing between the hedges is in the blood. The late Joey and Robert Dunlop lived in Ballymoney, not so far away, another small but mighty population of 9,021 in the last census.

While the Dunlops raced the roads and tragically paid with their lives, Laverty is destined to stay on the track, which is infinitely safer. Without getting carried away with flags and emblems, he also races under the Tricolour which makes him Ireland’s top track racer, and Toomebridge’s too.

If the cap fits, just award it

THE BARBARIANS travelling road show just might be the Harlem Globetrotters of rugby popping up here there and everywhere and Gavin Henson may be the celebrity beefcake in the Welsh centre.

But that seems like an outrageous reason for Warren Gatland to award the troubled player a full international cap for turning out for Wales against the Barbarians on June 4th as part of their Word Cup warm-up campaign.

Doubtlessly the Wales Rugby Union would see the full international status afforded to the game as a stimulus for fans to empty their pockets at the turnstiles.

Fine fiduciary reasons from the union but it hardly covers over the fact the Barbarians are not a Test team and are not a country. Alarmingly their name appears to say it all. The Baa-Baas are the Barbarians Football Club and therefore a club not a Test side, whatever way you wish to look at it.

The concept of the Barbarians took place late one evening in 1890 in Leuchters Restaurant, Bradford when William Percy Carpmael dreamt up the idea of a cosmopolitan team in which players could lineout by invitation only.

The result? A cavalier, entertaining team with an emphasis on style, not substance.

The decision to award caps has been a sticky one and accompanied by howls of derision and accusations that the WRU, with the stroke of a pen, have demeaned and devalued the wearing of the red shirt against a fun team – all for the sake of drumming up interest in the match.

In years gone by the green shirt was steadfastly protected from interlopers being given what might have been called “soft caps” and it went as far as the IRFU refusing to award caps for some international games.

The former Irish backrow and columnist in this paper, Donal Spring, once expressed his anger that Irish teams of the past didn’t receive caps when they played against Argentina.

The thrust of the argument was that it was insulting for Argentina and for the Irish players who lined out against them.

Doubtlessly there was always a touch of the old colonials and Home Unions looking down on certain countries.

But history will probably treat the IRFU kindly enough on that score as it appears to have been a fashionable streak of prejudice of the time.

The All Blacks played against Argentina for the first time in October 1976 and did not award caps to their players. They reserved the right again three years later when Argentina undertook their first tour of New Zealand. It wasn’t until October 1985 that the Kiwis respected their South American opponents enough to grant them full international status and capped their players.

To put this recent decision involving the Barbarians in perspective, Wales even refused to award caps in a match against New Zealand in 1974. Now 37 years later WRU chairman David Pickering was pleased to announce “Wales will award full caps for this important and historic fixture”.

What he omitted to say was that it is against a farrago of players, many of whom will not have played with each other at any stage in their careers.

The great JPR Williams, with his marvellous handlebar moustache, and the legendary Gareth Edwards, were both denied caps when they togged out against Argentina, Fiji, Tonga and the rest of the rugby underlings. Now Henson, if selected by Gatland, will win his 32nd cap. Given his troubles maybe we should just be pleased.

Due north is a test

BEING THE time of year for the Leaving and Junior Cert exams, it seems fitting real grown-ups who watch football will simultaneously take part in an Irish Culture examination in less than two weeks’ time.

Like all of the big English and Maths subjects this is Paper II. With resounding success, Paper I was sat back in February 2007 when the relaxing of Rule 42 by the GAA allowed Ireland play against England in the Six Nations in Croke Park for the first time.

The England national anthem God Save the Queen was played and everyone behaved themselves impeccably. A-plus.

On May 24th Nigel Worthington’s Northern Ireland side are scheduled to play against the Republic of Ireland at the Aviva Stadium in the newly-forged Carling Nations Cup and, with the Irish Football Association insisting that God Save the Queen’be played for the first time in Dublin in a cross-border clash, the sitting of Paper II will take place.

Those with long enough memories to remember The Troubles and current Celtic manager Neil Lennon’s international career with NI, should recall that the British anthem is still perceived as something more than a tune in certain areas of Northern Ireland.

That the Football Association of Ireland have no issue with the anthem being played has to be welcomed as a mature attitude, but will the fans agree with them?

The Croke Park landmark game against England was a one-off and seemed almost as much an orchestrated gesture to heal old wounds as a game of rugby. The mood was respectful of the dead, the history of the countries and the cordial present.

It won’t be that historically nuanced at the Aviva and the fact that football officials want the NI fans bussed into and out of the stadium suggests some tension or concern by Gardaí and PSNI. There has not been a good history of NI fans coming to Dublin and in February the Gardaí in riot gear were called to Dublin 4.

A bigoted rump it might have been but the bar staff around Ballsbridge will testify to an issue of mutual respect where little was shown last time out. The anthem will play. We hope Paper II goes well.