“I hardly drink any alcohol these days. I have taken up yoga, which is great.”
Last summer while watching Ryan Giggs continue to defy time I remember thinking he needed to bring out a fitness DVD. If Kerry Katona can do one, and let’s face it she’s really just a coked-up flabby mess, then surely the most-decorated player in history should have one. At the time he was playing for a Manchester United side taking on Celtic in Toronto’s Rogers Centre.
Giggs Fitness
So once again, it seems someone was reading my thoughts. 6 months later Virgin TV released “Giggs Fitness: Strength And Conditioning, Inspired By Yoga“. Giving Giggs’ long-time sponsor Reebok an excuse to launch this nifty, if a little over the top, promotional site, giggsfitness.com.
The DVD came out in January but I’m only getting to reading about it now. While I spend a lot of time online, sometimes life-defining news, such as the release of a celebrity fitness DVD, can pass me by.
This exciting discovery has come to me as I’ve just returned from a online nostalgia trawl inspired by Giggs’ incredible performance over the two legs against Chelsea in the Champions League quarter-final. This ended up with me dredging through youtube watching classic Giggs moments against the likes of Arsenal, Juventus and Man City. Emotional stuff. Not helping my mental state on the day that rumours surface of imminent retirement/departures of Paul Scholes and Owen Hargreaves today. This coming only a few months after Gary Neville broke my heart. “sadface”.
Here’s the yoga DVD promo anyway, who knew he could be so bendy.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQRsgssSPwc]
And for the day that’s in it, (tomorrow is an FA Cup semi-final versus City), here’s what will go down as one of Giggs’ finest moments in a United shirt. (And then of course famously out of a United shirt.) Read about the significance of this goal, and what it meant for the Arsenal, United rivalry and the Treble hopes in the Joy of Six over here… I listened to this match on the radio, and remember thinking it sounded like one of the greatest goals ever. When I eventually saw it on the evening news later that night (Network 2 perhaps?!), it was an even better than my little fourteen-year-old brain could ever have imagined.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hrOyedpeZnk]
In Canada right now most of the sports coverage is dedicated to the Stanley Cup play-offs. These are at the round of 16 stage, each tie being decided over the course of a 7 game series. This coming after an 82 regular season where all you have to do is finish in the top half of the table to get into the play-offs. Sooo many pointless games.
So while everyone in Toronto will be debating what went wrong for the Maple Leafs, while cheering on teams with names like Canucks, Sabres, Lightning and Ducks, my thoughts will be on a bumper weekend that will see the first ever Manchester derby at Wembley, part one of a four game Real Madrid V Barcelona series, Serie A underdog battle Napoli V Udinese and the “we’re too good to go down, no we’re too good to go down” battle between Aston Villa and West Ham.
And as a random closer to this very weird wee post, we’ll ask, did Ryan Giggs make the right choice?
Dani Behr, left, dated Giggs in the early to mid 90s. He eventually married long-term partner, Stacey Cooke, in September 2007.
