Thursday, October 29, 2020

Sven-Göran Eriksson, the football manager to conquer league-and-cup doubles in three countries

Sven-Göran Eriksson (born 5 February 1948) is a Swedish football manager and former player.
After an unassuming playing career as a right-back, Eriksson went on to experience major success in club management between 1977 and 2001, winning 18 trophies with a variety of league clubs in Sweden, Portugal and Italy; he became the first manager to conquer league-and-cup doubles in three countries.[2] In European competition, he won both the UEFA Cup and the European Cup Winners' Cup (the last edition of the latter trophy before its abolition) and reached the final of the European Cup
He later managed the national teams of England, Mexico, Philippines and the Ivory Coast, as well as two clubs in England. Eriksson has worked in ten countries: Sweden, Portugal, Italy, England, Mexico, Ivory Coast, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, China and the Philippines.

Eriksson was born in Sunne[1] and raised in Torsby, both in Värmland. His father, also named Sven, was a bus conductor, and his mother, Ulla, worked in a textile store.[3] He was nicknamed "Svennis" after his younger brother Lars-Erik's attempt to pronounce his name; Eriksson went on to become known, and is generally referred to in Sweden mononymously, by this nickname.

Wednesday, October 21, 2020

Hans Herrmann, a retired Formula One and sports car racing driver from Stuttgart

Hans Herrmann (born 23 February 1928) is a retired Formula One and sports car racing driver from Stuttgart, Germany.
In F1, he participated in 19 World Championship Grands Prix, debuting on 2 August 1953. He achieved 1 podium, and scored a total of 10 championship points.
In sports car racing, he also scored the first overall win at the 24 Hours of Le Mans for Porsche in 1970, in a Porsche 917.
From 1954 to 1955, he was part of the Mercedes-Benz factory team, as a junior driver behind Juan Manuel Fangio, Karl Kling, Hermann Lang and later Stirling Moss. When the Silver Arrows came back for the 1954 French Grand Prix to score a 1–2 win, Herrmann drove the fastest lap but had to retire. A podium finish at the 1954 Swiss Grand Prix was his best result in that year as he had to use older versions of the Mercedes-Benz W196, or the least reliable car.
In the 1955 Argentine Grand Prix his teammates Kling and Moss had to abandon early due to the extremely hot conditions on the southern hemisphere in January. Herrmann was called in to share his car with them for a 4th-place finish, giving one point each. Fangio won with two laps more. Hans was quick in the 1955 Mille Miglia with the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR, comparably or even faster than Moss, but was less lucky than in 1954, as he had to abandon the race.
A crash in practise for the 1955 Monaco Grand Prix put Herrmann out for the ill-fated 1955 season, even though a comeback in the Targa Florio was intended.

The next years saw Herrmann racing for many marques, in F1 for Cooper, Maserati and BRM. In Berlin's AVUS during the 1959 German Grand Prix the brakes of his BRM failed, he crashed in a spectacular way, being thrown out of the car and sliding along the track with the car somersaulting in the air.
With different versions of the Porsche 718 being used as a sportscar and as a Formula Two car, Herrmann scored some wins for Porsche, mainly both the 1960 12 Hours of Sebring and Targa Florio. When the open wheeled single seater version of the Porsche 718 became eligible for Formula One in 1961 due to the rule changes, the results in F1 were disappointing. Herrmann finished 15th (last) in the 1961 Dutch Grand Prix, which was one of only two races in F1 history to have no retirements. He left Porsche at the beginning of the 1962 season feeling that he as a local from Stuttgart was No Prophet In His Own Land compared to Californian Dan Gurney and 1959 GP-winner Jo Bonnier from Sweden. Gurney scored two F1 wins (one non-championship) with the new Porsche 804, but Porsche retired from F1 anyway at the end of 1962.

In 1966 he returned to Porsche for a comeback in the World Sportscar Championship, as Porsche started a serious effort there. Following several podium finishes with the still underpowered two liter Porsche 906 and later models, he won the 1968 24 Hours of Daytona in a 907 as well as the Sebring 12 Hours again, now together with Swiss Jo Siffert. The overall win of the 1000km Nürburgring always eluded him, even though Herrmann had taken part in each of these races at the Nürburgring since they were introduced in 1953, and had finished second three times in a row from 1968 to 1970, behind teammates Jo Siffert and/or Vic Elford.
Herrmann missed the win in the 1969 24 Hours of Le Mans with a Porsche 908 by only 120 meters [1], but it was he who finally scored the long-awaited first overall victory at the Le Mans 24 Hours for Porsche in 1970. He was assigned to Porsche Salzburg, the Austria-based factory-backed team owned by the Porsche family, which mainly entered cars painted red and white, the Austrian colors. In heavy rain, he and his teammate Richard Attwood survived with their Porsche 917K #23 as the best of only seven finishers.

Half jokingly, Herrmann had promised to his wife before the Le Mans race that he would retire in case of a win there. Having witnessed fatal accidents of colleagues too many times, e.g. before the 1969 German Grand Prix when his teammate and neighbor Gerhard Mitter died, the 42-year-old announced his retirement on TV, after having driven the winning car in a parade through Stuttgart from the factory to the town hall. To get out of his contract with Porsche Salzburg, Herrmann had to recommend a replacement driver to Luise Piech.
Using his contacts, Herrmann built a successful company for automotive supplies. He was kidnapped once in the 1990s and kept in a car trunk for many hours before escaping.
Herrmann has remained engaged in the racing community through his retirement, demonstrating historical cars at events such as the Solitude-Revival.[





Thursday, October 1, 2020

Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th and current Dalai Lama

Dalai Lama is a title given by the Tibetan people for the foremost spiritual leader of the Gelug or "Yellow Hat" school of Tibetan Buddhism, the newest of the classical schools of Tibetan Buddhism.[3] The 14th and current Dalai Lama is Tenzin Gyatso, who lives as a refugee in India.
The Dalai Lama is also considered to be the successor in a line of tulkus who are believed[2] to be incarnations of Avalokiteśvara,[1] a Bodhisattva of Compassion.[4][5] The name is a combination of the Mongolic word dalai meaning "ocean" or "big" (coming from Mongolian title Dalaiyin qan or Dalaiin khan,[6] translated as Gyatso in Tibetan)[7] and the Tibetan wordབླ་མ་ (bla-ma) meaning "master, guru".[8]


Since the time of the 5th Dalai Lama in the 17th century, his personage has always been a symbol of unification of the state of Tibet, where he has represented Buddhist values and traditions.[9] The Dalai Lama was an important figure of the Geluk tradition, which was politically and numerically dominant in Central Tibet, but his religious authority went beyond sectarian boundaries. While he had no formal or institutional role in any of the religious traditions, which were headed by their own high lamas, he was a unifying symbol of the Tibetan state, representing Buddhist values and traditions above any specific school.[10] The traditional function of the Dalai Lama as an ecumenical figure, holding together disparate religious and regional groups, has been taken up by the present fourteenth Dalai Lama. He has worked to overcome sectarian and other divisions in the exiled community and has become a symbol of Tibetan nationhood for Tibetans both in Tibet and in exile.[11]
From 1642 until 1705 and from 1750 to the 1950s, the Dalai Lamas or their regents headed the Tibetan government (or Ganden Phodrang) in Lhasa which governed all or most of the Tibetan Plateau with varying degrees of autonomy[12] under the Qing Dynasty of China, in which Tibet had been under non-Tibetan suzerainty,[13] and a period of disputed "de facto independence" between 1913 and 1951. This Tibetan government also enjoyed the patronage and protection of firstly Mongol kings of the Khoshut and Dzungar Khanates (1642–1720) and then of the emperors of the Manchu-led Qing dynasty (1720–1912).[12] In 1913, several Tibetan representatives including Agvan Dorzhiev signed a treaty between Tibet and Mongolia, proclaiming mutual recognition and their independence from China, however the legitimacy of the treaty and declared independence of Tibet was rejected by both the Republic of China and the current People's Republic of China.[14][15] The Dalai Lamas headed the Tibetan government afterwards despite that, until 1951.