Hold the back page: Usain Bolt gives up chicken nuggets as he targets Rio swansong

No more telling your kids to eat more chicken nuggets if you want to run like Usain Bolt .

The six-time Olympic gold medallist and fastest man on Earth has revealed to CNN that he is ditching junk food in favour of “a lot more vegetables” as he gets older and sets his sights on one last hurrah at next year’s Games in Rio.

Bolt estimated in his autobiography Faster than Lightning that he ate 1,000 McDonalds chicken nuggets during his 10 days in Beijing for the 2008 Olympics which amounted to 5,000 calories and 300 grams of fat a day.

But the Jamaican has finally accepted that a junk food diet is not the way to go and has decided “to cut out junk food . . . I get a lot of urges at late nights, just to eat junk food. For me, that personally is one of the biggest sacrifices,” he said of his dietary change.

How a coin toss led Italy to European glory

We’re not privy to how exactly the discussion went inside the boardroom of the Camogie Association, or if a coin toss of their own or a game of “Rock, Paper, Scissors” was used to decide that a flip of a coin was an inappropriate manner to decide if Clare or Dublin should be the ones to advance into the All-Ireland quarter-finals.

At least the two teams now get to decide their own fate on the field of play, which is how it really should be.

Yet, just in case there is a belief that the powers-that-be in camogie are a law onto themselves, or that they belong to a bygone era, it should be pointed out that the coin flip has a long, even honourable, tradition in determining sports decisions.

And, to this day, Fifa – protectors of that most global of all sports, football aka soccer – includes a clause in its World Cup regulations that the drawing of lots will be the final measure in unlocking two teams who are tied in group stages.

According to section 42.5 of the Regulations of the Fifa 2014World Cup, the ranking of each team in each group was to be determined, firstly by: 1) greatest number of points obtained in all group matches; 2) goal difference in all group matches; 3) greatest number of goals scored in all group matches; and, thereafter, if two or more teams remained equal on such criteria, by: 1) greatest number of points obtained in the group matches between the teams concerned; 2) goal difference resulting from the group matches between the teams concerned: 3) greater number of goals scored in all group matches between the teams concerned; 4) drawing of lots. Group stages Of course, the chances of such a situation coming all the way down to the final determining factor were akin to getting the numbers in the lotto and didn’t happen in Brazil.

But never say never.

Would you believe it? All of those things did happen in the African Nations Cup earlier this year when Guinea, the host country, and Mali couldn’t be separated at the conclusion of the group stages . . . . and lots were drawn to see who should advance to the quarter-finals.

As it happened, the man chosen to draw lots was the Guinean sports minister Amara Dabo who, in a room in the Hilton Malabo, somewhat fortuitously selected the lot for second place and enabled his country to advance.

It wasn’t the first time a country had been knocked out of the African Nations Cup by such a ruling. In 1988, Algeria and the Ivory Coast finished with identical points and scoring differentials with the Algerians advancing after lots were drawn.

Indeed, the coin toss is, and has been, a part of determining winners and losers on the soccer pitch for a long time.

Most famously, in the 1968 European Championships, a toss of a coin was used to decide whether Italy or the Soviet Union (USSR) should advance into the final.

After 90 minutes of regulation and a further 30 minutes of extra-time failed to separate the teams (0-0), the referee ordered the respective captains and association officials to follow him into the dressing room where the toss took place out of sight of the 68,000 spectators in the Naples stadium.

What followed was stuff of comedy. The assigned Uefa official, Senor Pujol from Spain, conducted the business with the referee and linesmen – one each from Hungary, Germany and the Netherlands – as witnesses. The Italian captain Giacinto Facchetti and the Soviet captain Albert Shesternyov, exhausted by their exertions, reportedly collapsed into chairs.

Firstly, Pujol reached into his pocket and pulled out a Spanish coin. The USSR coach Kachalin objected to its use. Next, he produced a dollar. Again, Kachalin protested and produced a ruble. It was then that one of the linesmen – Van Ravens – produced a Dutch guilder. However, the first toss coin hit the tiled floors and rolled out of sight under the grates in the showers. A second guilder was produced, and Facchetti’s call of “heads” won and put Italy through to the final where, after a replay, they beat Yugoslavia.

And the most famous flip of a coin of all? It decided ownership of two racehorses. American financier Ogden Phipps won the coin toss and selected his horse; the loser was Penny Chenery, who was given the second choice horse. As it turned out, she won: the horse in question was Secretariat, who went on to be one of the greatest racehorses of all time.

Prodigy Aliassime shares more than birthday with Federer

Anyone who caught that 43-ball rally on YouTube that finished with Felix Auger Aliassime coolly and calmly finishing matters off with a drop shot on his opponent will know why the 14-year-old Canadian is being touted as the Next-Big-Thing in tennis. The really scary coincidence? Young FAA shares a birthday with. . . . Roger Federer. August 8th. Which means Aliassime will celebrate his 15th birthday next Saturday and the Swiss maestro will celebrate his 34th.

Aliassime has the distinction of being the first player born this century to feature in the ATP world rankings and, in a matter of weeks, has moved from 1,257th in the world up to 749th which means he is the youngest player – ever – to feature in the world’s top-800. Federer has won 17 Grand Slams – but the Canadian hotshot has time on his side. He wasn’t even born when Federer turned pro, back in 1998.

Moran’s rags to riches bout with Roy Jones Jnr

Whatever about the rights and wrongs of two boxers in their 40s going at it hammer and tongs, there would seem to be a sense of social justice in Liverpool cruiserweight Tony Moran finally getting to step into the spotlight with a chance to change his life.

Moran (42), has been lined up for a fight with 46-year-old Roy Jones jnr – once upon a time the biggest draw in the sport – for a fight that takes place in the Aintree Equestrian Arena in September which sounds more like something scripted for a movie than anything out of real life.

As Moran told the Liverpool Evening Echo this week, “I have done a lot for this city in terms of good deeds. In my opinion, those deeds have come back and paid me for this fight . . . . Due to a marital dispute, I have been at a bit of a loss in terms of places to live for two and a half years. Alongside working with the city’s homeless, I have also been homeless myself. I stay here, there and everywhere.”

Synchronised swimming dream comes true for May

The sport that once was the butt of many jokes – “If one synchronised swimmer drowns do they all have to drown?” – has broken down one barrier in allowing men to compete in major championships.

American Bill May, a former Cirque du Soleil performer, this week became the first male to win a gold medal in the World Aquatics Championships held in Kazan, Russia, when he teamed-up with Christina Jones to win the mixed duet technical event.

It seems May was before his time in taking up synchronised swimming as a 10-year-old, only to abandon it for circus acrobatics when the sport was restricted to women-only in main championships. “It’s unreal, a dream come true. I never thought this would happen because I retired from synchro 10 years ago,” he said.

Male synchronised swimmers are still not allowed to compete in the Olympics.