A Wild Wild Weekend

Some of the top sport stories throughout the world over the past weekend:

- In the quarter-finals of the English FA Cup, Manchester United lost at home to Portsmouth, giant-killer Barnsley beat Chelsea, its second Premier League victim in as many rounds, and Cardiff City upset (or was it?) Middlesbrough away to secure a semi-final birth for this year's competition. The remaining semi-final berth was taken by the mighty West Bromwich Albion, which thrashed Bristol Rovers 5-1. After the dust has settled, the semi-finalists are Portsmouth (which last won the FA Cup in 1939), Barnsley (1912, over WBA), Cardiff City (1927) and WBA (1968). A dream final is in the making, for the nostalgics.

- In MotoGP's opening weekend in Qatar, Jorge Lorenzo and Bradley Smith, both debutants in their respective classes, took pole positions in the MotoGP and 125cc races respectively. Alex Debon, a 10-year veteran in the 250cc class, also scored his first ever pole position in the race. Lorenzo came home second to Casey Stoner and simply out-performed his World Champion teammate Valentino Rossi, who could only finish 5th. Debon scored the fastest lap on his way to a close fourth, while Smith led early on but suffered from mechanical failure which relegated him down to 16th. And more amazingly, 15-year-old Briton Scott Redding (a rider so green and unknown to the fans that you won't find his entry on the Wikipedia yet), on his debut in the 125cc race, qualified 4th on the grid, scored the fastest lap, was running among the leading group throughout the race, and came mightily close to a podium finish.

- In a similarly wild (but mind-boggling) fashion, Corey Maggette took ages and made an easy jumper for his Los Angeles Clippers against the Minnesota Timberwolves, instead of dishing the ball to teammate Cuttino Mobley who was wide open for a three-pointer. Problem was, his team was down by three, and there were only three seconds left in the game after the basket. The Clippers then promptly lost the game by three.