On the eve of his comeback, Michael Schumacher admits he may not win Sunday's opening race of the 2010 Formula One campaign, but expects to be in contention for an eighth world title at season's end. Britain's Jenson Button will be bidding to defend the crown he won in 2009, but all eyes will be on the return of seven-times Schumacher when the 41-year-old ends his three-year hiatus at the Bahrain Grand Prix. Having signed a three-year deal with German team Mercedes GP before Christmas, Schumacher will be reunited with team principal Ross Brawn, who oversaw all of the Germans' world titles. But after such a long break away from Formula One, Schumacher faces the new crop of drivers in Britain's Lewis Hamilton and Button at McLaren, while Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel will also give his compatriot a run for his money. After Brawn GP won the manufacturer's championship in 2009 before Mercedes took control, Button's defection to McLaren in the off-season paved the way for Schumacher's return. Expectation of another title is high in his home country, but Schumacher expects to be judged on the final standings at the end of the season, not on Sunday's results. "I said it quite clearly from the beginning: we do not have to - and probably will not - be in the position to win right from the start," Schumacher said. "It is important to be in contention and then use the long season to be at the top at the end. "It is not the start which is important; it is the finish." Vettel has said all of Formula One's current young guns are eager to prove themselves against someone of Schumacher's stature. "For the younger drivers, it is a challenge (to have Schumacher racing again), because we never thought we would have a chance to test ourselves against him again," said Vettel. "From a statistical point of view, he is the best." Schumacher nearly returned last year with his old stable Ferrari as a replacement for the injured Felipe Massa, but an old neck injury from motorbik read more »

(click image)

Don't ask us to explain it, but whenever fighters and fans get together for a group photo, at least one person has to raise their fist like a tough guy. But instead of dropping the ban-hammer on this bizarre phenomenon, we decided to compile the most ridiculous, hilarious, and straight-up awesome MMA fighter fist-pose photos that we could find. If we left out any of your favorites, please shoot us some links in the comments section...

Bring on the electric prancing horse. Ferrari is taking its promise to introduce its first green car literally and its fans are trying their best to adjust. The car that’s synonymous with speed, style and red has rolled out a prototype hybrid at the Geneva Auto Show that’s clean and green. “Are we excited about the possibility of an electrified Ferrari? In a word, no,” opines U.S. car bible Car and Driver. “If it sells well enough to help fund the development of real Ferraris, we’ll begrudgingly accept the hybrid.” The Ferrari 599 GTB lacks the car’s trademark starting roar but does go from 0 to 60 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds.“The world’s most iconic sports car marque, known for screaming V-8s and V-12s, is playing around with the gas-electric technology epitomized by the Toyota Prius,” says Automobile mag’s Eric Tingwall. Then he sighs, “Hybridization or electrification of the Prancing Horse is inevitable.” It does indeed, as rumoured, integrate technology from Ferrari’s Kinetic Energy Recovery System (KERS), which was developed for the 2009 Formula 1 season. The future is three to five years away, but the bravado has already arrived. “We absolutely think ahead of everybody in technology research,” Matteo Sardi, a Ferrari North America spokesman, was quoted as saying in the New York Times. “Attitudes are changing and we build cars for customers,” said Ferrari chief executive Amedeo Felisa. Not to mention European Union car emissions standards. Ferrari has also had to confront the competition. Tesla Motors two years ago introduced its all-electric Roadster sports car which now, in its Sport version, boasts a 0-to-60 time of 3.7 seconds. As HIS Global Insight analyst Aaron Bragman said, “Tesla proves electric cars are going to be a blast to drive.” For the moment, Ferrari fans seems more concerned about the paint than the power. read more »

(click image)

Canadian welterweight Claude Patrick is headed to the UFC. Patrick made the announcement of his signing on "The Fight Show with Mauro Ranallo." The former IFL fighter will make his UFC debut at UFC 115 in Vancouver, according to a report on MMAjunkie.com. The Mississauga, Ontario native, who trains with fellow Canadian UFC fighter Marck Bocek, is coming off a submission win over Matt McGraith at Aggression MMA in Edmonton, Alberta. Patrick isn't the only Canadian being lined up for the Vancouver card, as Kelowna, B.C. native Rory MacDonald (10-0) will likely put his undefeated record on the line against former WEC champion Carlos Condit. There have been no official announcements regarding UFC 115, but the coaches for Season 11 of The Ultimate Fighter, Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, are expected to be part of the main event at GM Place. In addition, Japanese star Yoshihiro Akiyama is rumoured to potentially face Wanderlei Silva, while a pair of heavyweight bouts could see Ben Rothwell take on Gilbert Yvel, and Mirko (Cro Cop) Filipovic battle Pat Barry.

Thanks to a new generation of analysts, baseball and math has never been so intertwined. Bill James and the Society for American Baseball Research, or the more familiar term, sabermetrics, the American pastime have been overrun by math geeks, according to Iowa State University. Ten years ago, James, now a senior advisor for the Boston Red Sox, wrote a formula to show which teams would be winners and which would be also-rans. Basically, the formula uses the number of runs scored per game and runs given up per game to estimate a team's winning percentage. Kerry Whisnant, an Iowa State physicist, has taken this formula a step further by taking into consideration run distribution. He'll be talking about it this weekend at MIT's Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.Simply, does a team that scores runs in bunches have a better chance of winning than a team that scores on a more consistent basis? Whisnant took into account a team’s slugging percentage (total bases divided by at bats) and it’s RPG. He concluded that a team with a higher SLG had a narrower run distribution (scored more consistently.) If you take two teams with the same RPG, a team with a SLG of .080 higher will average one more win per year. If that same team’s pitching/defense RPG was the same but allowed a SLG .080 lower, you could add another win. Your head hurt yet? Basically, a team that consistently scores runs instead of scoring them in bunches has a better chance of winning. Ask any Red Sox fan that and they’ll point to last year’s team as an example. I can make it even easier to understand: teams with good hitters who can get on base and get extra base hits will win more than a team without. Also, good pitching and defense with a good offense leads to even more wins. So for all the new-fangled theories by baseball-obsessed scientists, it always boils down to three things. Three things that have been a constant throughout the years: Ya gotta hit, ya gotta throw read more »

(click image)

If you’re sad that the global camaraderie at the Olympics has come to an end, don’t fret: The World Cup is fast approaching. To add to the excitement, with about 100 days left until the first match, Nike has unveiled its 2010 World Cup kits—or uniforms, for those unfamiliar with soccer jargon. The best part: They’re made from discarded plastic bottles, harvested from landfills in Japan and Taiwan, that were melted down into yarn and then spun into fabric.

Screw-ups, blunders, bloopers, errors, mess ups, or mistakes; whatever you call them, sports are full of them. However, there are some screw-ups that rise above the rest. Some so embarrassing that they live forever in infamy. They are the moments in sports that drive fans crazy and turn superstar athletes into goats. Here are the 50 Biggest Screw-Ups in Sports History. Note: Video included when possible

News of Ashley Cole's extracurricular activities early in 2010 felt like a clear case of déjà vu. After his adulterous hotel dalliances in 2008 nearly wrecked his marriage to Cheryl Cole, he received a stay of execution when the X Factor judge showed her forgiving side and welcomed him back home. Ashley had been granted a second chance -- surely, he would take it. Well, not really. With Cheryl announcing their split, it's clear Ashley blew his second chance. He's not the first sportsman to fail to learn from his mistakes though, and he won't be the last. Here are our Top 10 Sportsmen Who Blew Their Second Chance.

Allen Iverson and the Sixers parted ways on Tuesday, and most assumed that the time spent dealing with his young daughter's illness was the primary reason. While that still may be the case, it turns out that there are additional personal issues that likely factored into that decision. Iverson's wife filed for divorce in Fulton County Superior Court, according to a report in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. The petition was filed on the same day that the Sixers announced that Iverson would not return to the team this season. The couple was married for over eight years, and in the filing, Tawanna Iverson said the marriage was "irretrievably broken," while requesting custody of their five children, along with alimony and child support in an unspecified dollar amount.

Mike Tyson is reportedly considering a comeback to the ring later this year, possibly against Evander Holyfield.The boxing website, Ringsidereport.com, quoting a source close to Tyson, reports that his, "former promoter Don King has a tentative deal for Tyson to return to the ring in late 2010. The initial plan is to have Tyson-Holyfield III, but there is rumoured hesitation on the part of Iron Mike, and there is a plan B''. The former world heavyweight champion, 43, retired in June 2005 after refusing to come out for round seven against the Irish journeyman Kevin McBride. The British heavyweights Danny Williams and Lennox Lewis had also knocked out Tyson in the closing stages of his turbulent career. The 47-year-old Holyfield is due to fight the South African Frans Botha, 41, in Las Vegas on 17 April. He fought and beat Tyson twice, losing bits of his ear in the second bout. They spoke amicably when guests on Oprah Winfrey's TV show recently. Alternative opponents named for Tyson include the former world cruiserweight champion Jean Mormeck, who lost his title to David Haye, and obscure heavyweights Tony Grano, Vinny Maddalone and Derric Rossy. Tyson looked to have lost up to 40lbs for a recent walk-on appearance on the Italian TV programme, "Dancing With Stars", according to Boxing News, which would put him near his fighting weight of 15st 10lb. Interest in Tyson historically has fluctuated according to his behaviour away from boxing, but his profile in the past couple of years has been largely sympathetic. He was moving and articulate in an eponymous documentary that won several awards, and had a small part in the hit Hollywood comedy, The Hangover.

Tiger Woods was my boyfriend for a year and a half while we were both undergraduates at Stanford. I've never spoken to the press about him; I'm not coming forward now for money or to advance any pathetic showbiz aspirations, but merely to stick up for a friend. I haven't seen Tiger since the late ’90s, but I know who he is at his core because we were together during some of his most formative years. He was so human and cared so much about other people and the world around him. This may surprise some people, but Tiger was a great boyfriend. I have so many fond memories of our time together. At that age Tiger had an amazing metabolism so we spent a lot of time eating. Our favorite restaurant was a Chinese joint in Mountain View; the guys there must have been golf fans because they always gave us free desserts, which was a big deal to us. I walked many golf courses watching Tiger play, sometimes with his mother, Tida. I grew up on an Indian reservation in Minnesota, and I think Tida accepted me so readily because Tiger and I shared many of the same values. Earl and I talked a lot about politics and national affairs, and Earl often made me laugh so hard, my stomach muscles cramped. He loved to tease Tiger and me about our puppy love. During our Southern California road trips Tiger and I spent a lot of time at the beach. We would steal a bottle of whiskey from Earl or I’d use my fake ID to buy a jug of wine, and we’d hang out and dream about the future. Tiger was very driven to be a great golfer, but he also talked a lot about wanting to make a larger contribution to society. Settling down was not a priority; Earl had drilled into Tiger that he should wait until his 30s to get married. Our relationship ended when Tiger turned pro after his sophomore year. Becoming the first person in my family to earn a college degree was so important to me that I wasn’t willing to give up my studies to follow him. Like everyone else, I was shocked by the read more »

(click image)