Austria to Alexander Averbukh - "Don't come here"

Mignews reports (in Russian), that the organizers of the Gugl Intersport international championship in athletics in Lintz, have asked from a defending European champion in pole jumping, Alexander Averbukh, not to come.

Their lame excuse was, that they cannot guarantee an sufficient security for an Israeli representative.

Alexander is entitled by every right to participate in this commercial competition. Moreover, by being a professional sportsman, this is his main, if not only, source of income.

The commentator on Mignews, has rightly noticed, that if they cannot provide sufficient security, then they should cancel the whole championship. As for the Austrian government, they should decide, who runs the country, they or the terrorists.

On my behalf I want to add, that I haven't found a tiniest notice about this in English anywhere on the web, which falls into the well known pattern.

Update:
As I've learnt today from the "Israeli" newspaper (yes, it is the newspaper's title), the organizers have reconsidered and decided to withdraw their request.
The excuse they have used in their initial statement was that they didn't want to cover the expenses for the security of Israeli representative.

Now it is up to A. Averbukh to decide, whether he still wants to participate.

Pizza penalty

Germans found a curious way to spoil the game for Italians:

The Tageszeitung newspaper printed the telephone numbers of more than 40 pizza restaurants from around Germany and suggested readers call them just as the match in Dortmund kicks off. "Here's how we'll annoy the Italians tonight - order pizza at 9pm" declared the Berlin-based daily.

The paper printed a picture of pizza chefs serenading guests with a guitar above the caption: "The Italian dough-kneaders are singing now but they'll have to bake thousands of pizzas instead of watching football tonight."

I don't know about this. I think that the Tageszeitung just made the owners of those restaurants very happy. I just hope that the hostilities will stay at the pizza levels.

WTF?!

Let me quote the commentator concluding the football game between Portugal and Netherlands:

THE single-most ridiculous second-half of football I have ever had the privilege to witness. Four red cards and 16 yellows. The up-shot? Portugal set up a quarter-final with England.

Right. Absolutely ridiculous! The players were arguing, fighting and played quite dirty. This was a pretty tense game, but it looked more like gladiators fight than a football game.
I wonder, how would Portugal play against England, with all the players who will be missing the next game.