Sit down, have a bag of potato chips, a nice cool Mythos and the latest edition of The Ko-Go Khronicles in front of you. Indeed, dear readers, we just turned you into a real active sport fanatic. Read and start working up a sweat!

Soccer:
The Dutch soccer team had a good warm up game against the Irish soccer team. Getting ready for the qualification games for the European Championship held in 2008, Holland had an easy one with the Paddies. Orange-coloured Netherlands Players took the plane back home from Dublin airport with a 4-0 victory in their suitcase. Hup hup, Holland.

England versus Greece ended with the same numbers: England 4 – Greece 0. The big question is whether the Greek players made the trip to England by plane or boat. ‘H omada’ was really looking sea sick in that huge English stadium.

Basketball:
The star-packed U.S. basketball team fell behind early but stormed back to win its opening game of the 2006 world championship on Saturday. Co-captain Carmelo Anthony scored a team-leading 21 points to help pace the U.S. to a 111-100 victory over Puerto Rico in Sapporo, Japan.

Badminton:
Two times silver medal winner of the Olympic Games (1996 and 2004) Mia Audina says farewell to top level badminton. Audina started playing at the age of 11 (at that age your reporter was playing with Action Man….imagine) After winning the silver medal in Athens it all went downhill, she was trying to continue until the games in 2008, but told the press lately that her body was totally burned out. Sixteen years of top sport was taking its toll and Audina will now support her husband with his singing career . . . whatever that means. Keep an eye on the Billboard charts, folks!

Tennis:
Belgian tennis wonder Kim Clijsters will not be defending her title at the US Open, which is underway as we speak. During a tournament held in Montreal, the Belgian girl ended up with an injury which will keep her out of the courts for at least two months. Well dear Kim, October is always a great time for visiting Crete . . . there might be some people interested in tennis lessons.

Greek sport news:
AEK Athens made an impressive start of the season when they beat Scottish club Hearts of Midlothian 2-1 in the first leg of their Champions League third-round qualifying match in Edinburgh . . . Runner up in Goteborg 2006 athletic games, Periklis Iakovakis led all the way in winning the men's 400m hurdles in 48.46 seconds to give Greece its first gold of the meet.

Question of the month: Every month we will have a sport question; answer it correctly and win a special prize. The correct answer will be published in the next month's sports column. Send your answers to greeceweb@hotmail.com. Deadline for sending the answers is Sept.20, 2006.

QUESTION: Mbulaeni Mulaudzi, South Africa's brilliant 800m runner, and winner at the Zurich Weltklasse Golden League meeting a few days ago, added another outstanding victory to his impressive list in Monaco. What was the time that he ran?