Latest news with #Byrne
7NEWS
a day ago
- Sport
- 7NEWS
Eva Air Brisbane Marathon: Meet Michael Byrne, 83, who says it's never too old to run
Approximately 14,000 people are competing in this year's Eva Air Brisbane Marathon, from babies in prams all the way through to an octogenarian. Gold Coast resident Michael Byrne, 83, has run more than 40 marathons in six different countries, but it's Brisbane's unique scenic course that's brought him back for five years. 'It's never too late' to start, said Byrne, who picked up running at the age of 50. This year's participants will complete a 42.2km loop from the Botanical Gardens, across the Story Bridge, through New Farm, and then to Kangaroo Point on Sunday. 'Last year alone, more than 10,000 runners from 35 countries participated, and I'm always amazed by the spirit of everyone who comes to cheer them on,' Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner said. The Story Bridge will be open to runners for the first time since Cyclone Alfred, when the pedestrian paths were closed. 'It's a beautiful course and that's why people do these events,' marathon spokesman Jason Crowther said. Beyond the course, it's also about giving back. The marathon is also about giving back. Now in its 33rd year, the sold-out event has so far this year raised over $300,000 for charities. 'We do impact the community with road closures... (so) we make sure that the event is a big supporter of community and charity, just to thank the residents and the businesses (in the area),' he said. Crowther said the event has attracted younger participants too, as some kids will be pushed in prams by their parents in the two-kilometre event. 'There's definitely a resurgence in running at the moment, post COVID we've seen a massive boom. 'There's a massive shift of health and fitness within that younger community now and I think it's great. 'These sorts of events give that younger generation a reason to get outdoors and get active and not just sit behind the screens.' First time entrants will make up about 70 per cent of the participants at the marathon. As Byrne prepared to lace up for the weekend event, he said 'consistency' is key. 'Don't take a month or too off, keep going,' he said. 'Stick to your pace ... don't run off like it's a hundred-yard dash.'
Yahoo
4 days ago
- General
- Yahoo
Greg Byrne shares expectations for Kalen DeBoer, Alabama football 2025 season
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne knows the clichés. Every college football program had a "really good" offseason in the weight room, every program had a "really good" spring ball. And at SEC Spring Meetings, while cliché, Byrne believes both of those have been true for Alabama football. Advertisement "That's the old lines, right?" Byrne said. "Ours have been really good." Byrne said he admires the job Kalen DeBoer and his staff have done in his first full offseason with the Crimson Tide, coming off a 2024 season where Alabama finished with its first season with less than 10 wins since 2007, one that finished with a ReliaQuest Bowl loss to Michigan. "I've been really impressed with the buy-in from the young men in our program," Byrne said. "I think having coach (Ryan) Grubb there has been a real positive for the program. Kalen's leadership through this historical transition has been really good across the board." Byrne highlighted that Alabama was the only SEC program to not lose a single scholarship player to the NCAA transfer portal in the spring window, one that shows the buy-in DeBoer also called apparent throughout the Crimson Tide's spring. Advertisement "Guys are pouring everything into it right now," DeBoer said. "They are almost over the top with the work they want to put in because of the desire they have to, you want to be great and have an amazing season. Coming off of last year, they want to prove some people right and prove some people wrong." Alabama opens its 2025 season Aug. 30 at Florida State. Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@ or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter. This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Greg Byrne shares expectations for Alabama football 2025 season
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Why Alabama football could have a head start on pitched SEC vs. Big Ten scheduling pact
MIRAMAR BEACH, Fla. — Brian Kelly wants SEC football teams to play Big Ten teams. Speaking to a scrum of reporters at SEC Spring Meetings, the LSU football coach said a regular-season scheduling pact between the Big Ten and the SEC was discussed, one that Kelly said was widely supported. Advertisement "Our first goal would be wanting to play Big Ten teams, as coaches, and I can speak for the room. We want to play Big Ten schools. You've got to get a partner. You've got to get a partner who says, 'We're in for that, too.' We've made our voice clear. Our ADs know that, as well, that we would like that. Our commissioner obviously heard us, as well. The rest will be up to what gets negotiated.' Kelly later said the Big Ten "holds it on the SEC," with Michigan and Ohio State winning the last two national championships. "We want to get challenged in that regard, and we'd like to be able to get that done," Kelly continued. "That is up to our commissioner and the ADs to see if that can happen or not, but that's the wish of the (coaches).' SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he hadn't had discussions with the Big Ten directly related to Kelly's comments but gave "three ways" that conversations about a scheduling pact between the SEC and Big Ten could go. Advertisement "One is you just stay out of it, kind of like we do now," Sankey said. "The second is you try and facilitate more. The third is we agree both for a mandate. That third one is incredibly difficult." Why Alabama football is ahead of curve on SEC vs Big Ten scheduling Alabama is ahead of the curve when it comes to scheduling Big Ten teams. The Crimson Tide started a home-and-home series against Wisconsin in 2024-25, beating the Badgers 42-10 at Camp Randall Stadium in Madison Sept. 14. Alabama also has non-conference home-and-home series on its books against Ohio State in 2027-28 and Minnesota in 2032-33, two in a series of non-conference matchups scheduled against teams like West Virginia, Oklahoma State, Notre Dame, Georgia Tech and Florida State, which starts a home-and-home against the Crimson Tide Aug. 30. Advertisement On May 27, Alabama athletics director Greg Byrne said home-and-home series with teams like Ohio State and Minnesota were scheduled in a response to SEC teams playing an eight-game conference schedule. And if that SEC schedule were to expand to nine games, Byrne indicated that Alabama's future slate of non-conference games would be affected. "People want to debate all the time whether the rigors of the SEC schedule, how does that compare eight versus nine," Byrne said. "On top of that, we play a lot of good non-conference games too, right? If we go to nine, that will be impacted for some schools. It will be impacted for us." Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, Ole Miss, Tennessee, Texas and Vanderbilt each have future games scheduled against Big Ten opponents. Colin Gay covers Alabama football for The Tuscaloosa News, part of the USA TODAY Network. Reach him at cgay@ or follow him @_ColinGay on X, formerly known as Twitter. This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Alabama football could have head start on pitched SEC vs. Big Ten pact
New Statesman
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Child poverty is rallying the Labour left
Photo byIn the aftermath of this government's first King's Speech in July 2024, Labour suspended the whip from seven of its MPs: Apsana Begum, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Zarah Sultana, Ian Byrne and Imran Hussain. This group was charged with voting – against the Labour whip – for an SNP amendment which called for the removal of the two-child benefit cap. This policy, designed by George Osborne and introduced by the government in 2017, limits the number of children for whom a family can claim financial support. According to data from the Resolution Foundation, 470,000 children would be lifted out of poverty if the cap was removed. Nine months later, the government has all but confirmed it is about to stage a U-turn. Reporting over the weekend suggested that Keir Starmer is convinced that the cap should be removed with the government hoping to unveil this decision in its upcoming Child Poverty Strategy, which has been delayed until the autumn (it was originally intended for publication in the spring). Doing the broadcast round on Tuesday morning, Bridget Phillipson confirmed that lifting the cap is 'something we're considering'. This follows Starmer's recent announcement that the government would retract its decision to cut the winter fuel payment for more than nine million pensioners, a policy that did a lot of damage in this year's local elections. For the seven MPs who voted to remove the cap, this is a vindication. 'I think it's pretty poor form,' said Byrne when we spoke over the phone. 'You've got people who actually voted on a point of principle for constituents [who were suspended], then there's been a realisation that they were actually doing the right thing, and the government follows on almost 12 months later,' he said. Byrne, along with three of the seven (Long-Bailey, Burgon and Hussain), had the whip restored in February this year. Sultana, McDonnell and Begum remain independent. Byrne, who has not spoken to the government about its impending decision, thinks that if a U-turn is on the cards, the three remaining MPs should have the whip reinstated. 'They should have listened to us from the get-go. There's still MPs who've lost the whip who are important to the Labour movement and represent huge swathes of the Labour movement. I think it's really important that they're given that back,' he said. McDonnell has already seen the opportunity in this moment. Writing for the Guardian, the former shadow chancellor accused Starmer's government of 'callousness and incompetency' and said that the removal of the whip from himself and six other colleagues for voting against the two-child benefit cap 'showed a remarkable combination of arrogance and lack of judgement'. He called on MPs to 'stand up and take back control of Labour'. The optics are clearly not great. And as the Labour leadership moves rightward to – as Starmer told a meeting of the PLP last week – take on the party's 'main rivals for power', Reform, they remain exposed on the left. (Although Farage, this week, shifted his party leftward, telling a press conference on Tuesday 27 May that Reform would remove the two-child benefit cap.) Byrne thinks this rightward move from the Labour leadership is a mistake. 'We cannot be outflanked by Nigel Farage,' he said. 'There seems to be an obsession with people around the leader with focus groups.' To Byrne, where the party's focus must really lie is on issues such as alleviating child poverty, 'things that George Osborne did, and the damage it did to our constituencies, in working class areas, that needs to be tacked – not a fixation on focus groups'. Rumours of a new leftward alliance have already been swirling; there have been suggestions that this could be driven by the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (who was suspended from the party by Starmer in 2020) or even a member of the still suspended three (such as Zarah Sultana). But nothing material has happened yet. Two questions remain, however: will Starmer's Labour readmit McDonnell, Sultana and Begum? And if the offer is on the table for the three remaining rebels, how likely are they to say yes? Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See more: The economic fantasies of Reform] Related
New Statesman
4 days ago
- Politics
- New Statesman
Is Jeremy Corbyn planning a new left alliance?
Photo byIn the aftermath of this government's first King's Speech in September 2024, Labour suspended the whip from seven of its MPs: Apsana Begum, John McDonnell, Richard Burgon, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Zarah Sultana, Ian Byrne and Imran Hussain. This group was charged with voting – against the Labour whip – for an SNP amendment which called for the removal of the two-child benefit cap. This policy, designed by George Osborne and introduced by the government in 2017, limits the number of children for whom a family can claim financial support. According to data from the Resolution Foundation, 470,000 children would be lifted out of poverty if the cap was removed. Nine months later, the government has all but confirmed it is about to stage a U-turn. Reporting over the weekend suggested that Keir Starmer is convinced that the cap should be removed with the government hoping to unveil this decision in its upcoming Child Poverty Strategy, which has been delayed until the autumn (it was originally intended for publication in the spring). Doing the broadcast round on Tuesday morning, Bridget Phillipson confirmed that lifting the cap is 'something we're considering'. This follows Starmer's recent announcement that the government would retract its decision to cut the winter fuel payment for more than nine million pensioners, a policy that did a lot of damage in this year's local elections. For the seven MPs who voted to remove the cap, this is a vindication. 'I think it's pretty poor form,' said Byrne when we spoke over the phone. 'You've got people who actually voted on a point of principle for constituents [who were suspended], then there's been a realisation that they were actually doing the right thing, and the government follows on almost 12 months later,' he said. Byrne, along with three of the seven (Long-Bailey, Burgon and Hussain), had the whip restored in February this year. Sultana, McDonnell and Begum remain independent. Byrne, who has not spoken to the government about its impending decision, thinks that if a U-turn is on the cards, the three remaining MPs should have the whip reinstated. 'They should have listened to us from the get-go. There's still MPs who've lost the whip who are important to the Labour movement and represent huge swathes of the Labour movement. I think it's really important that they're given that back,' he said. McDonnell has already seen the opportunity in this moment. Writing for the Guardian, the former shadow chancellor accused Starmer's government of 'callousness and incompetency' and said that the removal of the whip from himself and six other colleagues for voting against the two-child benefit cap 'showed a remarkable combination of arrogance and judgement'. He called on MPs to 'stand up and take back control of Labour'. The optics are clearly not great. And as the Labour leadership moves rightward to – as Starmer told a meeting of the PLP last week – take on the party's 'main rivals for power', Reform, they remain exposed on the left. (Although Farage, this week, shifted his party leftward, telling a press conference on Tuesday 27 May that Reform would remove the two-child benefit cap.) Byrne thinks this rightward move from the Labour leadership is a mistake. 'We cannot be outflanked by Nigel Farage,' he said. 'There seems to be an obsession with people around the leader with focus groups.' To Byrne, where the party's focus must really lie is on issues such as alleviating child poverty, 'things that George Osborne did, and the damage it did to our constituencies, in working class areas, that needs to be tacked – not a fixation on focus groups'. Rumours of a new leftward shift have already been swirling; there have been suggestions that this could be driven by the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn (who was suspended from the party by Starmer in 2020) or even a member of the still suspended three (such as Zarah Sultana). Two questions remain, however: will Starmer's Labour readmit McDonnell, Sultana and Begum? And if the offer is on the table for the three remaining rebels, how likely are they to say yes? Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month Subscribe [See more: The economic fantasies of Reform] Related
