Mark Renshaw's omission from Australia's Road World Championship team has sparked plenty of debate. (AAP)

The non-selection of Mark Renshaw for the World Championships has certainly caused a stir, with many arguing dirty politics have kept him out of the team.

In mid-February, immediately after Renshaw had won the Tour of Qatar ahead of Heinrich Haussler, I wrote a blog about the tough selection decisions that would need to be made ahead of this year’s race for the rainbow jersey. I had Renshaw as first reserve.

The sole reason I had him on the reserve list was that he is yet to prove himself in a major one-day classic over 250-plus-kilometres.

A 260km one-day race is ridden in a far different manner to a 220km Tour de France stage.

People with origins in 90 countries died in the September 11 attacks. (Getty)

Often, it is the little details that count and that cut the deepest. What initially seem the most unremarkable moments can become the most jarring, the most upsetting, the most significant.

Remembering 9/11, on the 10th anniversary of that horrific day, was no different.

For me, the day began in a children’s playground that looks out across downtown Manhattan. It was a morning quieter than most Sunday mornings. Under a sky as blue and clear as that day 10 years ago, kids who were not yet born in 2001 played on swings and slides and darted between both playing tag.

It was a scene that occurs around the world and this was not much different except that the participants could have been torn from the pages of a United Nations textbook on diversity. Hispanic kids, Chinese kids, White kids, Black kids, Muslim kids. The only thing missing from this scene a company like Benetton would pay big money to photograph, a scene so feel-good perfect it was almost awkward, was perhaps a Jewish contingent. Maybe the Hassidic jogger running laps of the park made up for that to further quash stereotypes.

Michael Holding says he never expected anything like a film would be made on the now legendary Windies team.

But 'Fire in Babylon' is earning rave reviews around the cricketing world.

He speaks to SBS's Glenn Osborne about his memories of the game, including being part of the devastating Windies team which stunned England at the Oval in 1988, while he tries to comfort Australian cricket fans on the loss of several stellar players in the last few years.

2011 Vuelta a Espana champion Juan Jose Cobo (AAP)

Boredom does have its benefits, writes Anthony Tan, who the past week, hasn’t been losing sleep over the Vuelta.

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a little trouble staying up to watch the last week of the Vuelta. Save for the seventeenth stage to Peña Cabarga, of course, which almost saw the dethroning of this bloke named Cobo that most of us never heard of till now.

Okay, I admit, I’ve had a lot of trouble…

Confession: I recorded all the stages on my PVR and watched them sometime in the morning or afternoon. But just to keep the suspense – which for the most part had been lacking in this final week – I didn’t look at any cycling websites till I had done so.

Film festivals indicate international cinema is taking a dark turn.

Most of the world isn’t in a happy place so why are so many filmmakers determined to tackle dark or challenging subjects including paedophilia, the ravages of cancer, child monsters and the Apocalypse?

Judging by some of the films that launched at the Venice and Toronto International Film Festivals, we are entering an era of melancholia at the cinema. And the initial reviews suggest more than a few of these titles could be an ordeal for audiences.

This gloomy, pessimistic outlook seems to be a global trend afflicting filmmakers from Europe, the US and Australia.

The Australian men's road team sits in during the 2010 UCI Road World Championships (AAP)

With Australian coffers in the elite men's road race category full to overflowing with talent, it would be an understatement to say that this year's team will be the toughest to select .

But we said that last year too and the year before and still produced medals despite some controversy about the final team, particularly the exclusion of Robbie McEwen.

So while the selection process looks tough on paper it also appears that with this much talent on tap it would be almost impossible to make a mistake - just name the team and let them run amok in Denmark.

Of the SBS crew Mike Tomalaris was the first to jump to the keyboard with his short team selection - choosing Baden Cooke, Simon Gerrans, Matthew Goss, Leigh Howard, Heinrich Haussler, Matthew Hayman, Michael Matthews, Stuart O’Grady and Mark Renshaw for the road race. I wonder if he's changed his mind much in the intervening weeks?

(L-R) Fabian Cancellara, Frank Schleck and Andy Schleck at the Leopard Trek launch (Sirotti)

When Team Leopard-Trek held their launch party back in January, team manager Brian Nygaard promised an "American-style spectacular".

The actual launch featured polka-dotted scarves and a man in a zebra leotard with a hula hoop. But to be fair, not every American-style spectacular can have Janet Jackson popping out of her wardrobe, or rocketman.

So when the team went belly-up and merged with RadioShack this week, it was intriguing to hear Leopard owner Flavio Becca promising "there is nothing American" about the new outfit.

A nitpicker might point out that there is quite a lot American about the new RadioShack-Nissan-Trek Professional Cycling Team (or the RaShNiTreProCT, for those who prefer an abbreviation). There are the bikes, two of the three title sponsors, the team's marketing agency and at least two of its riders: Chris Horner and US road champion Matthew Busche.

Many financial firms have moved out of Wall Street since the September the 11th attacks, but other industries have moved in.

In fact, residents are moving into this part of Manhattan in droves, doubling in numbers since 2001.

Once known for its financial dominance, it seems Wall Street is now becoming more a symbol of diversity. 

Eddie Murphy was nominated for best supporting actor for Dreamgirls in 2007. (AAP)

In 1983, a young African American comedian had spent a little over an hour reducing several thousand people at Constitution Hall in Washington DC (and, eventually, countless more across the globe) into raucous fits of laughter.

Dressed in a fire-truck red leather suit, he blended urban comedy and impressions, with observational humour and stories from his childhood – punctuated by two particular four-lettered words a total of 401 times.

But he closed with this:

“I think maybe, like, 30 years ago there was a woman that wanted to sing… and this place was, like, segregated and she couldn't sing here,” he said.

Australia’s unemployment rate rose to a 10 month high of 5.3%

It was worse than expected, and while a rising jobless rate is a concern for Australia’s economy, it may not be enough to warrant cuts to interest rates just yet.



I spoke with Stephen Roberts, the Chief Economist at Nomura to find out why.