Planet Sport

As a young boy growing up in Indonesia Arthur Irawan dreamed of one day playing football in Europe. In his teens he was spotted by a football scout and joined the Manchester United Youth Academy where he made a good impression. With tight work permit controls Arthur was unable to play competitive football in England so went to Spain before returning to Indonesia where he now plays for Persija Jaka...

Legendary BBC football commentator John Motson looks back on the English Premier League season and shares his thoughts on title-winners Chelsea, the coaches of the two Manchester teams - Pep Guardiola at Man City and Jose Mourinho at United - and the players that caught his eye during the past campaign. And we talk to Billy Odhiambo, star of the Kenya rugby sevens team, about his life and rugby ca...

Last month Neil Powell guided South Africa's Rugby 7s team, the Blitzboks, to success in the HSBC Rugby 7s World Series. After coming second in the ten-tournament series for the past four years it was a sweet success to finally win the title. Just before the final round of the series in London in May, Planet Sport's Norman Brierley spoke to Neil about his life in rugby and his faith as a follower...

This week we're at the HSBC World Rugby Sevens Series finals in London. We hear from a member of the series winning South African side, Sivewe Soyizwapi, and the Impact Player of the London tournament, Dan Norton. We also hear from Kenya's captain, Andrew Amonde, and fans at the event share their enjoyment of the sport.

Most sprinters have retired by their mid-30s but today at the age of 41 Kim Collins is still competing at the highest level. The 2003 World 100m champion from St Kitts and Nevis spoke to reporters before the recent IAAF Diamond League meeting in Doha about his advice for young athletes coming into the sport and European Athletics' proposal to wipe out all world records before 2005 due to concerns...

High jumper Erik Kynard from the USA won silver at the 2012 Olympic Games in London. In 2016 he added a bronze medal to his collection at the World Indoor Championships in Portland. Erik spoke to Planet Sport's Stuart Weir at last week's IAAF Diamond League meeting in Doha about his journey as an elite sportsman from his early days discovering the sport to his memories of his silver medal winning...

Julian Bolling is a former Sri Lankan swimming champion. In the 1980s and 90s he won 15 titles in four editions of the South Asian Games. he represented his country in three Summer Olympics. Today Julian is a swimming coach based in Colombo. In this week's programme he tells us about the impact of the devastating tsunami that hit Sri Lanka on 26 December 2004 and how his Rainbow Swimming Academy h...

We hear from participants and spectators at last Sunday's London Marathon. We talk to the winners of the men's and women's elite races, Daniel Wanjiru and Mary Keitany from Kenya and pre-race favourite Kenenisa Bekele from Ethiopia about running the second fastest marathon last September in Berlin and his career highlights including world records and Olympic titles. Two top Kenyan athletes talk ab...

Sri Lankan swimmer Julian Bolling won 15 gold medals in 4 editions of the Asian Games between 1984 and 1991. He also represented his country in three Olympic Games. Today he's a swimming coach in Sri Lanka. In the first part of his story he tells us about his sporting family and life as a national swimming champion. We also hear the concluding part of our interview with former Bayern Munich and Gh...

With the new F1 season underway we're joined by former F1 driver Alex Dias Ribeiro to assess how the recently introduced modifications to the cars this season are likely to affect the race for this season's Championship. And in the second part of our interview with Sammy Kuffour, the former Bayern Munich and Ghana defender tells us about his tough upbringing in Kumasi when his mother had to sell t...

Last season Manchester United sacked manager Louis van Gaal despite winning the FA Cup when the club finished 5th in the Premier League table and missed out on a lucrative Champions League place. Van Gaal was replaced by Jose Mourinho but this season United are still under pressure and outside the top four places so what, if anything, has changed? Our Chief Football Correspondent Stuart Weir inves...

We look ahead to the 2018 Commonwealth Games in Gold Coast Australia that gets underway in just over a year's time from 4-15 April. We talk to the Chairman of Gold Coast 2018, Peter Beattie, to find out what the event and location have to offer athletes and visitors. One of the top sports on show will be Rugby 7s and we hear from two of the gold medallists from the 2014 Rugby 7s competition in Gla...

After England win the Six Nations tournament for a second successive year two-times Samoa World Cup player, Tu Nu'uali'itia, in Auckland gives a Southern Hemisphere perspective on the England team and shares his top three players of the competition. And we hear from former Wales fly-half Adrian Davies, about his World Cup experience in 1995 and how his faith as a follower of Jesus Christ has helpe...

Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce is a double Olympic champion and three-times world champion over 100 metres. She won the Olympic titles in 2008 and 2012 and world titles in 2009, 2011 and 2015. Earlier this month she announced that she will not be defending her title at the World Athletics Championships in London in August as she is expecting a baby with her husband, Jason. Three years ago Planet Sport's...

This week we talk to Josh Davies, winner of three Olympic gold medals as part of the USA swimming relay teams at the 1996 Games in Atlanta. Davis also won two silver medals in Sydney in 2000 as well as World Championship, Pan American and Pan Pacific titles over a ten-year career. He tells us what's required to become a top swimmer and about the importance of his Christian faith in his swimming ca...

In 2013 Godfrey Khotso Mokoena jumped over a narrow creek full of Nile crocodiles. The 2008 Olympic long jump silver medallist and 2014 Commonwealth triple jump champion from South Africa wanted to show he could overcome his fears and break out of his comfort zone. Mokoena's name means 'crocodile' in his Sesotho culture. We talk to the man nicknamed 'Crocodile' to find out about his life and athle...

We talk to athletes at the International Indoor Athletic Grand Prix in Birmingham to find out their hope and ambitions for the coming year with the World Athletics Championships taking place in London in August. South Africa's Godfrey Khotso Mokoena tells us about his aims in the long jump this season under his new coach Ivan Pedroso. Kenya's 2016 Olympic 5000m silver medallist Hellen Obiri talks...

Andy Searles is the chaplain at Major League Soccer side, Orlando City, in the United States. The club plays in the Eastern Conference where former Brazil, AC Milan and Real Madrid midfielder, Kaka - the 2007 Fifa World Player of the Year, is part of the team. Andy is originally from the UK and supports Ipswich Town FC. He talks about the standard of play in the MLS and outlines his role as chapla...

This week we're joined by former Samoa rugby player Tu Nu'uali'itia in Auckland to discuss the first round of matches in the Northern hemisphere's top international competition, the Six Nations. Tu also pays tribute to former South African captain and scrum half Joost Van Der Westhuizen who lost his battle with Motor Neurone Disease at the weekend. Tu recalls playing opposite Joost in the 1995 Rug...

In 2004 in Athens Anne Wafula Strike became the first woman to represent Kenya in wheelchair racing at the Paralympic Games. Born a healthy child in Kenya, Anne contracted polio at the age of two. She suffered discrimination and abuse in her village as people claimed her condition was a curse from God. Later, after moving to England and getting married, she discovered the sport of wheelchair racin...

Phil Davies from South Wales threw away a potential international career due to his violence on, and off, the pitch. He played for Bath, Aberavon and Bridgend but his ill-discipline often resulted in him being sent-off. After his marriage and business collapsed he noticed the change in the lives of his two friends, brothers Clive and Chris Jones, who had also been hard players in Welsh rugby. Intr...

For seven years between 1991 and 1998 Katya Antoniuk was the Belarus women's cross-country skiing champion. Born and raised in Russia she chose to represent Belarus after going to university there and then settling in the East European country. In 1998 she competed in the Winter Olympics in Nagano. Katya talks about her life and success in cross-country skiing and about her journey to faith from a...

Adriano Medeiros is the reigning Classic Formula Ford 1600 motor racing champion. He is a also a committed follower of Jesus Christ. He talks to us about his journey to faith which started when he saw two-time F1 champion Emerson Fittipaldi and another former F1 driver Alex Dias Ribeiro reading the Bible. And we meet former Iranian professional footballer David Parinejad. We find out about his win...

2016 Classic Formula Ford 1600 champion Adriano Medeiros shares his thoughts on the 2016 Formula One season with Nico Rosberg's maiden Championship title and subsequent retirement from the sport. And he looks forward to the race for the 2017 Championship, assessing the drivers likely to push for the title and the introduction of new rules governing wider tyres and aerodynamics designed to bring a...

We look forward to another sparkling year of sport in 2017 as two of our reporters, Stuart Weir and Solomon Ashoms, pick three events they are especially looking forward to over the coming year. And we hear from 2008 Olympic 100 metres hurdles champion, Dawn Harper Nelson.