Oz in Spain

Seve Ballesteros champion in 1991 (Photo by Stephen Munday Getty Images)

One year alter his death, the memory of Seve Ballesteros is being kept alive at an event he won five times. For many of the players competing in the Volvo World Golf Championship at Finca Cortesín – especially the three Spaniards, Sergio García, Álvaro Quirós and Rafael Cabrera-Bello – Seve’s record when the tournament was held at Wentworth remains an inspiration. (more…)

…in Fuengirola

Mine host BigM and the cheerleaders

Australia makes a long-awaited return to the Fuengirola fairground as the popular Feria Internacional de los Pueblos opens on Saturday 28 April (continuing until Tuesday 1 May). (more…)

Marbella mayoress Ángeles Muñoz was among the guests at a lavish cocktail presentation of the innovative new Ferrari 458 Spider at prestige car dealership C. De Salamanca. (more…)

Sebastian Vettel and Mark Webber test their cricket skills on St Kilda Beach in Melbourne.

An unprecedented six world champions will be on the grid when the new Formula 1 season begins in Australia on 18 March. Red Bull’s reigning champion Sebastian Vettel is pre-season favourite to win a third consecutive world title, with his main rivals Australian team-mate Mark Webber (career-best third in the 2010 and 2011 world championships), McLaren pair Lewis Hamilton and Jensen Button (world champions in 2008 and 2009, respectively), and Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso (2005 and 2006). (more…)

Miguel Ángel Jiménez is not one to give up easily. As in previous years, when he caught up with Tiger Woods during the latest World Golf Championship event in the US, the Málaga-born star invited Woods to the Open de Andalucía event his promotional company Grupo MAJ has organised – and partly funded – the past six years. (more…)

Portraits of Picasso

A new exhibition at Málaga’s Museo Picasso highlights the intense interest shown by photographers of the time in the Málaga-born artist’s work and life. Titled “MemyselfandI: Photographic Portraits of Picasso”, the collection has been jointly brought together by Museo Picasso Málaga and Museum Ludwig (Cologne) and features 166 shots by 34 photographers. It covers a period that began in the early 20th century – the bohemian years in Paris — with pictures showing “a playful Picasso, surrounded by friends and acquaintances”, mostly taken by

his artist friends. In his later years, as famous artists were given access to portray him, the settings became “rather more rigid and controlled”. A book published to coincide with the exhibition explains that, in response to the growing interest in his person, Picasso turned himself into a director, set designer, props master and performer in his photos. “They were the

forerunners of the media events staged by Andy Warhol.” (more…)

Dream Debut

(Photo: Fernando Herranz)

Milan-born Alessandra Averna won her first title in her professional debut, beating joint second-placed Spaniards Laura Cabanillas and Raquel Carriedo by two shots in the opening event of the 2012 Banesto Tour in Málaga. “I’m very, very happy,” said the 23-year-old. “I came to the Parador – a real paradise with beach and golf! – without any expectations and I’m returning home with the trophy. It’s an incredible sensation… Funnily enough, I picked up my first golf club when I was three, also here in Málaga (province), at Guadalmina, where we used to come for our family holidays.” (more…)

It all essentially began for Victoria Azarenka in Spain last April. The then 21-year-old Belarusian confirmed her top seeding by winning the third edition of the Andalucía Tennis Experience to rise to a career best fifth in the WTA world ranking. She had dropped only 14 games on her way to the final at Marbella’s Puente Romano Tennis Club, eventually beating Romanian Irina-Camelia Begu 6-3, 6-2.

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A friend “very high up in the media world who has been tapping the phones in Australia House for many years” gave Barry Humphries an inkling. “I can’t tell you his name; he is married to a Chinese girl. He said it was between me and Julian Assange and it turned out to be me.”

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One-time world record-holding boozer Bob Hawke (aka as Australia’s Prime Minister from 1983 to 1991) couldn’t resist the challenge. And, to be fair, what true blue Australian could! Hawke, who recalled in his memoirs that he had once set a world speed record for drinking two and a half pints of beer in 11 seconds while studying in Oxford, was walking through the stands during the second cricket Test against India in Sydney when offered a plastic cup of beer. “One for the country, Robert!” he was encouraged by a voice in the crowd, and the Rhodes Scholar patriotically obliged – the moment being caught for viral posterity on a mobile phone.