YORKSHIRE folk don’t need too much of an excuse to proclaim their county the centre of the universe, but in sporting terms at least, the last few years have given them sufficient ammunition to mount a valid argument.

From the successes of London 2012, when Yorkshire’s haul of seven gold medals, two silvers and two bronzes would have seen the county finish 12th on the medal table if, as many of its inhabitants believe would only be fit and proper, it was an independent nation, to the back-to-back County Championship titles of 2014 and 2015, the White Rose has bloomed like never before.

Even since the start of the year, the victories have kept on coming, with Sheffield’s Danny Willett ending a 20-year wait for an English US Masters champion as he triumphed at Augusta. With the Rio Olympics looming, expect the likes of Jessica Ennis-Hill, Nicola Adams and Jonny and Alastair Brownlee to continue flying the White Rose flag with pride.

Yet of all the sporting success stories penned by Yorkshire’s men and women recently, by far the most memorable did not involve an athlete from the county achieving greatness. A Yorkshire rider didn’t win the 2014 Tour de France, but the county itself was the undoubted star of the show.

Anyone who was present on the ascent to Buttertubs Pass, or at the heaving fan park in Harrogate that backed on to the scenes of Mark Cavendish’s dramatic opening-stage crash, will not forget the incredible images that accompanied Yorkshire’s Grand Depart.

The Tour de France’s organisers certainly haven’t, with general director Christian Prudhomme making a series of increasingly optimistic noises about the prospects of the race returning to Yorkshire in the not-too-distant future, possibly as soon as 2019.

Portsmouth want to stage the Grand Depart in three years’ time to tie in with the 75th anniversary of the D-day landings, but having witnessed 2014’s scenes at first hand, Prudhomme appears to regard Yorkshire as a much safer bet. By the end of this weekend, he might be even more convinced.

The second Tour de Yorkshire gets underway later today, with more than 100 riders, 38 of whom have competed in the Tour de France, tackling the first of three stages planned for the weekend. Today’s route winds its way from Beverley to Settle, with tomorrow’s stage taking the field from Otley to Doncaster and Sunday’s decider starting at Middlesbrough and encompassing big chunks of North Yorkshire before finishing on the Scarborough seafront.

As well as the men’s race, tomorrow will also witness a one-day women’s race, sponsored by Asda, with a first-prize purse of €20,000 making it the most lucrative women’s event in the world. Otley’s Lizzie Armitstead, the reigning women’s world champion, is all set to be the star of the show.

It all adds up to quite a sporting spectacle, and as was the case with the Tour de France, Yorkshire is ready to play its part. It’s hard to move around the towns and villages surrounding Northallerton at the moment without bumping into a blue-and-yellow bike or tangling yourself up in some blue-and-yellow bunting.

Schools have been busy making cycling-themed decorations, village halls are throwing themselves open for day-long celebrations and events are planned along the length and breadth of Sunday’s route. It might not have the global appeal of 2014’s Grand Depart, but in next-to-no-time, the Tour de Yorkshire has established itself as an integral part of the county’s sporting and social calendar.

That can only increase the chances of the Tour de France itself returning, and is also an uplifting affirmation of sport’s central role within everyday life in this part of the world. Stage a major sporting event up here, and you can pretty much guarantee it will be supported.

This weekend’s Tour will confirm the continued popularity of cycling as a leisure pursuit, and perhaps just as significantly with the start of the Rio Olympics now less than 100 days away, will provide the elite end of the sport in this country with a much-needed shot in the arm.

This has been a desperate week for British cycling, with the resignation of the governing body’s technical director, Shane Sutton, amid claims of sexism and discrimination revealing a dark underbelly to a system that was previously held up as an exemplar of how to run an Olympic sport.

British Cycling chief executive Ian Drake denies that his organisation is in crisis, but at the very least, this week’s events have provided a thoroughly unwanted distraction ahead of Rio. Suddenly, British Cycling, with its mantra of ‘marginal gains’ and the ‘focused pursuit of excellence’ does not look quite so pristine.

For the next three days, though, all of that will be forgotten. It will be the cyclists making the headlines, not least Sir Bradley Wiggins who will once again be providing some stardust to proceedings.

Wiggins claims the Tour de Yorkshire is now the first event he inks onto his calendar at the start of each year. Even Olympic champions, it seems, regard the county’s broad acres as the centre of the sporting world.

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DURHAM have now played their opening two County Championship matches, and somewhat unsurprisingly, neither has come remotely close to a conclusion.

A combination of rain, snow and hail has combined to ensure neither of the games staged at Chester-le-Street was able to boast much more than two days’ play.

It is bad enough having to stage any matches in the wilds of early April, but it seems grossly unfair that Durham have been forced to write off two home games while other counties have played home and away.

Durham only play eight home matches in the whole of the County Championship season. That anyone could have predicted they would struggle to complete two of them seems ridiculous.

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THIS week marked the tenth anniversary of Middlesbrough’s UEFA Cup semi-final comeback win against Steaua Bucharest, still easily the most incredible football game I have had the privilege of watching at first hand.

Massimo Maccarone, who scored the winner against both Steaua and Basle in the previous round, is still banging the goals in, with his 12 league goals for Empoli this season leaving him ninth on the Serie A goalscoring charts.

The player who delivered the cross for Maccarone’s diving header is also still going strong – a certain Stewart Downing. Let’s hope the midfielder is celebrating again in Boro’s next two matches.