Planet Sport

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 helped him through some of the tough times in his career.

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 Norman Brierley spoke to Shelly-Ann just before an Indoor Athletics Grand Prix in Birmingham to find out more about her strong faith as a committed follower of Jesus Christ which is the foundation of her life and sport.

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 career. In football we discuss the decision to introduce sin-bins into the game, where players who receive a yellow card are banned from the field of play for ten minutes. Our Chief Football Correspondent Stuart Weir tells us why he thinks this is a positive move for the game.

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 athletics career and the faith that sustains him. We also hear from Orlando City Soccer Club chaplain, Andy Searles, in the concluding part of our interview with him. Andy tells us about his own journey to faith and why he thinks God is interested in football.

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 about the new national record she set in Birmingham in the 3000m. Quadruple Olympic champion, Mo Farah, tells us the importance of handing over the baton to a new generation of British runners as he moves into road running later this year and 2012 Olympic 110m hurdles champion and current world record holder, Aries Merritt, tells us about his return to the track after undergoing a kidney transplant in 2013.

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 chaplain alongside the playing and coaching staff.

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 Rugby World Cup quarter final in the year the Springboks went on to win the title. We also hear more from Paralympian, Anne Wafula Strike. In 2004 Anne became the first woman to represent Kenya in wheelchair racing at the Paralympic Games. Last week she told us about her sporting journey and memories of competing at the Paralympics. This time she tells us about the faith that is the foundation of her life.

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 racing whilst watching the 2002 Commonwealth Games on television. She was hooked, and two years later, brimming with pride, she lined up at the start line with her fellow competitors in the women's T53 400 metres at the Paralympic Games in Athens. Anne shares her story, of battling against the odds, equipped with determination and her strong faith, to achieve her dreams. Today Anne is a Board member of UK Athletics and is a active campaigner for disability issues.

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. Intrigued by their new faith Phil explored it for himself, eventually also becoming a follower of Jesus Christ. The dramatic change in his life led him to start Sporting Marvels, an organisation bringing hope and transformation to young people in the Rhondda Valley. In this week's show Phil tells his remarkable story.

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 an atheistic background to becoming a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

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 winning penalty to give his team Esteghlal Ahvaz the national Hazfi Cup in 1991 and he tells us about his own journey to faith in Jesus Christ in Iran.

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 more level playing field to the sport.

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.

How do English Premier League football clubs celebrate Christmas? AFC Bournemouth chaplain Andy Rimmer tells us how the club is supporting the community at this festive time of year. Olympic 200m champion in 2004 and 2008, Veronica Campbell-Brown, tells us how she is spending this Christmas and former Premier League football referee Bob Hamer recalls a dramatic Boxing day fixture.

At the 2016 Olympics in Rio the Refugee Olympic Team highlighted the plight of refugees around the world whilst providing a team through which elite sportsmen and women who are refugees themselves could compete on the highest stage. Planet Sport reporters Norman Brierley and Tom Ellis recall their time at the Rio Games meeting former women's marathon world record holder and Chef de Mission of the Refugee Olympic Team, Tegla Loroupe from Kenya and Mariama Bah, a refugee from The Gambia living in Brazil who was supporting the team.

Planet Sport reporter Stuart Weir reveals his three top sporting highlights of 2016 and we hear from Leicester City midfielder Andy King, women's 100 metres hurdles world record holder Kendra Harrison and nine-times Olympic champion and sprint sensation, Usain Bolt.

In the week that Germany's Nico Rosberg won his first Formula One title we talk to former F1 driver Alex Ribeiro about the legacy of his Brazilian compatriot and three-times F1 champion Ayrton Senna 22 years after his death in San Marino. And we talk to former Brazilian professional footballer Johnson Tadeu, founder and facilitator of the Brazil Sports Coalition which helps people to discover faith through sport.

We conclude our interview with former Fifa, Premier League and Football League referee, Bob Hamer. This week he tells us about the charity he founded after seeing extreme poverty beside the runway at Mumbai airport on his way back from officiating at a World Cup qualifier in New Zealand and he tells us what is involved being a match observer, the role he plays in football today assessing referees and match officials.

During his 50 years in football, Bob Hamer has been a Football League and Premier League referee and a Fifa Match Official. More recently he has been a match observer for the Football League, assessing the performance of the referees and their assistants. In the first part of our two-part interview Bob tells us why he became a referee in his early 20s and about some of the top players he refereed during his career including Ian Rush, Gary Lineker and Paul Gascoigne. He also tells us how a trip to New Zealand to officiate for Fifa at a World Cup qualifier had a profound impact on him that resulted in him starting a charity to help disadvantaged people in the developing world.

We talk to former South African international footballer Sdu Mthethwa about her pastoral work today as a mentor to athletes and as cricket makes a bid to enter the Olympics we hear from Australian cricketer Simon Katich and discuss the implications for the Olympics to add cricket to the bouquet of sports featured.