Plan your sports tour now before other fans beat you to it.
The big ticket agencies
Ticketmaster (ticketmaster.co.uk), of course, and Lastminute.com - click on Sport in the left-hand menu. Redletterdays.co.uk sells day and weekend packages as gifts.
Tour de France
Starts on July 5. No tickets required, of course, but the usual sites (viamichelin.com) will help to flesh out the Flash map, and there's a brief introduction to each of the stopover towns. Velo Vacations (velovacations.com) organises race-viewing and rides along the Tour route.
Formula one
Bgp-f1.com sells tickets to all British motor-racing events.
England v Bangladesh and Sri Lanka
CricInfo (uk.cricinfo.com) has details of dates and ticket availability for all the international tours. It also hosts the Barmy Army site (uk.cricinfo.com/link_to_database/NATIONAL/ENG/CLUBS/barmy-army), which has practical advice for all England supporters heading overseas. The Guardian's David Hopps runs an agency specialising in Sri Lanka, Red Dot Tours (reddottours.com): he is offering 15-night packages covering the first two Tests in Galle and Colombo from £720 and, he says, needs to firm up bookings by the end of July or release the flights the company has reserved.
Rugby Union World Cup in Australia
As well as the excellent official site, there's a page aimed at British fans ar at australia.com/whats_on/Sport/Article_ALL.aust?I=Rugby_World_Cup_03.xml&L=en&C=GB. It lists the official travel agents and suggests what else to visit near the venues.
Euro 2004 in Portugal
euro2004.com/competitions/euro
Most of the hotels are likely to be full, but fortunately Portugal's national site (portugal-insite.pt/canais/temas/canal.asp?canal=16&ling=2) has a decent English-language accommodation search which will find pousadas, motels, rural B&Bs and, in extremis, campsites. They don't all have email addresses, but it's a start. You can also try Michelin (viamichelin.com).
· Last week's column should have read: Cork-based JetMagic (jetmagic.com) has just launched a Liverpool-Cork route. It already flies to London City and Edinburgh.
