■ CRICKET
Proteas dismiss binge
South Africa's team management have attempted to play down a controversy over a number of their players staying out drinking late on Saturday night after a World Cup defeat against New Zealand. South African team manager Goolam Rajah brushed aside the issue, suggesting no player faced any disciplinary action over the incident which happened in Grenada after the five-wicket defeat left the team concerned for their semi-final berth. "A few guys had a few drinks after the match. It is not an issue at all," Rajah said on Monday. Skipper Grame Smith dismissed the issue, telling a news conference on the match eve that some players were "blowing off some steam."
■ SOCCER
Ref reports death threats
The referee in charge of Real Madrid's 2-1 defeat by Racing Santander in Madrid on Saturday has lodged a complaint with his local court over receiving threatening phone calls. Javier Turienzo enraged Real fans when he awarded Santander two penalties in the last 20 minutes of the match and sent off two Real Madrid players, Ivan Helguera and Alvaro Mejia, in the 87th and 90th minutes respectively. The national committee of referees said that Turienzo had posted his complaint with his local justice department in Leon where he lives. The defeat and Barcelona's victory on Sunday leaves Real five points adrift of their bitter rivals in the title race.
■ RUGBY UNION
Cannon quits after injury
Former Australia hooker Brendan Cannon quit all rugby union yesterday after another serious neck injury. Cannon, 34, was carried from the field after a scrum collapse playing for the Western Force against the Crusaders in Canterbury in a Super 14 match last week. He consulted a specialist on Tuesday and immediately decided to retire. "I really didn't have any option," he said. "As much as I wanted to play on and represent the Western Force and the Wallabies, I really couldn't. It would have been very silly of me to tempt fate again." Cannon missed most of last season with a serious neck injury after a bone fragment from compressed vertebrae lodged in a nerve canal. Cannon played 106 Super rugby matches in more than a decade.
■ OLYMPICS
China vows to protect logo
China will issue a plan soon to protect the logo of next summer's Beijing Olympic Games, a senior trademark official said yesterday. Zhao Gang, deputy head of the trademark department under the State Administration for Industry and Commerce, told a news conference that China was working on a set of schemes to protect Olympic intellectual property rights. Zhao provided no details about the plan.
■ NFL
Fans flock to Europa games
NFL Europa set an attendance record on opening weekend with 89,367 fans attending the three games, up 54 percent from last season. A year ago, 54,411 fans attended the openers in a league then named NFL Europe. The mark bettered the previous record of 89,001, set in Week 9 of 2005. All three games this weekend were in Germany. The largest crowd was in Frankfurt, where the Galaxy drew 38,125 fans at Commerzbank Arena and beat Amsterdam 30-14 in a rematch of last season's World Bowl. In Dusseldorf, 30,355 fans turned out to see the Rhein Fire beat the Berlin Thunder 15-3. The Hamburg Sea Devils beat the Cologne Centurions 24-18 before 20,887 fans in Hamburg.
■ SOCCER
Hibs players deny rebellion
Hibernian players who have met chairman Rod Petrie to protest about John Collins' management style are not seeking his removal, captain Rob Jones said on Monday. A meeting took place last week ahead of Sunday's Scottish FA Cup semi-final with Dunfermline which ended in a 0-0 draw. Hibernian's first team squad and management met again on Monday to discuss the recent bust-up but Jones later told the BBC in a statement: "At no point did the players ask for or seek in any way the removal of the management." Hibs are sixth in the league and last month won the League Cup for the first time in 16 years.
■ SAILING
Weather scuppers LV Cup
The start of the Louis Vuitton Cup was postponed on Monday because of inconsistent wind. The 11 competing yachts circled along the race course off Port America's Cup aided only by a light sea breeze -- until organizers halted the first day of the challengers series. Racing was expected to resume yesterday. Valencia was picked to host the America's Cup because it averages 300 days of sunshine and temperatures of 19oC that usually provide a strong and consistent breeze. But Spring has brought cold, wet weather and a persistent northeasterly wind that doesn't aid sailing.
■ HORSE RACING
Horse trainer suspended
A New Zealand racehorse trainer who supplied horses to the British Queen Mother has been suspended for three months for switching horses in a trials race, New Zealand newspapers reported yesterday. Kim Clotworthy, who trains in partnership with son Shaun, admitted a charge brought by New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing's Judicial Control Authority and incurred a fine and hearing costs in addition to the suspension. The authority heard Shaun Clotworthy had allowed the mare Laurette, a winner of two races, to run in a maiden trials race at Pukekohe, near Auckland, in place of the gelding Punchestown, which was a non-winner. Trials races are informal and do not attract betting.
■ MARATHON
Boston in anthem blunder
Boston Marathon women's winner Lidiya Grigoryeva didn't notice organizers were playing the wrong Russian national anthem as she wore the victor's olive wreath and accepted her trophy. But Russians in Boston watching the race -- and others watching on television -- were horrified to hear the wrong anthem for the second time since another Russian woman won in 2003. "This, once again, shows how America does not understand the rest of the world," said Oleg Kotlyarevsky, a Russian magazine reporter. Boston Athletics Association officials didn't realize they had played the national anthem used only between 1996 and 2000.
■ GOLF
Seve heads to the seniors
Five-times major winner Seve Ballesteros will make his Champions Tour debut at next month's Regions Charity Classic in Birmingham, Alabama, the Tour said on Monday. Spaniard Ballesteros, one of the most gifted and charismatic players to have graced the game, became eligible for the US seniors circuit after turning 50 on April 9. "Seve is the third member of our `Class of 2007' to become eligible for our Tour and he continues the momentum started when Nick Price and Mark O'Meara joined us earlier this year," Tour president Rick George said in a statement.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later