■ SOCCER
Tunisia blank Mauritius
Tunisia scored a goal in each half and defeated Mauritius 2-0 in Tunis on Saturday, requiring it only to draw its final match in September to qualify for the African Cup of Nations. The victory gave Tunisia 13 points and kept it atop Group 4, one point ahead of Sudan, which won 2-0 at Seychelles on Saturday. Sudan will host the group finale in September, needing a victory to overtake Tunisia. Issam Jomaa opened the scoring in the 44th minute, and Abdelkrim Nafti added another in the 50th minute to delight the capacity crowd at Rades stadium.
■ ATHLETICS
Wesly wins Grandma's
Wesly Ngetich won his second Grandma's Marathon men's title in Duluth, Minnesota, on Saturday, finishing more than one-and-a-half minutes ahead of fellow Kenyan Joseph Kahugu. Ngetich won the race from Two Harbors to Duluth in 2 hours, 15 minutes, 55 seconds. That was slower than his winning time of 2:13:18 in 2005, but Ngetich ran alone for the final 16km on a hot, humid day. Kahugu finished second in 2:17:29. The US' Mary Akor, who was third a year ago, won the women's race in 2:35:40. It was the first Grandma's win for Akor, a native of Nigeria who became the first US citizen to win the women's division since Mary Alico of Florida in 1996.
■ RUGBY UNION
Elvis Vermeulen out of Cup
French back-row forward Elvis Vermeulen, one of his country's Six Nations stars, was ruled out of the World Cup on Saturday after suffering a slipped disc, his Clermont club announced. "As the slipped disc needs an operation in the next few weeks, Elvis Vermeulen has been forced to pull out of the World Cup," a statement said. Vermeulen scored the injury-time try which gave France a 46-19 win over Scotland in March which guaranteed his country retained the Six Nations title. The injury was discovered when Vermeulen underwent a scan following Clermont's defeat in the French championship final against Stade Francais last week. "It's difficult to take," Vermeulen said.
■ CYCLING
Iglinskiy wins sixth stage
Kazakhstani rider Maxim Iglinskiy won the sixth stage of the Dauphine Libere in Valloire, France, on Saturday, while Christophe Moreau of France took the overall lead. Iglinskiy finished the 198km stage from Gap to Valloire in 5 hours, 51 minutes, 32 seconds after breaking away from the leading pack after the final climb up the Col du Telegraphe. Alexandre Botcharov of Russia was next, 51 seconds back. French riders Pierrick Fedrigo and Remy di Gregorio finished with the same time as Botcharov. Moreau finished in eighth place, 2:23 behind Iglinskiy, but moved from second overall to No. 1 by overtaking Andrey Kashechkin, who dropped to third.
■ BOXING
Malignaggi wins title
Paul Malignaggi won the IBF junior welterweight title in Uncasville, Connecticut, on Saturday, outpointing champion Lovemore Ndou of Australia in a lopsided unanimous decision. Malignaggi (23-1) used his speed and quickness to keep N'dou at bay. He landed a left-hook counter in the ninth round to score the fight's only knockdown. Two judges scored it 120-106. One judge scored it 118-108. Malignaggi's best weapon was his jab, which he landed often throughout the fight. He also threw several combinations that landed.
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