■SOCCER
Auxerre lead Ligue 1
Auxerre beat Le Mans 2-1 with a stoppage-time goal from Benoit Pedretti to take the lead in the French league and put pressure on Bordeaux. Pedretti scored the winner in the first minute of injury time after taking a pass from Dennis Oliech. Poland forward Ireneusz Jelen had given Auxerre the lead in the 25th minute, tapping home a cross from Oliech. Thorstein Helstad equalized for Le Mans with a header in the 89th. Auxerre have 55 points from 29 matches, two clear of Bordeaux who have played two fewer games. Montpellier are level on points with Bordeaux, followed by Lille and Lyon with 51 points each.
■RUGBY UNION
Stormers tame Cheetahs
The Western Stormers maintained their challenge in the Super 14 championship with a bruising 21-8 win over the Central Cheetahs at Newlands on Saturday. The win kept the Stormers in second place in the table, one point behind the Northern Bulls, ahead of a bye next weekend which will be followed by a four-match Australasian tour. Both teams were disrupted by injuries in a fast-paced, physical encounter marked by crunching collisions.
■ATHLETICS
Flying Sikh sells story
Milkha Singh, one of India’s greatest track athletes, has sold his life story to a film maker for a cut price one rupee (US$0.02) in the hope that the biopic might inspire the youth of his country to excel in the sport. Nicknamed “the Flying Sikh,” Milkha Singh was twice Asian Games champion in the 400m, Commonwealth champion in 1958 and narrowly missed out on a medal at his second Olympics in Tokyo in 1960. New Delhi will host the Commonwealth Games in October, but the hosts have little hope of any titles on the track. “This is the year of the Commonwealth Games,” the 74-year-old, whose son Jeev is a top golfer, told the Times of India. “I feel sad to say that 52 years after I won a gold in the Cardiff Games, India hasn’t been able to win a gold in track events.” Milkha Singh was born in what is now Pakistan and witnessed the murder of his parents before escaping to India as a refugee. “I want Indian youth to understand what determination and purpose can achieve,” film director Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra told the paper. “If a Milkha, who didn’t have access to even basic necessities of life, can aim for the skies, why not others who’ve been provided the best of facilities?”
■SWIMMING
Ex-PM has cause to smile
Samantha Marshall, the grand-daughter of former Australian prime minister Malcolm Fraser, has qualified to swim for her country at the New Delhi Commonwealth Games in October. The 17-year-old, whose grandfather was the leader of Australia’s government from 1975 to 1983, finished second behind Olympic champion Leisel Jones in the 100m breaststroke at the national trials.
■ATHLETICS
Gena wins barefoot
Siraj Gena of Ethiopia sprinted barefoot to the finish line to win the Rome marathon yesterday, pulling away from two Kenyan rivals near the end. Gena took off his shoes with about 500m left and sprinted away from Benson Barus and Nixon Machichim to finish in 2 hours, 8 minutes, 39 seconds. Gena was paying homage to compatriot Abebe Bikila, who won the 1960 Olympic marathon gold in Rome having run the entire course without shoes. In the women’s race, Firehiwot Dado led an Ethiopian sweep of the podium positions in 2 hours, 25 minutes, 28 seconds.
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