RUGBY UNION
Lambie earns ’Boks call-up
Twenty-year-old Patrick Lambie played the match of his life on Saturday to earn a call-up to the 30-man Springbok team for their tour of the UK and Ireland next month. There were also recalls for fullback Francois Steyn and scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar as under-fire coach Peter de Villiers named six uncapped players to face Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England on consecutive weekends. Lambie earned selection after scoring 25 points in a man-of-the-match performance for the Natal Sharks, who beat Western Province 30-10 in the Currie Cup final at Kings Park in Durban on Saturday. Lambie is joined by another 20-year-old flyhalf, Elton Jantjies, while there are also Springbok call-ups for the Sharks trio of wing Lwazi Mvovo, backrowers Keegan Daniel and Willem Alberts, as well as Free State front-rower Coenie Oosthuizen.
RUGBY LEAGUE
Kangaroos through to final
Australia overcame a sluggish start to outclass England 34-14 at AAMI Park in Melbourne yesterday to set up a Four Nations final with old foes New Zealand. The Kangaroos scored six tries to two and had the contest well won early in the second half to coast to victory in steady rain. Australia will first have to go through a “dead rubber” with New Zealand next weekend, before they meet again in the tournament final in Brisbane on Nov. 13. Following their 24-10 loss to New Zealand last week, England had to beat the Kangaroos to stay alive in the tournament, but will now finish their participation with a match against Papua New Guinea next Saturday.
BOXING
N’Dam outpoints Khurtsidze
France’s undefeated Hassan N’Dam unanimously outpointed Georgia’s Avtandil Khurtsidze to take the vacant WBA interim middleweight title in Paris on Saturday. The 26-year-old N’Dam, a Cameroon-born fighter recently granted French citizenship, received winning scores of 117-111, 115-114 and 115-114 from the judges to improve his record to 25-0. The 31-year-old Khurtsidze lost for the second time in 26 fights. N’Dam became the interim WBA champion. Kazakhstan’s Gennady Golovkin is the recognized titleholder. “He is a formidable opponent and he came here to win,” said N’Dam, who finished with cuts above both eyebrows. “He is very small and I received a lot of head butts, but I did my job, it was a fight between a bullfighter and a bull.”
VOLLEYBALL
Brazil win third straight
Beijing Olympic gold medalists Brazil overwhelmed the Netherlands to remain unbeaten with three straight wins at the World Women’s Volleyball Championship yesterday. Brazil, the runners-up to Russia at the previous championship in 2006, rallied to a straightforward 25-19, 25-18, 25-14 victory in Pool B round in Hamamatsu, Japan. Defending champions Russia, the 2006 bronze medalists Serbia, European champions Italy, Japan, the US and South Korea also remained unbeaten.
MOTOGP
Lorenzo wins in Portugal
Yamaha’s newly-crowned world champion Jorge Lorenzo of Spain won his third consecutive Portuguese MotoGP yesterday. The 23-year-old got the better of a close battle with the man he dethroned as champion, his teammate Valentino Rossi, with Honda rider Andrea Dovizioso grabbing third on the line. Lorenzo claimed his first MotoGP title after finishing third to Rossi in Malaysia earlier this month. The MotoGP season concludes in Valencia next Sunday.
TIGHT GAME: The Detroit Pistons, the NBA’s second-best team, barely outlasted the Washington Wizards, who fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss Cade Cunningham’s triple double, Daniss Jenkins’ three-pointer at the buzzer and Javonte Green’s overtime dunk lifted Detroit past Washington 137-135 on Monday, stretching the Pistons’ win streak to seven games. In an unexpected thriller, the NBA’s second-best team barely outlasted a Wizards club that fell to an NBA-worst 1-10 with their ninth consecutive loss. “We knew how big this game was for us,” Jenkins said. “We wasn’t going to let nothing stop us from getting this W.” Cunningham made 14-of-45 shots and 16-of-18 free throws for a career-high 46 points, and added 12 rebounds, 11 assists, five steals and two
With a hat-trick on Wednesday, Victor Osimhen moved atop the UEFA Champions League scoring table, with the Nigeria striker netting all three goals in Galatasaray’s 3-0 victory over Ajax in Amsterdam. Osimhen moved to six goals this season in Europe’s elite club competition, one more than Harry Kane, Kylian Mbappe and Erling Haaland. The Istanbul club signed Osimhen to a permanent deal from SSC Napoli in the summer for a record transfer fee in the Turkish League reportedly worth US$86 million. The 26-year-old striker needed less than 20 minutes to complete his first hat-trick in the competition. He headed in the opener in the
LIKE FINE WINE: Thirty-eight-year-old Djokovic won his 101st title of his career in Athens, becoming the oldest tournament winner since Ken Roswell, 44, in 1977 Elena Rybakina on Saturday clinched her biggest title since Wimbledon in 2022, defeating world No. 1 Aryna Sabalenka 6-3, 7-6 (7/0) at the WTA Finals in Riyadh. The world No. 6 put on yet another serving masterclass and was at her returning best as she became the first Kazakh and the first player representing an Asian country to lift the WTA Finals singles trophy. Having gone 3-0 in round-robin play, Rybakina earned a record US$5.235 million and would finish the year ranked No. 5 in the world. “It’s been an incredible week, I honestly didn’t expect any result, and to go so far,
An amateur soccer league organized by farmers, students and factory workers in rural China has unexpectedly drawn millions of fans and inspired big cities to form their own, raising hopes China can grow talent from the ground up and finally become a global force. The nation of 1.4 billion people has about 200 million soccer fans, more than any other country, but it has failed to build world-class teams, partly due to a top-down approach where clubs pick players from a very small pool of prescreened candidates. The professional game is marred by a history of fixed matches, corruption, and dismal performances,
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