FOOTBALL
Team sleep through alarms
Two false fire alarms that rang through the New England Patriots’ Super Bowl hotel was not enough to rattle the team as several players said on Thursday that they slept through the blaring noise. A false alarm during the night on Monday was followed by another in the early morning hours on Thursday due to a smoke detector that was isolated to one wing of the resort where the team is staying ahead of tomorrow’s Super Bowl between the Patriots and defending champions Seattle Seahawks in Glendale, Arizona. When asked whether there was an issue with the alarm, none of the Patriots players claimed to have been bothered. “If there has, I haven’t heard it. I must be sleeping through it, so that’s good,” Patriots quarterback Tom Brady told reporters. The latest false alarm caused a two-minute disturbance and there were no injuries or reason to evacuate, a spokeswoman for the Sheraton Wild Horse Pass said. The hotel is looking into the cause of the false alarms.
OLYMPICS
Torch relay details released
The torch relay for next year’s Rio Olympics is to visit 250 towns and be carried by 10,000 runners before it arrives for the opening ceremony at the Maracana on Aug. 5, organizers said on Thursday. The flame is to arrive in the country 100 days before the beginning of the Games, although organizers were unable to say from where the relay would start. It is to pass through the capitals of all 26 states as well as the federal capital, Brasilia, taking in 20,000km on the ground and 10,000km by air. Approximately 90 percent of the 200 million Brazilian population should be able to see the relay, organizers said.
FORMULA ONE
Mercedes drivers do test run
Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton and teammate Nico Rosberg gave their 2015 Mercedes race car a “shakedown” test at Silverstone on Thursday before a snowstorm forced an end to proceedings. Mercedes said the F1 W06 hybrid car, due to be formally unveiled at the first preseason test in Jerez tomorrow, took to the track in icy conditions for a limited mileage promotional event. “Driven first by Nico Rosberg, then Lewis Hamilton, the car completed a total of 18 laps (47.2 km) before a blizzard brought filming to a halt,” the team said in a statement. Mercedes won both championships last year, with Hamilton taking 11 victories to Rosberg’s five.
SOCCER
Stadium may snub matches
Rio de Janeiro’s famed Maracana stadium, which staged the World Cup finals in 1950 and last year — and is to host the opening and closing ceremonies of next year’s Olympics — might shut its doors to “little” matches. The management of the 78,000-capacity ground believe it makes economic sense to concentrate only on arena-filling teams and events. However, the consortium said on Thursday that no firm decision has yet been taken. “In a stadium of international renown and which can host 78,000 people, small matches have little pulling power for the public as is the case with games played in the carioca [Rio state championship],” the Consortium Maracana said in a statement. They argue that it costs as much to open the Maracana for 2,800 spectators — the average crowd for local football games — as it does for 30,000. The Maracana is also a major venue for concerts — on Sunday last week, US rockers the Foo Fighters brought in US$377,000, the O Globo newspaper reported. The legendary Rio stadium was renovated for last year’s World Cup at a cost of US$500 million.
Shohei Ohtani and Clayton Kershaw on Friday joined their Los Angeles Dodgers teammates in sticking their fists out to show off their glittering World Series rings at a ceremony. “There’s just a lot of excitement, probably more than I can ever recall with the Dodger fan base and our players,” manager Dave Roberts said before Los Angeles rallied to beat the Detroit Tigers 8-5 in 10 innings. “What a way to cap off the first two days of celebrations,” Roberts said afterward. “By far the best opening week I’ve ever experienced. I just couldn’t have scripted it any better.” A choir in the
After fleeing Sudan when civil war erupted, Al-Hilal captain Mohamed Abdelrahman and his teammates have defied the odds to reach the CAF Champions League quarter-finals. They are today to face title-holders Al-Ahly of Egypt in Cairo, with the return match in the Mauritanian capital, Nouakchott, on Tuesday next week. Al-Hilal and biggest domestic rivals Al-Merrikh relocated to Mauritania after a power struggle broke out in April 2023 between the Sudanese army and a paramilitary force. The civil war has claimed tens of thousands of lives and displaced more than 12 million people, according to the UN. The Democratic Republic of the Congo-born Al-Hilal
The famously raucous Hong Kong Sevens are to start today in a big test for a shiny new stadium at the heart of a major US$3.85 billion sports park in the territory. Officials are keeping their fingers crossed that the premier event in Hong Kong’s sporting and social calendar goes off without a hitch at the 50,000-seat Kai Tak Stadium. They hope to entice major European soccer teams to visit in the next few months, with reports in December last year saying that Liverpool were in talks about a pre-season tour. Coldplay are to perform there next month, all part of Hong Kong’s
Shohei Ohtani, Teoscar Hernandez and Tommy Edman on Thursday smashed home runs to give the reigning World Series champions the Los Angeles Dodgers a 5-4 victory over Detroit on the MLB’s opening day in the US. The Dodgers, who won two season-opening games in Tokyo last week, raised their championship banner on a day when 28 clubs launched the season in the US. Dodgers manager Dave Roberts shuffled his batting lineup with all four leadoff hitters finally healthy as Ohtani was followed by Mookie Betts, then Hernandez and Freddie Freeman in the cleanup spot, switching places with Hernandez. “There’s a Teoscar tax to
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