FORMULA ONE
Netflix to document season
Netflix is to make a documentary series chronicling this Formula One season, which is to be screened next year, the sport’s rights holders announced on Saturday. Formula One said the makers of the 10-part series would have unparalleled and exclusive access over the course of the year to the drivers, team bosses and owners, as well as the sport’s management team. “Formula One is a global sport that we are actively repositioning from a motorsport company to a media and entertainment brand,” F1’s managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches said in a statement. “The agreement with Netflix serves to chronicle the fascinating story of what transpires behind the scenes during a Grand Prix season... This series will unleash a compelling vantage point to the sport that will delight fans and serve as a catalyst to entice new fans.”
BASKETBALL
Curry out for three weeks
Stephen Curry is to miss at least three weeks with a sprained left knee, meaning the Golden State Warriors are to be without their second-leading scorer for the rest of the regular season. Curry could be back at the start of the playoffs next month if all goes well in rehabbing his latest injury. The team said Curry would be re-evaluated in three weeks — that would be April 14 and a possible Game 1 of the playoffs for Golden State. Curry had on Friday returned from a six-game absence after his latest right ankle injury, only to injure his left knee. The defending champions were already without their three other All-Stars: Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. Green was likely to be back from a bruised pelvis for yesterday’s home game against Utah. Durant is still recovering from a broken rib and Thompson has a fractured right thumb.
SOCCER
Owner on trafficking charges
The owner of reigning Greek champions Olympiakos and English Championship club Nottingham Forest has been charged with drug trafficking. Evangelos Marinakis is being prosecuted for “possession and trafficking of drugs” and for “associating with criminals,” a judiciary source said on Friday. Prosecutors in Piraeus have also banned Marinakis from leaving Greece because of a probe into the financing of a company that chartered the Noor1, a petrol tanker that was seized off the Greek coast in June 2014 with 2 tonnes of heroin on board. Marinakis has furiously denied the charges.
MARATHON
Ethiopan sets half record
Ethiopa’s Netsanet Gudeta on Saturday broke Kenya’s dominance in the World Half Marathon Championships by smashing the women’s only race world record in Valencia, Spain. Kenyan women had swept the medals at the previous two championships, but Gudeta pushed on alone from 15km to win in a time of 1 hour, 6 minutes and 11 seconds. The 27-year-old finished a comfortable 43 seconds ahead of Kenyan Joyciline Jepkosgei, who holds the overall world record of 1 hour, 4 minutes and 51 seconds. The previous record for a single-sex race was set by Lornah Kiplagat in Udine, Italy, in 2007. Earlier, Geoffrey Kamworor won his third successive title in the men’s event in 1 hour and 2 seconds. The Kenyan, who won silver in the 10,000m at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, was followed over the line by Abraham Cheroben of Bahrain and Aron Kifle of Eritrea.
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
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