RUGBY
Bob Fulton dies aged 73
Australian rugby league “Immortal” and former Kangaroos captain Bob Fulton died yesterday at the age of 73, his friend Ray Hadley announced. “It’s a very sad day for the Fulton family and rugby league generally,” Hadley said on Australian radio station 2GB. “I’ve announced some sad things on radio, but this could be the saddest. I’m going to miss him, he was a great man.” The cause of death was cancer, Australian media reported. Born in England and raised in Wollongong, Fulton joined Manly as an 18-year-old and won three Premierships while also playing 35 Tests and World Cup matches for Australia. After his retirement, Fulton coached Manly to Premiership titles in 1987 and 1996 and also led Australia from 1989 to 1998. He was selected as one of Australian rugby league’s first four “Immortals” in 1981 and is the only person to have won Premiership titles and an Ashes series against Great Britain as a player, captain and coach.
FORMULA ONE
Leclerc retains pole position
Charles Leclerc yesterday retained his Monaco Grand Prix pole position after the Ferrari mechanics succeeded in repairing his vehicle in time and without replacing the gearbox. Leclerc, a 23-year-old Monegasque, set the fastest time in qualifying on Saturday, but then crashed his car. A gearbox change would still have led to an automatic grid penalty. “Following further in depth checks this morning, no apparent defects were found on Charles Leclerc’s gearbox, therefore the Monegasque driver will start today’s race from pole position, as per the qualifying result,” Ferrari wrote on Twitter.
BADMINTON
Scoring change defeated
The Badminton World Federation (BWF) voted on a proposal to change the sport’s scoring system and fell just short of the two-thirds majority required to amend the laws, it said on Saturday. Matches are played in a best-of-three format, with the winner of each game being the first player to 21 points. The change proposed a best-of-five format with 11 points to win each game. The proposal was put forward by the governing bodies of Indonesia and Maldives and seconded by Taiwan and South Korea in a bid to increase excitement and make the sport more television friendly. It received 66.31 percent of the 282 votes cast. An attempt to change the scoring failed to obtain the necessary support last time it was voted on in 2018.
BOXING
Taylor drops Ramirez
Scotland’s Josh Taylor on Saturday used a relentless attack and two knockdowns to become the undisputed junior welterweight champion with a unanimous decision victory over Jose Ramirez in Las Vegas. Both former Olympic boxers came into the fight unbeaten and holding two belts but Taylor made sure he was the one to leave with all four 63.5kg straps. The 30-year old Taylor defended his WBA and IBF titles and captured Ramirez’s WBC and WBO belts at the Virgin Hotel. Taylor won by 114-112 scores on all three judges’ cards to improve to 18-0 with 13 KOs. Taylor is now just the sixth four-belt champion in boxing history and Scotland’s first undisputed champ since Ken Buchanan unified the lightweight division by winning the WBA, WBC and lineal championships in the 1970s.
American rugby sevens star Ilona Maher is to join 15-a-side club Bristol next month in a bid to play in next year’s Women’s Rugby World Cup, the English club announced on Monday. Maher, 28, helped the US to a bronze medal at this summer’s Olympic Games in Paris and is the seven-a-side sport’s most popular player on social media. “This is a huge coup to be able to bring Ilona Maher to Bristol Bears on a short-term deal,” Bristol head coach Dave Ward said. “She is one of the biggest names in women’s sport, let alone rugby, and we believe she will
Major League Baseball (MLB) star Shohei Ohtani wants his former interpreter to hand over hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of baseball cards he says were fraudulently bought using his money. The Los Angeles Dodgers star is also requesting Ippei Mizuhara, who previously pleaded guilty to bank and tax fraud for stealing nearly US$17 million from the unsuspecting athlete, return signed collectible baseball cards depicting Ohtani that were in Mizuhara’s “unauthorized and wrongful possession,” court documents filed on Tuesday said. The legal filing alleges Mizuhara accessed Ohtani’s bank account beginning in about November 2021, changing his security protocols so that he
US skier Mikaela Shiffrin said she sustained an abrasion on her left hip and that something “stabbed” her when she crashed during her second run of an Audi FIS Ski World Cup giant slalom race on Saturday, doing a flip and sliding into the protective fencing. Shiffrin stayed down on the edge of the course for quite some time as the ski patrol attended to her. She was taken off the hill on a sled and waved to the cheering crowd before going to a clinic for evaluation. “Not really too much cause for concern at this point, I just
CLASH OF MANAGERS: Brighton’s Fabian Hurzeler and Russell Martin of Southampton accused each other of disrespect, while both were booked Southampton on Friday were denied a priceless victory by a controversial decision as they drew with hosts Brighton & Hove Albion 1-1 in the Premier League. Kaoru Mitoma spectacularly headed Brighton into a first-half lead and Flynn Downes hammered home an equalizer an hour in. Minutes later teammate Cameron Archer converted a cross from Saints substitute Ryan Fraser. A video assistant referee check of more than four minutes eventually decided that Archer was onside, but then penalized Adam Armstrong, who was offside, but did not touch the ball, for interfering with goalkeeper Bart Verbruggen. “I find it hard to accept,” Southampton manager Russell Martin
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