ATHLETICS
Kansas wins pancake race
A woman from Liberal, Kansas, is this year’s champion of the traditional Pancake Day Race against the women in Olney, England. Whitney Hay on Tuesday won the US leg of the race in Liberal in 1 minute, 7 seconds, KSNW-TV reported. That beat Katie Godof of Olney, who ran her race in 1 minute, 10 seconds. The race returned after a hiatus last year because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Hay, a 21-year-old college student, also won the Liberal race in 2020, but lost to Olney that year. Contestants must carry a pancake in a frying pan and flip it at the beginning and end of the 380m race. The event began in Olney in the 15th century. In 1950, Liberal challenged Olney to an international competition.
SOCCER
Vardy inspires 2-0 win
Leicester City dented Burnley’s bid to avoid relegation from the English Premier League as Jamie Vardy returned from injury to inspire a 2-0 win at Turf Moor on Tuesday. Manager Brendan Rodgers’ side stole the points with two goals in the last eight minutes, as Vardy set up James Maddison and then netted himself. “It has been a long time coming. It’s tough getting a big injury. To come back and to be involved in both goals and get the win, it’s very good,” Vardy said after scoring his first goal since December last year.
TENNIS
Djokovic, coach part ways
Novak Djokovic’s turbulent start to the year took another twist yesterday as the 20-time Grand Slam champion revealed that he had split from his long-time coach Marian Vajda after last year’s ATP Finals. “Marian has been by my side during the most important and memorable moments in my career,” Djokovic said on his Web site. “Together we have achieved some incredible things and I am very grateful for his friendship and dedication over the last 15 years.” Djokovic began working with the Slovakian coach when he was a teenager in 2006.
BOXING
April fight may be Fury’s last
WBC heavyweight champion Tyson Fury on Tuesday hinted at retirement, but said he is “supremely confident” of defeating Dillian Whyte when the two Britons meet in April with Fury’s title on the line. “I am very, very confident,” Fury told a news conference. “I am not down to earth — I am on top of it,” he said. Fury, who has suggested on multiple occasions that he could walk away from the sport, addressed his potential retirement in the news conference. “This could be the final fight of my career, I’m retiring after this,” he said. “US$150 million in the bank, healthy, young, I’m going to buy a massive yacht. I am going to sit back with a hot blonde and a pina colada thinking: ‘You know what, I made it.’”
BASEBALL
MLB cancels season start
MLB canceled the start of the regular season after it failed to reach a labor agreement with players by the league’s deadline on Tuesday, commissioner Rob Manfred said. The season was scheduled to begin with Opening Day on March 31. Players Association executive director Tony Clark said that the lockout the “ultimate economic weapon” to use against the players. “In a US$10 billion industry, the owners have made a conscious decision to use this weapon against the greatest asset they have: the players,” Clark said.
“I don’t remember the moment, but ever since I was a kid, that’s the first thing I loved,” two-time NBA All-Star Isaiah Thomas said of his lifelong romance with basketball. However, that journey unfolded against the limitations of his size in a game where height often dictates opportunity — a reality he confronted throughout his career. At 175cm, Thomas is less than 2cm taller than the average Taiwanese adult male, while NBA players during his career stood at about 200cm on average. Compared with the NBA’s average career length of less than five years, Thomas’ 13-season career stands out as
Hans Niemann declares he would become a “stone cold killer” in a Netflix documentary released on Tuesday about his feud with five-time classical world champion Magnus Carlsen, a pledge that injects new edge into the lingering fallout from the cheating scandal that shook elite chess. “I’m gonna be a stone cold killer the rest of my life,” the US’ Niemann says in the film. “I’m going to become the best player in the world, and no one is going to believe that now, but this clip will play over and over again in 10 years — just wait.” “I just
Dakar and Rabat have longstanding ties, but relations have been strained since the Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) final, which Senegal won in mid-January before being stripped of the title, which was transferred to Morocco. Now, the AFCON trophy is something of a thorn in the two countries’ sides. On Rue Mohamed V, the street where Moroccan vendors are based in the Senegalese capital, a police van is parked. “The police have been on high alert since the Confederation of African Football [CAF] decided to award the title to Morocco, but there have been no incidents,” a local resident said.
Top seeded Jessica Pegula on Friday once again fought back from a set down to reach the WTA Charleston Open semi-finals with a 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 win against Russia’s Diana Shnaider. Defending champion Pegula has lost the first set in all three of her matches at the tournament so far, but again dug deep to maintain her hopes of retaining the title. The world No. 5 from the US took 2 hours, 10 minutes to defeat 19th-ranked Shnaider, relying on a formidable service game that included eight aces. Shnaider battled well in the first two sets and broke early for a 2-0 lead
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