Rugby round-up: England win Down Under, history for Ireland and Chile on fire July 17, 2022 A Emiliano Boffelli crossed the whitewash in Santiago del Estero on Saturday night to earn his Argentina side a Test series victory against a sorry looking Scotland, it marked the end of the European rugby season; one that began in September. But in Ireland’s historic series in New Zealand, England’s continued success on the shores [...]
British Athletics on mission to buck trend of mediocre Championships July 14, 2022 Just once has the Great Britain and Northern Ireland athletics team left a World Championships with medals tallying into double figures – at Stuttgart in 1993 – and there’s little hope of a repeat at this year’s edition, which gets underway in Eugene, Oregon, tomorrow evening. Of course there is medal hope – notably in [...]
Fan spending FOUR days on bus to watch World Athletics Championships July 13, 2022 Dedicated fan bases are what sports are built upon; the desire to be there for your team or player and witness any history they make. But would you spend four days on a bus going coast-to-coast for a few days of sporting action? Because that’s just what Jan Figueroa is doing. The 24-year-old Puerto Rico-born [...]
777 Partners vice president: ‘We want BBL to be next best rival to NBA’ July 13, 2022 Investment firm 777 Partners is determined to make the British Basketball League (BBL) the second biggest domestic league in the sport, behind the NBA. Since the US company’s acquisition of 45 per cent in the BBL last year, the league has seen record crowds and will have its first team – the London Lions, who [...]
BBL ready to slam dunk its rival basketball competitions July 13, 2022 British basketball has only ever featured at the Olympics when the team has participated as the host nation and has never qualified for the Fiba World Cup. A Sport England survey estimates the number of those participating in the sport in England has dropped by 100,000 since 2016. In spite of this, however, the British [...]
Competitive rugby and global calendar shouldn’t come at cost of player welfare July 12, 2022 If you were to assess the hopes of the Home Nations as they crossed the equator to play their annual summer rugby series, you’d have been forgiven for suggesting they weren’t too high. But two thirds of the way through each of the tours – Ireland in New Zealand, England in Australia, Wales in South [...]
Djokovic wins at Wimbledon but Kyrgios’ story of fight a deserved consolation July 10, 2022 It represents an interesting state of affairs when Novak Djokovic wins his fourth consecutive Wimbledon title – his 21st Grand Slam triumph – and yet there’s a sense of his losing opponent Nick Kyrgios being the real story to come out of the All England Club this year. Despite ultimately going down 4-6 6-3 6-4 [...]
Semi-final against Djokovic is Cameron Norrie’s biggest ever match July 8, 2022 When British No1 Cameron Norrie ventures through the double doors, on to Wimbledon’s Centre Court and into a cathedral of raucous noise today, it will be the biggest moment of his five-year professional career. He may have won Indian Wells last year, arguably the biggest non-Grand Slam event on the circuit, but reaching the latter [...]
Another new era of English cricket begins tonight with Buttler captaincy July 7, 2022 It’s almost becoming boring to speak of yet another new era in English cricket but such is the pace of change at the moment that the next one begins this evening. At 6pm at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, Jos Buttler will lead out England for the opener of a three-match Twenty20 series against India [...]
Root and Bairstow shone but England Test team will eventually be challenged July 6, 2022 What unfolded in the sun at Edgbaston yesterday will go down in cricketing history as England completed a record run chase of 378 to topple India and scrape a five-match series draw. The result amounts to the pinnacle of a Ben Stokes-Brendon McCullum era in its infancy but sets out exactly how this Test side [...]