Author: Sean Ingle

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Matt Richardson promises to cooperate with British Cycling misconduct probe

  • Richardson ‘disappointed’ to miss world championships

  • ‘I understand the seriousness of what has been raised’

Matt Richardson has promised to cooperate with a British Cycling investigation into allegations of serious misconduct after he was withdrawn from this week’s World Track Cycling Championships in Shanghai.

In an Instagram post on Tuesday, Richardson said that he understood the seriousness of the allegations, which the Times reported were related to his behaviour to other riders, and promised that he would act with contrition to anyone that he had offended.

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Matt Richardson dropped from GB cycling team amid claims of misconduct

  • Rider was to take part in track world championships

  • British Cycling confirms Richardson was withdrawn

Matt Richardson has withdrawn from the Great Britain team for next week’s track world championships in Shanghai amid allegations of serious misconduct.

The 27-year-old, who switched allegiances from Australia after the Paris 2024 Olympics, had been seen as one of Britain’s strongest medal hopes, with chances in the team and individual sprints and the keirin. But after a Times story, which reported that there had been concerns about his behaviour from other riders, he is now in the process of leaving the team’s training base in China.

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South Africa in running to stage Africa’s first Olympics as 2036 race hots up

  • Qatar frontrunners of bidders, with India and Hungary

  • Turkey, Germany and Korea to present to IOC next month

South Africa is in the hunt to stage Africa’s first Olympics after it was named as one of seven countries that will formally present its case to host the 2036 Games in November.

However its bid, which would probably be spread across Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban, is seen as a distinct outsider, with Qatar widely regarded as the frontrunner ahead of India and Hungary.

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IOC lifts suspension and paves way for Russia to compete at LA 2028 Olympics

  • Suspension had been imposed after invasion of Ukraine

  • Decision on Russian anthem and flag still unclear

The International Olympic Committee has lifted the suspension on Russia that was imposed after the invasion of Ukraine, paving the way for the Russian team to compete at the Los Angeles Olympics in 2028.

Only a handful of Russians were able to compete at the 2024 Paris Summer Olympics and this year’s Milano Cortina Winter Games as authorised neutral athletes, after an IOC vetting panel checked whether they had offered any public support for the war in Ukraine.

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IOC scraps 130 years of tradition by paying athletes $10,000 at Olympics

  • IOC sets up £106m fund for all athletes at Games

  • Milano-Cortina competitors will be first to be paid

The International Olympic Committee has broken with 130 years of tradition by deciding to pay athletes to compete at the Olympic Games.

Starting with the recent Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, all competitors will be entitled to a $10,000 (£7,600) grant from the IOC regardless of whether they are NBA stars or on the poverty line.

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Olympic chief ‘confident’ LA Games will not repeat World Cup referee fiasco

  • Kirsty Coventry: IOC will have taskforce for any issues

  • Referee Omar Artan refused entry by US officials

The International Olympic Committee insists it is “confident” that the LA Games in 2028 will not face the same immigration issues that have marred the buildup to the World Cup – including Africa’s top referee, Omar Artan, from Somalia being refused entry by US officials.

Despite Fifa’s close relationship with the Trump administration, it was also unable to stop Iran being moved from a training camp in Arizona to Mexico and some of its officials being denied entry visas.

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‘He was like a zombie’: Tom Pidcock on racing Pogacar, his Grand Tour hopes and leaving Ineos

The British rider and unvarnished free spirit is in a good place heading into the Tour de France next month

When Tom Pidcock talks about how it feels to chase down the greatest cyclist of his generation, his language is so vivid you can almost taste the salt-baked sweat on Tadej Pogacar’s jersey.

But as we discuss the pair’s epic duel at the Milan–San Remo classic in March, and what it was like when a bloodied Pogacar went nuclear on the final climb, Pidcock can’t help but smile.

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April rules sporting world with its long list of chaos, thrills and classic moments | Sean Ingle

The Grand National, Masters, Paris-Roubaix and Champions League put it ahead of even July’s mighty trifecta

The thought struck me on the last rattler back from the Grand National, as Avanti’s wifi faltered somewhere outside Crewe and the Masters stream on my phone froze yet again. I was watching the world’s best golf tournament, on a train journey back from the world’s greatest steeplechase, having seen the best football match of the season – Real Madrid against Bayern Munich – earlier in the week. Is there a better month in the sporting calendar than April?

Augusta always delivers. Club football hits peak levels of drama and jeopardy. Then there is Aintree, Paris-Roubaix, the start of the County Championship cricket season and the World Snooker Championship. To round it off, the life-affirming sight of the great and the ordinary doing remarkable things at the London Marathon. “April is the cruellest month,” writes TS Eliot in The Waste Land. But he was not a sporting man and was living in very different times.

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‘Disgraceful’: anger as World Aquatics allows Russia to compete under flag again

  • Restrictions have been in place since 2022 invasion

  • Ukrainian athlete says move will spread propaganda

Swimming has agreed to allow Russian and Belarusian athletes to compete without restrictions under their own flag and anthem for the first time since 2022, prompting joy in Russia and outrage in Ukraine.

The decision by World Aquatics, which also oversees diving and water polo, adds further momentum to Russia’s bid to be allowed back for the Los Angeles Olympic Games in 2028 following judo’s decision to do the same last year.

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Mary Rand, first British woman to win Olympic athletics gold, dies aged 86

  • Rand won gold, silver and bronze medals at Tokyo 1964

  • Mary Peters pays tribute to ‘most gifted athlete ever’

Mary Rand, the British track and field athlete who blazed a trail for women by winning three Olympic medals at the Tokyo Games in 1964, has died at the age of 86.

Rand was one of the giants of her sport: the epitome of speed, power and grace. Her long jump victory in Tokyo made her Britain’s first female Olympic gold medallist in athletics, and she followed it up with a silver in the pentathlon and a bronze in the 4x100m relay.

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Lily James, Andy Murray and a million Britons: padel’s rise nears milestone

  • UK participation levels more than doubled in 2025

  • 860,000 Britons played padel at least once last year

It was once seen as a quirky upstart or continental fad. But padel now has nearly a million players across the UK after participation levels more than doubled in 2025.

According to LTA figures seen by the Guardian, 860,000 Britons played padel at least once last year – up from 400,000 in 2024 and 129,000 in 2023 – as the racket sport’s dizzying rise continued.

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Olympics chief admits she has not spoken to US president Trump about LA 2028 Games

  • Kirsty Coventry steers clear of global politics in buildup

  • Organisers will meet with vice-president JD Vance

The International Olympic Committee has yet to establish formal communications with the US president Donald Trump on preparations for the Los Angeles Games in 2028, the IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, has confirmed.

Trump has been speaking in Davos in Switzerland after a turbulent start to 2026 during which he has suggested he will invade Greenland, threatened a trade war with Europe and ousted the Venezuela president Nicolás Maduro.

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Not like the old days? In truth, there has never been a better time to watch sport | Sean Ingle

For all the golden moments, rewatching coverage from 40 years ago was a lesson in how much things have improved

Forty years ago this month, the Pet Shop Boys track West End Girls topped the charts. Manchester United, Liverpool, Everton and Chelsea were locked in a four-way battle for the title. And Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on Wogan. Terry: “This new film you’ve made, Commando: it’s very violent isn’t it?” Arnie: “Actually, it’s low-key. I only kill around 100 people.”

How do I know this? Because Facebook’s algorithm serves it to me daily. Terrifyingly, it understands me better than I understand myself. A half-forgotten goal, race or innings? That is my sugar-salt-fat magic. An old Top 40 chart or TV listing? My double‑strength nicotine patch.

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Watching James Bond play my great uncle Brendan in Giant was surreal and spooky | Sean Ingle

Biopic charting Naseem Hamed’s rise has reopened old wounds but is also a reminder of what was and what might have been

The first time I watched Prince Naseem Hamed train, my jaw couldn’t have dropped any faster if he had hit me with one of his lassoing uppercuts. I had followed all his fights on TV, of course. But to see him in the flesh in September 1994, a year before he became world champion, was an altogether more visceral and mesmeric experience.

Hamed’s punches sounded like firecrackers welcoming in the new year as they smashed into the pads. He was almost impossible to hit. And, most staggering of all, despite standing 5ft 4in tall and weighing only nine stone, he would bully far bigger men in sparring – including fighters such as John Keeton, who went on to become the British cruiserweight champion – until my great uncle, Brendan Ingle, called time.

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