Sean Ingle – Page 3 – Worldwide Sports News

December 19, 2024

Sebastian Coe pledges radical reform in race to become next IOC president

Manifesto to share power and ‘safeguard’ female sport
World Athletics head highlights London 2012 track record

Sebastian Coe has promised to radically transform the International Olympic Committee if he is elected its next president in March – and says his track record of delivering at the London 2012 Games and at World Athletics shows he is the right choice for the leading job in sport.

In launching a manifesto that positions him as a reform candidate who will ensure the IOC does far more to innovate, protect female sport, allow more debate, and get more young people into Olympic sport, Coe took himself back to the early 2000s when he was able persuade the IOC to bring the 2012 Games to London.

December 17, 2024

‘Big dreamer’ Keely Hodgkinson named BBC Sports Personality of the Year

Olympic 800m champion rewarded for remarkable year
Darts prodigy Luke Littler, 17, second; Joe Root third

No one could stop Keely Hodgkinson on the track in 2024 – or, as it turned out, the battle for public opinion as the Olympic 800m champion lifted the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award.

“As a little girl, I dared to dream big,” said the 22-year-old from Atherton, near Wigan, after being rewarded for a remarkable year, in which she won Olympic and European gold, obliterated her own British record, and remained unbeaten over two laps.

December 16, 2024

Athletics the biggest loser in funding cut of nearly £1.75m for LA 2028 Olympics

UK Sport denies athletics is on the ‘naughty step’
8% cut despite best Olympic performance since 1984

UK Sport has denied putting UK Athletics on the “naughty step” after slashing its funding for the Los Angeles Olympic cycle by nearly £1.75m. The shock decision comes despite Team GB’s track and field stars winning 10 medals in Paris – their best performance since 1984.

UKA has struggled with financial and governance issues in previous years, while UK Sport is also understood to have questioned whether UKA’s chief executive, Jack Buckner, is too involved on the performance side.

December 9, 2024

Luke Littler named on six-strong Sports Personality of the Year shortlist

Teenager could become youngest winner since 1958
Hodgkinson, Yee, Bellingham, Root and Storey included

Luke Littler will have a shot at becoming the youngest winner of the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award for more than 60 years, after being named on a six-strong shortlist headed by the Paris 2024 Olympics stars Keely Hodgkinson and Alex Yee.

The England footballer Jude Bellingham, the cricketer Joe Root and the Paralympian Sarah Storey make up the list. But, surprisingly, there is no place for Mark Cavendish, in a year when he broke Eddy Merckx’s record for Tour de France stage wins.

December 2, 2024

‘A great man, a great player’: Stephen Hendry leads tributes to Terry Griffiths

Hendry among many coached by 1979 world champion
Mark Allen ‘heartbroken’ after mentor’s death aged 77

The seven-time world snooker champion Stephen Hendry has led the tributes to Terry Griffiths, who has died aged 77, calling him “a great man and a great player”.

Griffiths worked as a miner, postal worker and bus conductor before turning professional in 1978 and winning the world snooker title at his first attempt aged 31, beating Dennis Taylor in the 1979 final. The Welshman then became one of the most identifiable players in the 1980s snooker boom alongside Steve “Interesting” Davis, Alex “Hurricane” Higgins and “the Whirlwind”, Jimmy White, reaching No 3 in the world.

November 28, 2024

Katherine Grainger makes history as BOA’s first female chair in 119 years

Former rower will succeed Hugh Robertson in new year
Grainger is currently in second term as chair of UK Sport

One of Team GB’s greatest ever athletes, Dame Katherine Grainger, has become the first female chair of the British Olympic Association in its 119-year history.

Grainger, who is the only British woman to win medals in five separate Olympic Games, beat the BOA’s vice-chair, Annamarie Phelps, in a vote of the organisation’s 46 members on Thursday. She will take over from Hugh Robertson, who has helped lead the organisation since 2012, early in the new year.

November 19, 2024

Fifth athlete disqualified from one of dirtiest races in Olympic history

Tatyana Tomashova loses London 2012 1500m silver
Russian banned for retrospective doping offences

The London 2012 race regarded as one of the dirtiest in history has expunged yet another name from the record books after Tatyana Tomashova was stripped of her women’s Olympic 1500m silver medal. The Russian becomes the fifth out of 12 finishers in the final to be disqualified for retrospective doping offences.

The race was questioned almost immediately with Britain’s Lisa Dobriskey telling the BBC straight after the race: “I’ll probably get into trouble for saying this, but I don’t believe I’m competing on a level playing field.” History, though, has slowly proven Dobriskey correct.

November 11, 2024

Mike Tyson v Jake Paul is the apex event of content masquerading as sport | Sean Ingle

Like most boxing fans I hate the idea of this deluded nonsense but there certainly seems to be a market for it

Mark Borkowski is the public relations maestro who has worked with everyone from Mikhail Gorbachev to Diego Maradona to Jim Rose, an American exhibitionist who used to hang weights from his penis. Borkowski also helped Ian Botham recreate Hannibal’s walk across the Alps with elephants, and, for his sins, was the mastermind behind Cliff Richard’s Saviour’s Day reaching Christmas No 1, despite minimal radio play. So who better to talk about the biggest sporting stunt of the year, Mike Tyson’s fight against Jake Paul, which will be streamed into 300m homes via Netflix this weekend?

Instinctively, as I told Borkowksi, I hate the idea. Most boxing fans do. It sells a myth that wasn’t even close to being a reality in 2004, let alone 2024: namely that Tyson is one of the most ferocious warriors alive, not a 58-year-old who lost 26lb in May after an ulcer flare-up that left him throwing up blood and defecating tar. It risks Tyson’s boxing reputation and his health. And, Netflix’s lavish promotion aside, it feels more like a sham or a circus than a genuine sporting event.

November 10, 2024

‘It’s dumb, but I’ll watch it’: why Tyson’s Netflix brawl is big box office

YouTuber Jake Paul versus the 58-year-old boxing legend – a grizzly pantomime? Or a grim harbinger of the future?

The trailer for Netflix’s latest multimillion-dollar venture starts with a dramatic drumbeat, the slap of glove on pad, and a familiar Brooklyn drawl. “He’s a manufactured killer,” says Mike Tyson, with almost cartoon relish. “I am a natural-born killer.”

The camera then cuts to the man he will face in the early hours of Saturday UK time, the influencer Jake Paul. “We’re going to war,” predicts Paul, who made his fortune filming pranks such as I Sunk My Friend’s Car And Surprised Him With A New One before an even more lucrative pivot into boxing. “And he’s getting knocked out.”

November 9, 2024

Mark Cavendish confirms that Sunday will be ‘final race of my cycling career’

Briton’s last race is Tour de France Criterium in Singapore
‘I have achieved everything that I can on the bike’

Mark Cavendish has confirmed he will retire on Sundaytoday, ending a career that includes the all-time record for most stage victories at the Tour de France and four world titles on the track and road.

The 39-year-old, who announced his retirement last May before reversing that decision five months later, revealed his decision with a post on Instagram, which showed his greatest victories before ending with a simple message: “My racing career … completed it.”

March 12, 2024

Professional darts player suspended after appearing to punch opponent in pub match

Adam Smith-Neale barred from competing during investigation
World No 82 suspended after incident at Nuneaton Darts Open

A professional darts player has been suspended after a video of him appearing to punch an opponent after losing a pub match went viral on social media.

The Darts Regulation Authority confirmed that the PDC world No 82, Adam “Big Dog” Smith-Neale, would be barred from attending or competing while it conducted an investigation into the incident, which took place at the Nuneaton Darts Open at the Lucky Break pub on Saturday.