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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.

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Suaalii wins fitness battle to start in Australia’s Dublin date with Ireland

  • Tane Edmed gets surprise selection in replacements
  • Farrell retains Prendergast at fly-half for the hosts

Joseph-Aukuso Suaalii has won his battle to be fit for Australia’s final Test of their British Isles tour and will hope to bow out against Ireland in the spectacular fashion that he began on his debut against England.

Coach Joe Schmidt, hoping to down the team he once led to glory for six years, has also offered up one final surprise selection to finish the rugby year as he’s primed to make replacement fly-half Tane Edmed the Wallabies’ record-extending 19th debutant of 2024.

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Champions League review: pain for PSG but Inter and Arsenal on rise

Europe’s finest head-scratching struggles go on. We hand out honours and dishonours from the latest round of action

Inter: The 2023 finalists are second in the table and yet to concede a goal. They are yet to score many either, notching only seven goals in their five games. The latest victims of Simone Inzaghi’s smooth, efficient machine were RB Leipzig, whose own calamitous pointless campaign continued with a 1-0 defeat. An own goal from Castello Lukeba decided it after a wicked free-kick from Federico Dimarco, the wing-back playing an unfamiliar midfield role but was just as dangerous. As Leipzig desperately chased something from the match to rescue their campaign, it fell to the Inter defence to show off their usual control, the experience of Benjamin Pavard, Stefan de Vrij and Alessandro Bastoni as the defensive trio seeing out the job in some comfort.

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Iga Swiatek accepts one-month ban after testing positive for trimetazidine

  • World No 2 deemed her level of fault ‘at the lowest end’
  • Pole’s medication for jet lag and sleep was contaminated

Iga Swiatek, the world No 2 women’s tennis player, has received a one month ban after testing positive for the banned substance trimetazidine (TMZ) in August 2024.

In a statement on Thursday, the International Tennis Integrity Agency, which governs the tennis anti-doping programme, ruled that Swiatek’s anti-doping rule violation was not intentional and that she bore no significant fault or negligence for the positive test on “the lowest end of the range” and they imposed a one month ban.

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