ATHLETICS
Fraser-Pryce wins title
World champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce on Friday won the Jamaican women’s 100m title, clocking 10.71 seconds to confirm her spot on the team headed to the Tokyo Olympics next month. Fraser-Pryce, who earlier this month set a world-leading 10.63 seconds, shook off a semi-final loss to double Olympic sprint champion Elaine Thompson-Herah with a masterclass of sprinting, getting out to her customary bullet start and holding off a quality field that had six of eight women running under 11 seconds this year. It was Fraser-Pryce’s fourth 100m national title and sixth overall. Shericka Jackson, who had run a personal best 10.77 seconds in the semi-finals, was second with 10.82 seconds and Thompson-Herah third in 10.84 seconds. Tyquendo Tracey was a surprise winner in the men’s final, running a season-best 10.00 seconds to beat Yohan Blake at 10.01 seconds, with Oblique Seville taking third with a personal best 10.04 seconds. Tracey won the national title in 2018. Commonwealth Games champion and World and Olympic finalist Janieve Russell won her third national 400m hurdles championships, running a season’s best 54.07 seconds, fourth-best in the world. Ronda Whyte was second in 54.94 seconds and Leah Nugent was third in 54.98 seconds. Two-time world under-20 champion Jaheel Hyde ran a personal best 48.18 seconds, under his previous 48.52 seconds set in 2017, to win his first national senior title in the men’s 400m hurdles.
RUGBY UNION
Australia to move Test
Australia’s series-opening Test against France is to be shifted out of Sydney due to a COVID-19 lockdown of the nation’s biggest city, Rugby Australia (RA) said yesterday. Authorities in New South Wales state, of which Sydney is the capital, announced a two-week hard lockdown in and around the city. Australia were to play France on July 7 at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but are now looking at other options, an RA spokesman said. These include Newcastle and Brisbane, which is to host the third and final Test on July 17, Australian media reported. The second Test is scheduled for Melbourne on July 13. Australia’s major winter sports leagues were also facing disruption. The National Rugby League, which features nine Sydney-based teams, is likely to shift championship matches outside the city over the next two weeks. The Australian Football League moved the Sydney Swans’ match against West Coast Eagles on Sunday next week to Geelong, while the Greater Western Sydney Giants are to remain in Melbourne for a second week in a row to play the Melbourne Demons on Saturday.
BOXING
Joshua-Usyk bout announced
Anthony Joshua is to defend his heavyweight titles against Oleksandr Usyk in London on Sept. 25. Joshua’s promoter, Eddie Hearn, made the announcement on Friday. Joshua, holder of the WBA, IBF and WBO titles, was to have an all-British showdown with Tyson Fury this summer, but a legal ruling in the US wrecked a proposed unification fight in Saudi Arabia on Aug. 14. An arbitration hearing upheld a claim from fellow heavyweight Deontay Wilder that he was contractually owed a third fight with WBC champion Fury. They are to meet on July 24 in Las Vegas. Usyk is a former cruiserweight world champion from Ukraine who stepped up to heavyweight in 2019. He has an 18-0 (13 KO) record. He has not fought since October last year. Joshua is 24-1 (22 KO) after knocking out Kubrat Pulev in December last year.
The qualifying round of the World Baseball Classic (WBC) is to be held at the Taipei Dome between Feb. 21 and 25, Major League Baseball (MLB) announced today. Taiwan’s group also includes Spain, Nicaragua and South Africa, with two of the four teams advancing onto the 2026 WBC. Taiwan, currently ranked second in the world in the World Baseball Softball Confederation rankings, are favorites to come out of the group, the MLB said in an article announcing the matchups. Last year, Taiwan finished in a five-way tie in their group with two wins and two losses, but finished last on tiebreakers after giving
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
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