SURFING
Cleland, Weston-Webb win
Mexico’s Alan Cleland and Brazil’s Tatiana Weston-Webb on Wednesday won gold at the World Surfing Games in El Salvador, but France were also big winners as two Tahitians qualified for the 2024 Paris Olympics at their home break of Teahupo’o. Cleland and Weston-Webb were worthy champions after surfing through a gruelling schedule in hot temperatures and pumping surf all week at Surf City, with Cleland racking up the highest score of the event in the final. Peru won team gold, edging out France, after two of their men made the finals in double-overhead waves at the boulder-strewn beach of La Bocana. Kauli Vaast, a tube-riding wizard from the Olympic surf venue of Teahupo’o, just missed the finals, but took the sole 2024 Games spot for the highest-finishing male representing Europe at the International Surfing Association event. The 21-year-old joins fellow Teahupo’o local Vahine Fierro to form a formidable French team along with Johanne Defay, who had already qualified through the professional World Surf League championship tour.
CRICKET
Boult in line for return
Seamer Trent Boult could return for New Zealand at the ODI World Cup later this year despite not having a national contract, Black Caps coach Gary Stead said yesterday. Boult opted out of a New Zealand Cricket contract last year. He was not included in the list of players offered a central deal yesterday, instead signing a “casual playing agreement,” New Zealand Cricket said. Stead hopes Boult can resume his strike partnership alongside Tim Southee at the 50-over World Cup in India, which is to start in October. “We are having positive conversations with Trent, he’s indicated he’s available for the World Cup,” Stead told reporters. “From our perspective, he’s one of the best ODI bowlers in the world, so barring injury, I think it’s highly likely that he would be part of our squad.”
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
A debate over the soul of soccer is raging in FIFA World Cup holders Argentina, pitting defenders of the social role of the beautiful game against the government of libertarian Argentine President Javier Milei, who wants to turn clubs into for-profit companies. Argentina, which gave the world Diego Maradona and Lionel Messi, is home to some of the world’s most devoted soccer fans — a fact attributed by supporters like Gabriel Nicosia to the clubs’ community outreach. Nicosia is a lifelong supporter of San Lorenzo, a more than 100-year-old first division club based in the working-class Buenos Aires neighborhood of Boedo where
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