TRACK AND FIELD
Ugandan Olympian killed
Ugandan athlete Benjamin Kiplagat has been found dead in Kenya, police said on Sunday, with local media reporting he had been stabbed to death. The Kenyan-born Kiplagat, 34, had represented Uganda internationally in the 3,000m steeplechase, including at several Olympic Games and World Championships. His body was found in a car on Saturday night on the outskirts of the Rift Valley town of Eldoret, which is home to many athletes who train in the high-altitude area. “An investigation has been launched and officers are on the ground pursuing leads,” local police commander Stephen Okal told reporters in Eldoret. He said Kiplagat’s body had a deep knife wound to his neck, suggesting he was stabbed. “World Athletics is shocked and saddened to hear of the passing of Benjamin Kiplagat,” the global athletics governing body wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
RUNNING
Chebet smashes 5km record
Kenya’s Beatrice Chebet on Sunday smashed the women’s world 5km record in Barcelona. The 23-year-old’s time of 14 minutes, 13 seconds improved on the previous women-only world record of 14:29 set by Ethiopia’s Senbere Teferi in September 2021. Her performance also bettered the women’s world record set in a mixed race of 14:19, achieved by Ethiopia’s Ejegayehu Taye at the same Barcelona meet in 2021. “I came to Barcelona determined to better the world record as I felt capable of that,” Chebet said. “This world record means a lot for me, I can’t believe it.”
ICE HOCKEY
Fleury plays 1,000th game
Marc-Andre Fleury on Sunday became the fourth goalie in NHL history to play in 1,000 games in the Minnesota Wild’s game against the Winnipeg Jets. Martin Brodeur (1,266 games), Roberto Luongo (1,044) and Patrick Roy (1,029) are the only goalies to have played in more games than 39-year-old Fleury, who is in his third season with the Wild. “I feel very fortunate that I’ve played for so long and I got to do what I live for many years. I’m lucky for that,” Fleury said. He began the game third on the all-time victories list with 550, trailing Brodeur (691) and Roy (551). The Jets prevented him from tying Roy with a 3-2 victory. “He’s got 999 other ones he can probably celebrate,” said Jets captain Adam Lowry, who beat Fleury for his 100th career goal. “That’s a tremendous accomplishment, an amazing career, and it was pretty cool to be able to share the ice with a guy like that.”
CRICKET
Warner retires from ODIs
Dynamic Australian opener David Warner yesterday called time on one-day internationals (ODI) ahead of his farewell Test against Pakistan tomorrow, but kept the door open to play the 2025 Champions Trophy if needed. The 37-year-old is to pad up in his 112th and final Test in his home city Sydney, having plundered 8,695 runs at an average of 44.58, with 26 centuries and 36 half-centuries. “I’ve got to give back to the family and also on the back of that I’m definitely retiring from one-day cricket as well,” he told a news conference in Sydney. “That was something that I had said through the [last year’s] World Cup, get through that, and winning it in India, I think that’s a massive achievement.”
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
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
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
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
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