SURFING
Dolphins add to Bryan’s win
Hawaii’s Gabriela Bryan yesterday shared a wave with a pod of dolphins as she won her first world championship tour event over Californian rookie Sawyer Lindblad in pumping surf at the Western Australia Margaret River Pro. Both Bryan and Lindblad had to go deep to avoid the mid-season cut and secure their place for the remainder of this year’s tour. Bryan took a commanding lead with a 7.83 for two powerful turns on her forehand as a handful of dolphins swooped around her. “When I kicked out, I was just wow. That wave was sent to me by someone, the dolphins in it. It was magical,” said Bryan, who scored an even better 8.10 on her second scoring ride. Meanwhile, Margaret River local Jack Robinson out-dueled against Hawaii’s two-time world champion John John Florence in the men’s final, with the event’s two form surfers trading huge carves on the double-overhead walls.
SNOOKER
Brecel succumbs to ‘curse’
World snooker champion Luca Brecel on Saturday became the latest victim of the so-called “Curse of the Crucible” when his title defense ended on the first day of this year’s tournament. David Gilbert, who had to qualify for the championships, reeled off the final four frames to claim a stunning 10-9 win over his Belgian opponent. Brecel becomes the 19th first-time world champion to fail to defend his title at the Crucible Theatre venue in Sheffield. “It was a good year, and now I can look forward to being a non-world champion again,” Brecel said. “I’m quite relieved. I don’t like the attention, when everyone says: ‘Oh, it’s the world champion.’ It’s not my thing.”
TENNIS
Rybakina ousts Swiatek
Elena Rybakina on Saturday ended defending champion Iga Swiatek’s 10-match winning streak in Stuttgart to reach the final of the clay-court tournament. Fourth seed Rybakina came through their semi-final clash 6-3, 4-6, 6-3, stunning the Polish world No. 1 who had captured the past two titles at the German event. Rybakina is to face Ukrainian Marta Kostyuk for the title. Winners of the Stuttgart tournament, sponsored by German automobile company Porsche, receive a car, but Rybakina said the prize would be of little use. “I actually don’t have a driver’s license,” she said.
ATHLETICS
Duplantis breaks own record
Sweden’s Armand “Mondo” Duplantis on Saturday opened his outdoor season in Olympic year in stunning fashion as he bettered his own pole vault world record at the Xiamen Diamond League meeting. Duplantis, the reigning Olympic, two-time world and European champion, fired out a warning to any potential rivals at this summer’s Paris Games by sailing over 6.24m at his first attempt at the Egret Stadium to improve by 1cm his previous best set in Eugene last year. The US-born 24-year-old entered the competition at 5.62m, clearing 5.82m and 6m before setting the new world record — his eighth in the discipline, each by 1cm since first breaking the record in February 2020 in Torun, Poland. “For me to jump a world record I need everything to be in the right place,” said Duplantis, hailing no winds and great energy from the crowd. “Everything added up to what I needed for me to jump high today,” he added.
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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