Cricket star’s former fiancee among many to pay tribute to bowler after suspected heart attack
Actor Elizabeth Hurley paid tribute to her former fiance and “beloved Lionheart”, Shane Warne, as fresh details of the Australian cricket star’s sudden death in Thailand emerged.
Hurley, who was engaged to Warne for more than two years until they split in December 2013, said that “the sun has gone behind a cloud forever”.
Continue reading...Brittney Griner, one of America’s most decorated women’s basketball players, has reportedly been detained by Russian Federal Customs Service authorities after the discovery of vape cartridges that contained hashish oil in her luggage at an airport near Moscow.
The Customs Service confirmed “the detainee is a professional basketball player” who played in the Women’s National Basketball Association and won two Olympic gold medals with the United States in a statement issued on Saturday, but did not release the player’s name.
Continue reading...Thai police say Warne was taken to hospital after being found unconscious at the Samujana Villas resort
The desperate attempts to save the life of cricket legend Shane Warne have been detailed by police officers and rescue teams on the Thai island of Koh Samui, as the sports world mourns and the 52-year-old leg-spinner’s final moments are pieced together by authorities.
Warne was on a week-long holiday with three friends at the Samujana Villas resort, the start of a three-month lay-off after covering the 2021-22 Ashes series for Fox Sports.
Continue reading...Women and girls have challenged conservative attitudes in the hallowed surf spot of Arugam Bay
Growing up in a small fishing village along the east coast of Sri Lanka, Shamali Sanjaya would often sit on the beach and look out at the boisterous waves. She would watch in envy as others, including her father and brother, grabbed surfboards, paddled out into the sea and then rode those waves smoothly back to shore. “I longed for it in my heart,” she said.
But as a local woman, surfing was strictly out of bounds for her. In Sri Lanka’s conservative society, the place for women was at the home and it was only the men, or female tourists, who were allowed to ride the hallowed waves in Arugam Bay, considered Sri Lanka’s best surf spot.
Continue reading...Four players and a coach with Ukrainian clubs reveal how their lives have been turned upside down by Russia’s invasion
On the day the war began, I was in Kyiv with my family. I have been injured recently, so could not train with the team. At 5am my young son awoke, and my wife got up to calm him. Then we heard the explosions, one after the other. We thought there had been an accident, but then we read online that the war had begun. We quickly began to gather our belongings. I am Georgian, and was in Georgia in 2008 when Russia attacked our country, so this is not the first time I’ve been through a war. I told my wife: “Let’s get ready more quickly.” I drove the car closer to our house, loaded it with things and then waited for a couple of my teammates. They are foreigners and also have young families. We drove away from Kyiv together.
Continue reading...His career statistics are extraordinary but he will be best remembered for playing the game with joy and panache
The first thing I did was watch that clip. Shut your eyes and you can probably picture it. Shane Warne’s first ball in the Ashes, his choppy peroxide blond hair ruffling in the wind, the zinc cream smeared across his lips and the tip of his nose, his top button undone, his collar turned up, a flash of the gold chain bouncing around his neck. Seven steps, then he sweeps his arm over, sends the ball flying. It dips, hits the pitch, zips, spins the width of Mike Gatting, clips the off-stump. Bowled him! Warne roars, Gatting baffled, stares back down the pitch trying to figure out what’s just happened, umpire Dickie Bird tries to hide the ghost of a smile that’s crept across his face.
It was some introduction. And it turned into some story, too.
Continue reading...At all levels and in every corner of football, allegations of harassment and worse are being uncovered. But Fifa and the game’s authorities are ill-equipped to tackle them
“Sometimes, I have regrets. There have been very tough moments when I felt abandoned. I still feel abandoned. I received threats, I was intimidated and my whole life was compromised.”
After everything she has been through, Roseline (not her real name) is just thankful to be alive. At the start of October 2020, the young Haitian referee says she was threatened by the man she accused of sexually abusing her. It was two days after she had given evidence against Rosnick Grant, a former international referee who was vice-president of the Haitian Football Federation and president of its referees’ commission, to members of Fifa’s “ad hoc panel” investigating claims of sexual abuse. “They assured me it was confidential but there was a leak somehow,” Roseline says. “I received death threats.”
Continue reading...Shane Warne, the greatest leg-spinner in the history of cricket and an Australian icon who transcended the sport, has died of a suspected heart attack at the age of 52.
The news was confirmed by Warne’s management company on Friday and released initially to Fox Sports, the network for whom he commentated after a playing career that returned 708 Test wickets from 145 caps between 1992 and 2007.
Continue reading...Iñupiaq musher Apayauq Reitan is poised to make history – but circumstances were very different when she faced Rosebud Summit three years ago
The snow was blowing sideways as the blizzard engulfed Rosebud Summit. Alone with her dog team more than 3,500ft up in Alaska’s forbidding White Mountains, then 21-year-old musher Apayauq Reitan struggled to find the trail during the 2019 Yukon Quest.
“The only way for me to tell where it was was by walking in front of the team and sinking into the snow up to my hips,” said Reitan.
Continue reading...Novak Djokovic’s efforts to compete at the next grand slam on the tennis calendar will be far less complicated than his failed Australian Open bid after the French government announced it would suspend its vaccination pass this month.
The decision to end current restrictions on 14 March means the Serb will likely be able to defend his French Open title at Roland Garros, beginning on 22 May.
Continue reading...Roman Abramovich’s plan to use the sale of Chelsea to donate funds to victims of the war in Ukraine is not solely intended for Ukrainians, raising the prospect of money going to Russian soldiers or to their families.
Abramovich confirmed on Wednesday that he wants to sell Chelsea and the Russian oligarch said that all net proceeds – understood to be the money from any sale minus legal fees – would be used “for the benefit of all victims of the war in Ukraine”. The phrasing left open the possibility of the money not being entirely reserved for Ukrainians hurt, bereaved or otherwise affected by the Russian invasion of their country.
Continue reading...As the Winter Paralympics open, a swimmer born with no arms calls for a global commitment to the millions with disabilities
In most cases, the birth of a child is a celebration. It is an opportunity to rejoice in the excitement of what that child will be or could become – that child is a gift. But when I was born, my family cried. They cried with sorrow and they cried with fear. Because those, like me, born with a disability, are not perceived as a gift or as special, they are considered different. In many parts of the world, different is not considered a good thing: it can even be perilous.
I was born in Afghanistan with no arms. As a child, while my family supported me, the world around me did not. I was seven when this realisation hit me – my life was going to be different. I was bullied at school and made to feel inferior. It was only when I discovered swimming that I finally felt accepted. The water made me feel safe, and it was swimming that made me feel alive; it also made me realise that even with my disability, I had a gift. That’s when I set out on a journey that would break down barriers and show others that people with disabilities can be active and can fulfil their potential.
Continue reading...Paralympic Committee reverses its original decision after threats of boycott over Ukraine conflict
A revolt among competing nations has forced the International Paralympic Committee to reverse its original decision and ban Russian and Belarusian athletes from this week’s Winter Games.
On Wednesday the IPC had said that Russian and Belarusian athletes would be allowed to take part in competition in Beijing, under a neutral banner and with no place on the medal table. Less than 24 hours after the announcement, however, the president of the IPC, Andrew Parsons, announced a u-turn following protests and a threat of a boycott from national participating committees (NPCs).
Continue reading...Roman Abramovich has confirmed he has put Chelsea up for sale and has written off the £1.5bn of loans he has made to the club. The billionaires Hansjörg Wyss and Todd Boehly are part of a consortium trying to buy the Premier League team.
Sources have said at least one other group is preparing to make an offer this week. There is a sense that a bidding war would help Abramovich maintain some form of leverage and the first move came when Wyss, a Swiss businessman, revealed that he had been invited to join a consortium aiming to own Chelsea.
Continue reading...The Washington Capitals star is popular among Russians who may not usually question their leader. And he has debated the need for war
In 2017, Alexander Ovechkin, inarguably the best Russian hockey player alive or dead and the country’s most famous male athlete, started something called PutinTeam.
“I have never hidden my attitude towards our president, always supporting him,” the Muscovite and captain of the NHL’s Washington Capitals wrote, three years after Russia annexed Crimea. “I am confident that there are many of us, supporting Vladimir Putin. So let’s unite and show everyone a united and strong Russia!”
Continue reading...Fifa and Uefa have acted in unison to suspend Russian teams from international football competition.
The most powerful bodies in football acted after days of growing protest. Russia has now been removed from qualification for this winter’s World Cup, and its remaining club side will no longer compete in the Europa League.
Continue reading...When Ukrainian football player Roman Yaremchuk came on to the pitch for Portuguese Primeira Liga club SL Benefica, he was met with thunderous applause from the crowd who held signs in support of the player's homeland.
Russia invaded Ukraine late last week and has been carrying out military offensives across the country
More than 200 events to take place as city invests £12m in programme hoped to aid post-pandemic recovery
Birmingham will benefit from “the great gift of the mega-event”, said the creative officer of the Commonwealth Games at the launch of a concurrent six-month-long cultural festival.
Birmingham 2022 festival will include more than 200 events from March to September across the West Midlands and will involve more than 100,000 participants, making it one of the largest cultural programmes to ever surround the games.
Continue reading...Groundbreaking findings by Australian Sports Brain Bank reveal prevalence of chronic traumatic encephalopathy, including in younger players
Groundbreaking research into the long-term ramifications of concussion in sport has found chronic traumatic encephalopathy in the brains of more than half of a cohort of donors, including three under the age of 35.
The Australian Sports Brain Bank on Monday reported its preliminary findings after examining the 21 brains posthumously donated by sportspeople since the centre’s inception in 2018.
Continue reading...Roman Abramovich has passed the stewardship of Chelsea to the trustees of the club’s charitable foundation. The Russian, who bought the club in 2003, remains the owner but has relinquished the running of Chelsea after a call in parliament for him to be sanctioned amid the invasion of Ukraine.
Abramovich, provided he is not sanctioned, can continue to fund the club but the focus on him has provoked this move on the eve of Chelsea’s Carabao Cup final against Liverpool. Abramovich has vehemently disputed reports suggesting his alleged closeness to Vladimir Putin and Russia or that he has done anything to merit sanctions being imposed against him.
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