Category Archives: Sport

Naomi Osaka withdraws from French Open amid row over press conferences

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  • World No 2 pulls out of event after being fined by organisers
  • Osaka says speaking to press causes her ‘huge anxiety’

Naomi Osaka has announced her withdrawal from Roland Garros one day after she was fined $15,000 by the French Open and warned that she could face expulsion from the tournament following her decision not to speak with the press during the tournament.

Osaka, 23, who won her first match against Patricia Maria Tig and was scheduled to face Ana Bogdan in the second round, had released a statement last Wednesday stating her intention to skip her media obligations during Roland Garros because of the effects of her interactions with the press on her mental health.

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Copa América moved from Argentina to Brazil just 13 days before kick-off

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  • Conmebol statement confirms surprise move to Brazil
  • Argentina is experiencing a surge in Covid-19 cases

The South American Football Confederation (Conmebol) has announced Brazil as the new hosts of this summer’s Copa América, with Argentina replaced just 13 days before the tournament is due to begin.

“The Copa América 2021 will be played in Brazil,” an official Conmebol statement said. “Tournament start and end dates are confirmed. The venues and the fixtures will be announced by Conmebol in the next few hours.”

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Tokyo Olympics: local fans may need to show vaccination proof or negative Covid test

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Games authorities are relying on Japan’s spectators to provide atmosphere but are now in a race against time to inoculate population

Sports fans in Japan could be allowed to attend Olympic events in Tokyo this summer if they have proof of vaccination or a negative Covid-19 test, a newspaper reported on Monday.

While many athletes are expected to have been fully vaccinated by late July, poor planning and staff shortages mean most Japanese citizens will still be waiting for a jab when the Olympics begin in less than two months’ time.

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Chelsea win Champions League after Kai Havertz stuns Manchester City

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When Thomas Tuchel was given the job of reviving Chelsea at the end of January, he wanted to return them to next season’s Champions League via a top-four Premier League finish. The notion that he might actually win the thing for only the second time in the club’s history was ludicrous.

Not any more. On a night of glory for him and his team, the manager applied the final brush strokes to his renaissance masterpiece, out-manoeuvring his friend and rival, Pep Guardiola, and watching Kai Havertz score the decisive goal just before half-time.

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Manchester City v Chelsea: Champions League final – live!

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Half-time entertainment. As things stand, it’s one heck of a day for west London. Paul Doyle was at Wembley to see Brentford finally make it to the promised land of the Premier League. Here’s his take on an excellent performance from the Bees.

Related: Ivan Toney, Brentford’s smooth operator, leads the way at Wembley | Paul Doyle

City look a little stunned as they make their way down the tunnel, Pep having very quickly disappeared down it beforehand. Chelsea stroll off, ten feet tall. A gorgeous Kai Havertz finish is the difference; Chelsea are 45 minutes away from their second European Cup! City have some thinking to do.

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An ultramarathon ends in tragedy: runners describe horror of Gansu race

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Twenty-one competitors died in the freezing Chinese mountains, raising major questions about safety in the sport

At the starting line of the Gansu ultramarathon, it was cold but the sun was shining. One competitor struggled to warm up, even after jogging a quick 2km, and noticed some of the elite competitors were wearing shorts and shivering. In nearby towns, the temperature was reportedly already dropping and winds increasing, but the 172 runners didn’t know that.

In a widely shared account of the horror that followed, published online, the anonymous runner described the conditions that led to the death of 21 competitors and the admission of eight others to hospital, and sparked major questions about the safety of the increasingly popular endurance sport in China.

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Japan expected to extend emergency Covid measures less than two months ahead of Olympics

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Medical officials say case numbers in Tokyo need to be much lower to prevent another surge during the Games

Japan is expected to extend emergency coronavirus measures in Tokyo and several other regions by about three weeks, according to officials, as the country struggles to rein in a fourth wave of infections less than two months before the Olympics.

The state of emergency – the third in the capital since the start of the pandemic – was called in late April and was originally due to end on 11 May, but was extended until the end of this month, as restrictions on businesses failed to make a dent in infections. Media reports said the latest extension could last until 20 June.

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Marcus Rashford and Barack Obama share ‘surreal’ Zoom conversation

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  • Manchester United striker and ex-president discuss youth
  • ‘When President Obama speaks, all you want to do is listen’

Marcus Rashford has spoken with the former US president Barack Obama to discuss the power young people can have to make change in society.

Rashford, the Manchester United and England striker, met virtually with the 44th president of the United States in a Zoom conversation organised by Penguin Books.

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‘Boxing is a mess’: the darkness and damage of brain trauma in the ring

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Boxing must address the damage done in the ring and a new book by Tris Dixon lays out what’s left after the final bell rings

The writer, the fighter, the doctor and the widow all look down into the darkness and damage of boxing. They understand the previously untold story of brain trauma in the ring and, as they talk to me, their moving testimony underpins a shared belief that change has to come. There is a measured urgency to their words for they love the fighters and they want to offer their knowledge to help make this brutal sport a little safer.

Damage and death have always framed boxing. This harsh truth means that, despite the chaos outside the ring, boxing is shockingly real. It can maim and even kill but, in a strange paradox, boxing also makes most fighters feel more intensely alive than anything else.

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Tokyo Olympics: anger in Japan at IOC call to make ‘sacrifices’

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Senior Games figures John Coates and Thomas Bach criticised for attitude amid calls for event to be cancelled

The International Olympic Committee’s insistence that “sacrifices” must be made to ensure the Games go ahead in Tokyo regardless of the coronavirus situation in Japan has sparked a backlash and more calls for them to be cancelled.

John Coates, an IOC vice president, drew criticism in Japan after saying the Games would proceed even if the host city was still under a state of emergency due to the coronavirus. “The answer is absolutely yes,” Coates, who is overseeing preparations, said when asked on Friday if he thought they could be delivered despite the restrictions.

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How Britons are cutting stress in half: throw an axe in it

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Forget bowling nights and bar-hopping – the thud of metal in wood is the new way of letting off steam

On a blustery Thursday evening, the sound of deep thuds and high shrieks can be heard along the canal in east London’s Hackney Wick. They emanate from axe-throwing venue Skeeters, named after the famous native American axe and knife thrower. It might sound unnerving, but head inside and the fairy lights – plus colleagues enjoying a work social – soon put you at ease.

“It’s been a stressful year at work so it seemed like a good work social,” says Gemma Sutton, a 27-year-old product designer who tonight tried axe throwing for the first time. “It was fun. Most things you do as work socials involve going to a bar – it was nice to do something a bit different.”

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Glasgow churches subjected to anti-Catholic abuse after Rangers win

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Aftermath of Scottish Premiership victory on Saturday marred by vandalism, unrest and abusive behaviour

A number of churches in and around Glasgow were subject to vandalism and anti-Catholic abuse over the weekend, the Guardian has learned, as Rangers supporters rampaged through the city centre on Saturday.

Windows were smashed at the St Maria Goretti church estate in Cranhill, north-east Glasgow. At another church, which has asked not to be identified, a banner with anti-Catholic slogans was draped across railings in time for evening mass, before it was removed by church officials. There were further reports of abusive heckling of those within church grounds. The Guardian understands that two incidents were reported to Police Scotland.

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Nancy Pelosi calls for US diplomatic boycott of Beijing Winter Olympics

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US House speaker says leaders who attend Games would lose moral authority because of China’s treatment of Uyghur minority

US House speaker Nancy Pelosi has called for a US diplomatic boycott of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, criticising China for human rights abuses and saying global leaders who attend would lose their moral authority.

US lawmakers have been increasingly vocal about an Olympic boycott or venue change, and have lashed out at American corporations, arguing their silence about what the State Department has deemed a genocide of Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China was abetting the Chinese government.

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Chelsea 2-1 Leicester City: Premier League – as it happened

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The home side moved above Leicester into third after a crucial and richly deserved victory in front of 8,000 fans at Stamford Bridge

Jacob Steinberg has filed his report from the Bridge, so I’ll leave you with that. Thanks for your company, emails and abuse - night!

Related: Chelsea gain quick revenge over Leicester and boost top-four hopes

Chelsea now have two shots at a Champions League place next year - one against Aston Villa on Sunday, the other against Manchester City in Porto. Leicester need a favour from Villa or Liverpool’s remaining opponents, Burnley and Crystal Palace. And they have to beat Spurs at home.

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Could the Tokyo Olympics still be cancelled? – video explainer

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The Tokyo Olympics are due to begin on 23 July, but calls for the Games to be cancelled are growing due to the worsening Covid-19 situation in Japan. The Guardian's Tokyo correspondent, Justin McCurry, looks at the current state of play. 

A recent spike in coronavirus cases has caused many prefectures to enter a state of emergency, including Tokyo. Japan has been reporting nearly 7,000 daily cases and the surge has put pressure on the country’s healthcare system, with the rollout of its vaccination programme slower than anticipated.

Organisers says tough anti-virus measures, including regular testing of athletes and a ban on overseas fans, will keep the delayed Games safe, but a new poll indicates more than 80% of Japanese people oppose hosting the Olympics this year. In addition, some elite athletes including tennis star Naomi Osaka have expressed their own concerns.

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Free solo … with a permit: will Yosemite’s new rules put a damper on climbing culture?

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The national park is instituting a permitting system for overnight rock climbers. Many see it as inevitable as the sport gets more popular

For years, rock climbers Graham Ottley and Keith Bouma-Gregson dreamed of scaling the 2,800ft (853 meters) pillar of granite known as the Lost Arrow Spire in Yosemite national park.

In early May the pair finally got their chance, making a climb that required spending two windy nights camped on tiny ledges with harnesses holding them to the rocks. But Ottley and Bouma-Gregson realize that soon it may not be as easy to enjoy Yosemite’s anything-goes climbing culture.

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Rights group fear for migrant activist ‘disappeared’ in Qatar

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Malcolm Bidali, a Kenyan who blogged about migrant workers’ plight, detained by Qatari security services

A Kenyan security guard in Qatar who has written about the plight of migrant workers has been “forcibly disappeared”, human rights group say.

Malcolm Bidali was detained by the Qatari security services over a week ago and is being held in an undisclosed location, according to a coalition of rights groups, which include Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

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Would you pay £99,000 for this self-lacing Nike? Sneakers Unboxed review

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Design Museum, London
From battered Vans to box-fresh Adidas, how did sneakers become an $80bn-a-year global industry? This fun show has all the answers – including how to get really fat laces

‘It was all about being the freshest,” says Koe Rodriguez, toothbrush in hand. “That’s how you pulled honeys, how you got respect from the hard rocks. That’s how you laid your game down. It was all about being fresh.” The hip-hop historian’s not talking about his teeth, though, but his sneakers.

Rodriguez appears in Just for Kicks, a 2005 documentary about sneaker culture that also features an MC explaining his painstaking monthly shoelace-cleaning ritual. Treating his precious laces as if they were the finest cashmere, he would carefully scrub them between his clenched knuckles, then pinch out the water, squeeze them with a towel, and press them with the tip of a hot iron, to make them as wide as possible. “They gotta be fat,” he insists.

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Linford Christie: Britain’s fastest ever sprinter on race, patriotism and persistence

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From running to the shops in Jamaica to wrapping himself in the Union Jack, the Olympian has had phenomenal highs and bruising lows. He looks back on an extraordinary life in athletics


Linford Christie’s Olympic training unwittingly began many years before he began to take over the world, 100 metres at a time. As a child, he spent seven formative years in Jamaica’s most populous parish, St Andrew, where his grandmother, Anita, would send him off to the shops with a cunning technique to ensure that he came back promptly. “She’d spit on the floor and say: ‘Don’t let it dry before you come back,’” laughs Christie over Zoom. “She was most probably my first coach.” Christie has no recollection of ever getting in trouble upon his return, an indication that even in those days he ran like the wind.

What he does remember is the warmth of life in Jamaica. The family home seemed to be vast, filled with sisters, his brother, cousins and aunties. The community was so tight that if he got up to any mischief, family friends would not hesitate to keep him in check. In Jamaica, his grandmother was in charge. “Growing up, she was everything,” he says. “She was the mother, the doctor, the dentist; you name it, my grandma covered it.”

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Sir Alex Ferguson: ‘Did I think we could still beat Bayern in 1999? No chance!’

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In an exclusive interview, the legendary manager and son Jason reflect on the brain haemorrhage that nearly killed him and the film they have just made, his upbringing in Scotland, the lows and highs at Manchester United, his admiration for Steven Gerrard … and that Champions League final

“You’re lying on your bed and you are on your own,” Sir Alex Ferguson says as he remembers being in hospital exactly three years ago this week when, after suffering a brain haemorrhage, he came close to death. “It can become lonely and frightening,” the greatest manager in the history of British football continues as he relives that raw memory.

Ferguson and I are just starting an interview which is shaped by so many layered and rollicking recollections. Memories of the ghostly shipyards of Glasgow and his teeming life as a boy in Govan ripple through him. He relives the pain and sectarianism he experienced at Rangers, the fire and transformation he generated at Aberdeen and the early abuse and enduring glory of his 27 years at Manchester United. Memories of his father, with whom he fell out until football reunited them, merge into an evocation of everything his wife Cathy has done for him.

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