Category Archives: Sport

Spandex snobbery smackdown: why the liberal elite snubs wrestling

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The sport has drama, showmanship, and gender equality – as the film Fighting With My Family proves. Yet, because it’s working class, it’s marginalised, writes director Stephen Merchant

In 2014, after years of struggle, a working-class British woman, aged just 21, was awarded the highest honour her profession can bestow, live, in front of 20,000 people and a television audience of millions.

The Guardian didn’t report it. In the days following, there were no laudatory profiles, no in-depth interviews, no op-eds about her stratospheric success in a male-dominated world.

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Hakeem al-Araibi: thank you Australia for bringing me home – but my fight is not over

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Bahrain will do anything to hunt down dissident athletes and their families. International sporting bodies must step up to protect the helpless

I can never truly express my gratitude to you all, the Australian people, for bringing me home. There were countless dark moments over the 76 days of my detention, when my future looked nothing but bleak. The prospect of never seeing my wife, family or friends again became too close to reality.

The moment I was reunited with my loved ones, hundreds of supporters made it to the airport to give me a warm welcome that went far beyond my imagination. It is something I will never forget for the rest of my life.

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‘Slowly the craze will come’: the off-piste plan to get Nepal skiing

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Entrepreneurs aiming to set up Nepal’s first ski resort are undeterred by difficult terrain and lack of state support

Along the single icy road leading through the village of Kuri, high in the hills of eastern Nepal, tourists stop to stare at a pair of skis. “Is it a skateboard?” asks one. “Maybe they are ice skates,” suggests another. “No idea,” they agree, before walking off gingerly along the slippery track.

Nepal may have the highest mountains in the world, but you are about as likely to see a skier here as you are a yeti. Nepal sent no athletes to the Winter Olympics last year, and there is not a single ski resort in the country.

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Colin Kaepernick reaches settlement with NFL over kneeling protest fallout

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  • Colin Kaepernick, Eric Reid settle collusion grievance with NFL
  • Parties have resolved grievances subject to confidentiality pact

The NFL and attorneys for Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid jointly announced on Friday afternoon they have settled a complaint of collusion by the players, who claimed the league’s owners blackballed them because they had protested by kneeling during the pre-game playing of the national anthem.

Related: Did the NFL manage to silence Colin Kaepernick's protest at the Super Bowl?

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Where did all those 90s rollerblades end up? Nairobi

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There’s a whole new craze in east Africa, fuelled by secondhand inline skates – and a desire to unite

Photos and story by Duncan Moore

Nairobi’s traffic congestion is notorious. Minibuses known as matatus battle for space with cars, motorbikes and hand-drawn carts, causing excruciating gridlock.

Through this automotive battleground dart the daring members of the Kenyan city’s inline skating community, deftly weaving between moving vehicles, holding on to buses for speed and jumping over potholes.

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Hakeem al-Araibi on flight to Australia after release in Thailand

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Refugee Bahraini footballer returning to Melbourne after extradition case dropped

The refugee Bahraini footballer Hakeem al-Araibi has boarded a flight to Australia after Thai authorities withdrew an extradition case against him.

Thai authorities said the Bahraini government had decided to end its pursuit of Al-Araibi, who fled Bahrain in 2014 before being granted permanent residence in Australia, where he has lived since.

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Revealed: Lynton Crosby’s £5.5m offer to undermine 2022 Qatar World Cup

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Tory strategist’s pitch detailed how CTF Partners would spread negative stories and press Fifa to ‘restart bidding process’

Sir Lynton Crosby offered to work on a campaign to cancel the 2022 Qatar World Cup and get it awarded to another country in return for £5.5m, according to a leaked plan that gives a rare insight into the activities of one of the world’s best-known political operatives.

The detailed pitch document – “a proposal for a campaign to expose the truth of the Qatar regime and bring about the termination of the 2022 World Cup in Qatar” – was written in April last year and personally signed by Crosby.

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Southampton pledge bans after fans detained for ‘mocking’ Emiliano Sala

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• Two men filmed making plane gestures during Cardiff game
• Fan behaviour back in spotlight after four arrests at Watford

Police have detained two Southampton fans who appeared to mock the death of the Cardiff striker Emiliano Sala, on a day when unrelated incidents put fan disorder back in the spotlight.

At St Mary’s, two men were filmed apparently making plane gestures during Southampton’s defeat to Cardiff in reference to the crash which killed Sala and left the light aircraft’s pilot, David Ibbotson, missing.

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Rio declares three days of mourning after fire kills 10 teenage footballers

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Flamengo president says it is ‘the worst tragedy to happen to the club in its 123 years’

Rio de Janeiro has declared three days of mourning as investigators seek to determine the cause of the fire that killed 10 teenage footballers at the training centre of the city’s Flamengo football club on Friday morning.

Cláudio Castro, the vice governor of Rio de Janeiro state, said authorities were looking at the possibility of a short circuit in an air conditioning unit.

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Fire at Flamengo football training centre kills 10 people

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Rio de Janeiro firefighters confirm fatalities at Ninho de Urubu ground

Ten people have been killed and at least three injured in a fire at the training centre of the Rio de Janeiro football club Flamengo.

Firefighters were called to the blaze at the Ninho de Urubu training ground just after 5am on Friday, a fire official told the Associated Press.

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Emiliano Sala search: investigators spot body in plane wreckage

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Underwater search reveals one occupant visible amid wreckage

One of the occupants of the plane that crashed carrying the footballer Emiliano Sala has been spotted by air investigators who have been carrying out underwater searches.

The UK’s Air Accident Investigation Branch (AAIB) said it was considering its next steps in consultation with the families of Sala and the pilot, David Ibbotson, and the police.

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Super Bowl 2019: New England Patriots v Los Angeles Rams – live!

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And here come the Rams. The Patriots came out to Ozzy Osbourne while the Rams came out to T.I.’s “Bring ‘Em Out.”

The crowd seemed to be on the Patriots’ side here, so this could be a home game type feel for them.

The New England Patriots are taking the field now, we’re getting closer to the kickoff.

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Emiliano Sala: missing Premier League footballer’s plane found

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The plane carrying the missing Cardiff City player and pilot David Ibbotson has been found

The wreckage of the plane that vanished with the footballer Emiliano Sala on board has been found within hours of a search starting in the sea off the Channel Islands.

A search boat hired privately by Sala’s Argentinian family – thanks partly to a crowdfunding appeal – located the wreckage on Sunday morning.

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Cardi B ‘stands behind’ Colin Kaepernick in refusing Super Bowl show

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  • Rapper ‘got to sacrifice a lot of money’ by not playing halftime
  • Grammy nominee will perform in Atlanta on Saturday

Cardi B turned down an offer to perform at the Super Bowl, she said, in order to “stand behind” the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who “stood up” for minorities by kneeling down during playings of the pre-game anthem.

Related: Super Bowl half-time show won’t reflect Atlanta’s music industry

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Grieving Humboldt Broncos families face wait for sentencing

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Driver of semi-trailer truck that struck coach of young hockey players will be sentenced at the end of March

The victims and grieving relatives of a Canadian truck crash, in which 16 people died, will have to wait until March to learn the driver’s sentence.

Following an emotionally charged week of victim impact statements, the judge overseeing the case has asked for nearly two months to consider how to sentence the driver, Jaskirat Singh Sidhu. On 6 April last year, his semi-trailer truck collided with the bus of the Humboldt Broncos hockey team after he failed to stop at an intersection in central Saskatchewan.

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Tokyo 2020 organisers cut crowds at sailing events over tsunami risk

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Olympic authorities reduce crowd size to make evacuations easier

The organisers of next year’s Olympic Games in Tokyo have decided to cut the number of spectators for the sailing events by a third so they can be quickly evacuated to higher ground in the event of a tsunami.

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics organising committee had initially planned to allow up to 5,000 people to watch the sailing events off Enoshima island, just south of the Japanese capital, according to the public broadcaster NHK.

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Gwyneth Paltrow sued over collision on ski slopes

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Actor says $3.1m lawsuit filed in Utah alleging she injured another skier in a 2016 crash is ‘without merit’

Actor Gwyneth Paltrow has been accused in a lawsuit of breaking a man’s ribs and leaving him with a concussion when she smashed into him while skiing at a Utah ski resort in 2016.

Terry Sanderson, 72, claimed during a news conference in Salt Lake City that he heard a “hysterical scream” and was then struck between his shoulder blades on a beginner run at Deer Valley Resort on 26 February 2016. He remembers being thrown forward and losing control of his body before losing consciousness. An acquaintance, Craig Ramon, who witnessed the event, claimed he saw Paltrow hit him squarely in the back.

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French sailor, 73, wins round-the-world solo-race without modern instruments

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  • Jean-Luc Van Den Heede spent 212 days alone at sea
  • Golden Globe race involves navigation with sextants and paper maps

A 73-year-old French sailor has won an unusual, around-the-world yacht race after 212 days alone at sea without modern instruments, in what was his first sailing victory.

Jean-Luc Van Den Heede arrived on Tuesday in Les Sables d’Olonne in western France in his 35-foot yacht Matmut, the first boat to finish the 30,000-mile Golden Globe race. Of the 19 sailors who started out last July, only five were still in the race on Tuesday.

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Campaigners say case of Bahraini footballer Hakeem al-Araibi now an ‘emergency’

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• Al-Araibi has been detained in Thailand since November
• ‘We are clearly facing a human rights emergency’

Activists campaigning for the release of the Bahraini refugee footballer Hakeem al-Araibi, who has been detained in Thailand since November after an Interpol red notice was wrongly issued against him, say his plight has become an emergency.

The warnings came from Brendan Schwab of the World Players Association and the former Australia captain Craig Foster after news that Bahrain has formally submitted an extradition request for Al-Araibi’s return.

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Search for Emiliano Sala resumes after crowdfunding effort

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Two boats go out looking for Cardiff City footballer after £259,000 raised online

A new search for missing Cardiff striker Emiliano Sala has been launched after more than £250,000 was raised to fund the operation.

An official search and rescue operation for the Piper PA-46 Malibu carrying the Argentinian striker and pilot David Ibbotson was called off on Thursday.

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