Category Archives: Sport

Hallucinations and $100,000: the poker player who shut himself in a pitch-black room for weeks

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Rich Alati had a six-figure sum in his sights. As long as he could survive 30 days in the dark with no human contact

Three – or was it four? – days after he shut himself in a pitch-black bathroom, Rich Alati started to hallucinate. He saw little white, bubble-like balls, floating around the room. To calm himself he imagined he was in a magical cloud, cozy and relaxed. Embracing the visions was key. “Or else,” he says, “you might get a little scared.”

Alati was in the dark for a bet, which makes a little more sense once you know he is a professional poker player. On 10 September last year, the American was sitting at a poker table at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, when he was asked a question by a fellow professional player, Rory Young: how much would it take for him to spend time in complete isolation, with no light, for 30 days? An hour later a price had been agreed: $100,000.

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Cyclist, 90, stripped of world record after failing drugs test

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  • Carl Grove accepts public warning from Usada
  • Violation likely caused by contaminated meat

A veteran American cyclist has accepted a public warning issued by the US Anti-Doping Agency after failing a drugs test and being stripped of a world record he set earlier this year.

Carl Grove set a new record when winning the 90-94 age group sprint title at the US Masters Track National Championships in July, only to test positive for epitrenbolone, a metabolite of trenbolon, which is a substance prohibited by Usada.

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Australia v India: SCG fourth Test, day three – as it happened

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  • Bad light brings an early end to day three with Australia 236-6

So an early end to another day of Indian dominance at the SCG. The lost overs will make it more difficult for them to force a victory but the delay will allow their attack to rest up in preparation for enforcing the follow on should Australia’s batting woes continue.

Day three actually began promisingly for the home side. Marcus Harris showed plenty of intent during the opening session and he was ably supported by Marnus Labuschagne on a pitch perfect for batting. But both fell in a sloppy afternoon session that yielded four wickets for India and reinforced the issues at the heart of this brittle Australian XI.

“As this game hurtles towards a swift conclusion (barring a Cummins century and inclement weather)” begins Abhijato Sensarma, “I am left to wonder about minuscule things which I frankly have no time for - yet, one can’t help overthinking ideas during such sessions of Test cricket.

Ever since the dawn of professional cricket, the scorecard has been said to say ‘only half the story’. The minutes batted column, the last saving grace of first-class matches, are slowly disappearing too. Can it not be that annotations are used for cricketing scorecards?

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Teen’s round-the-world yacht Wild Eyes found floating eight years after boat abandoned

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Yacht spotted near Kangaroo Island off South Australian coast after being abandoned by 16-year-old sailor Abby Sunderland in 2010

Eight and a half years after it was abandoned in the middle of the Indian Ocean when 16-year-old solo sailor Abby Sunderland had to be rescued in rough seas, a yellow yacht named Wild Eyes has been found floating upside down off the coast of South Australia.

The 40-foot yacht was encrusted with barnacles, the signature eyes on the hull scratched and faded. Its mast snapped off in the wild weather that forced Sunderland’s rescue midway through her world record attempt to be the youngest solo sailor to circumnavigate the globe in 2010.

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