4:07 AM BST Reuters with ESPN staff SANZAAR has dismissed reports that world champions South Africa are to join an eight-team competition in Europe later this year rather than play in the Rugby Championship. World Rugby vice-president Bernard Laporte told French newspaper Le Progres that the Springboks would replace Japan in the European tournament, which
10:39 PM ET When James Rodriguez played such sparkling football and steered Colombia to their first World Cup quarterfinal he was just 22. He is now 29 and, rather than delivering on that promise on display in Brazil, he has accumulated years of frustration at Real Madrid. The breakout star of 2014 has been bogged
Aug 20, 2020 Associated Press THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Dutch cyclist Steven Kruijswijk, who finished third in last year’s Tour de France, said Thursday he will not take part in this year’s race after fracturing a bone in his shoulder during the Criterium du Dauphine. Kruijswijk, who rides for the Jumbo-Visma team, wrote on Twitter
Aug 27, 2020 Associated Press NICE, France — Two days before the start of the pandemic-postponed Tour de France, the Lotto Soudal cycling team said Thursday that it had to send home several staff members after “non-negative” coronavirus tests. The Belgian team said a mechanic and a member of the rider support staff returned “one
Aug 29, 2020 Associated Press NICE, France — French authorities have made it harder for Tour de France teams to reach the finish line in Paris by deciding they will be expelled from the race if two or more of their members, including staff, test positive for the coronavirus within a week. Following guidelines issued
Aug 28, 2020 Associated Press Cycling’s governing body has relaxed its COVID-19 exclusion rules on the eve of the Tour de France opening stage, after complaints from teams that feared their riders would be unduly excluded from the race. After meeting with team officials, the UCI said Friday that a team won’t be automatically sent
Aug 29, 2020 Associated Press NICE, France — British rider Lizzie Deignan pipped defending champion Marianne Vos in a sprint finish Saturday to win La Course, the women’s one-day classic race organized as a Tour de France curtain-raiser. Following a series of unsuccessful attacks in the final kilometres in a group of six breakaway riders,
Aug 29, 2020 Associated Press NICE, France — Delayed but alive again and out on French roads, the strangest Tour de France ever set off Saturday in a bubble of anti-COVID protocols to try to keep the 176 riders virus-free for three weeks of racing through the country’s worsening epidemic. Only after riders peeled off
8:14 PM ET Associated Press OLYMPIA FIELDS, Ill. — Even with so few people around, Jon Rahm could hear from the other side of the Olympia Fields clubhouse that Dustin Johnson had made a 45-foot birdie on the final hole to force a playoff Sunday in the BMW Championship. Resilient as ever, Rahm went out
10:07 AM IST ESPNcricinfo staff Cummins XI 250 for 8 (Maxwell 108, Stoinis 87, Lyon 3-47) beat Finch XI 249 (Tye 59, Starc 41, Stoinis 4-31) by two wickets Glenn Maxwell hit a century in his first innings since the Big Bash final in February and Marcus Stoinis produced an impressive all-round display with 87