Mar 16
England manager Martin Johnson urges his side to continue their improvement after seeing them hand out a 34-10 Six Nations hiding to France.
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Mar 15
England beat France 34-10 with some magnificent attacking rugby in a five-try rout at Twickenham.
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Mar 13
MONTAGNE DE LURE, France (Reuters) – Alberto Contador regained the overall lead of the Paris-Nice race in spectacular fashion with victory in the sixth stage from St Paul Trois Chateaux to the summit of the Montagne de Lure Friday.
Mar 11
ST ETIENNE, France (Reuters) – American Christian Vande Velde won the fourth stage of the Paris-Nice race as favorite Alberto Contador made up lost ground with a sharp attack in the last climb on Wednesday.
Mar 10
Uefa will assess bids from France, Italy, Turkey and a joint proposal from Norway and Sweden to host Euro 2016.
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Mar 06
Lindsey Vonn won her fourth straight super-G race Sunday and promised to chase more trophies on the women’s World Cup circuit after a successful stop in Bulgaria.
“There is no conservative skiing for me,” the 24-year-old American said. “I have to be really aggressive—that’s my strategy.”
After three races here, the defending overall World Cup champion widened her lead in the standings to nearly 400 points. She also moved into contention for the super-G trophy a day after clinching the downhill title, joining her idol, Picabo Street, as the only Americans to win back-to-back titles in the discipline.
On Sunday, Vonn won the super-G in 1 minute, 14.49 seconds, sweeping aside concerns caused by an injured thumb and a bruising fall in training three days ago.
Two of the tournament’s standouts, Fabienne Suter of Switzerland and Tina Maze of Slovenia, lagged by 0.58 and 0.91 seconds for second and third place.
Bulgaria’s bumpy and icy course—used for the first time on the women’s circuit—hurt Vonn’s main rivals in the overall standings.
Germany’s Maria Riesch, who tied for fifth place Sunday, is now 391 points behind Vonn’s tally of 1,556 in the overall standings. Anja Paerson of Sweden, third overall with 986 points, finished her first race in Bulgaria for 10th place in the super-G.
“I think all my disciplines are better this year,” Vonn said. “Super-G has been the best season in my life, above and beyond what I expected this year.”
The American closed within 15 points of Suter in the super-G standings.
Jan 09
The UN Security Council has passed a resolution urging an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, with the US alone abstaining.
The UK-drafted resolution also calls for a full Israeli withdrawal, unimpeded humanitarian access and intense diplomatic efforts for peace.
After 13 days of war, an estimated 770 Palestinians and 14 Israelis are dead.
Israeli bombing killed at least six Palestinians overnight, medics and Hamas officials say.
In a report which could not be verified independently, Hamas said a bomb had flattened a five-storey apartment block in northern Gaza.
Israeli warplanes made 30 new air strikes after dark.
The UN’s relief agency halted aid operations in Gaza on Thursday after one person was killed and two hurt when a fork-lift truck on a UN aid mission came under Israeli tank fire at Gaza’s Erez crossing.
US waits
It is the first time the Security Council has acted since the Israeli offensive in Gaza began on 27 December.
Explaining America’s abstention, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the resolution was a step forward but her government wanted to see the outcome of mediation efforts.
“The United States thought it important to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation efforts, in order to see what this resolution might have been supporting and that is why we chose to abstain,” she said.
Jan 08
Israeli air attacks on the Gaza Strip has resumed after a three-hour truce to allow in humanitarian aid, with border tunnels apparently the main target.
Israeli planes leafleted southern Gaza by day, warning of imminent attacks, and the sounds of war could be heard from the border by nightfall.
Nearly 700 Palestinian and 11 Israeli lives are said to have been lost since the offensive began 12 days ago.
Peace efforts move to Cairo shortly, with an Israeli envoy due in the city.
But Israel is prepared to go even deeper into the Gaza Strip in the coming hours, BBC Middle East editor Jeremy Bowen reports from the Israeli border near Rafah.
Our editor could hear the clatter of Israeli helicopters and the report of at least one explosion from inside southern Gaza late on Wednesday night.
“Because Hamas uses your houses to hide and smuggle military weapons, the IDF [Israel Defence Forces] will attack the area,” read leaflets released earlier by the thousand over the Rafah area by Israeli planes.
Unconfirmed reports speak of a tank advance with helicopter support towards Khan Younis, also in the south, shortly after midnight.
Truce options
Israeli security sources have confirmed that senior Israeli defence official Amos Gilad will travel to Cairo on Thursday to discuss ceasefire options.
A Hamas delegation is expected in Cairo at some stage for parallel “technical” talks, Egyptian diplomats said.
Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas is expected in the Egyptian capital on Friday.
Jan 07
At least 40 people were killed and 55 injured when Israeli artillery shells landed outside a United Nations-run school in Gaza, UN officials have said.
A number of children were among those who died when the al-Fakhura school in the Jabaliya refugee camp was hit, doctors at nearby hospitals said.
Israel said its soldiers had come under fire from militants inside the school.
Earlier, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned of a “full-blown humanitarian crisis” in Gaza.
Speaking on the 11th day of the Israeli assault, a senior ICRC official, Pierre Kraehenbuhl, said life in Gaza had become intolerable.
Palestinian health ministry officials say 595 people have been killed since the attacks began, 195 of them children. Mr Kraehenbuhl said much more needed to be done to protect civilians.
The UN Security Council is set to resume debate on a ceasefire call in New York, with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, several Arab foreign ministers, UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice among those attending.
At least 125 Palestinians and five Israeli soldiers were killed on Tuesday.
One soldier was killed in an exchange of fire with militants in Gaza City, while four others were killed by shellfire from their own tanks earlier in the day, Israeli military officials said.
Israel says its offensive is stopping militants firing rockets, but at least five hit southern Israel on Tuesday, with one reaching the town of Gedera, about 40km (25 miles) from Gaza, and injuring a baby.
Four Israeli civilians have been killed by rocket fire from the Gaza Strip since the offensive began.
In other developments:
* Israeli forces push further south in the Gaza Strip and clash with militants near Gaza City
* Skirmishes are reported on the edges of the Deir al-Balah and Bureij refugee camps in central Gaza
* Witnesses say Israeli tanks and soldiers are advancing on the southern town of Khan Younis
* Venezuela orders the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador in protest at the offensive and its “flagrant violations of international law”
Many claims cannot be verified. Israel is refusing to let international journalists into Gaza, despite a Supreme Court ruling to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.
‘Mortar fire’
The UN aid agency in Gaza, Unrwa, said three artillery shells had landed close to the al-Fakhura school on Tuesday afternoon, spraying shrapnel on people both inside and outside the building.
About 350 people had sought refuge at the school in an effort to escape the fighting between Israeli soldiers and militants on the outskirts of the Jabaliya refugee camp, to the east of Gaza City.
Television footage showed bodies scattered on the ground amid pools of blood.
The UN officials said they regularly provided the Israeli military with exact co-ordinates of their facilities, and that the school was in a built-up area.
UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was “deeply dismayed” that despite these efforts, three UN-run schools had been hit by nearby Israeli strikes.
The Israeli military said that, according to initial checks, its soldiers had come under mortar fire from militants inside the al-Fakhura school.
“The force responded with mortars at the source of fire,” it said in a statement. “Hamas cynically uses civilians as human shields.”
It later reported that two well-known members of a Hamas rocket-launching cell had been among those killed at the school, naming them as Imad and Hassan Abu Askar.
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said the incident was a “very extreme example of how Hamas operates”.
“If you take over – I presume with guns – a UN facility. If you hold the people there as hostages, you shoot out of that facility at Israeli soldiers in the neighbourhood, then you receive incoming fire – I think that’s a war crime under international law,” he told the BBC.
A Hamas spokesman, Fauzi Barhoun, said allegations that fighters had used the school to attack Israeli forces were “baseless”.
“There was no fire of any kind from the school,” he told the BBC.
Two unnamed residents who spoke to an Associated Press reporter by phone said a group of militants had been firing mortar shells from near the school.
Earlier in the day, at least three Palestinians were killed when another school was hit in the Shati camp, UN officials said.
Ten people were also injured at a UN health centre in the Bureij refugee camp.
Maxwell Gaylard, the UN humanitarian co-ordinator for the Palestinian territories, described the incidents as tragic and demanded an independent investigation.
The director of operations for Unrwa, John Ging, told the BBC that conditions in Gaza were “horrific” and that nowhere was safe for civilians there.
Mr Ging said international leaders had a responsibility to act to protect civilians, some 14,000 of whom are sheltering in UN buildings.
‘Immediate ceasefire’
Diplomatic efforts to try to end the violence are gathering pace.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he had asked his Syrian counterpart, Bashar Assad, to help convince Hamas to co-operate with efforts to end the Israeli offensive. Syria is regarded as a main backer of Hamas.
Asked about the deaths at the UN school in Gaza, Mr Sarkozy said: “It reinforces my determination for all this to stop as quickly as possible.”
He later held talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak in Sharm el-Sheikh, who offered to hold talks with Israel and the Palestinians on border security without delay.
US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said the US would like to see “an immediate ceasefire” in Gaza.
US President-elect Barack Obama, meanwhile, broke his silence about the conflict, telling reporters that “the loss of civilian life in Gaza and Israel is a source of deep concern for me”.
However, he also reiterated his principle that only President George W Bush would speak for US foreign policy at this time.
The BBC’s Laura Trevelyan in New York says the contours of an agreement are taking shape – international monitors along the Egypt-Gaza border to stop Hamas smuggling weapons and firing rockets at Israel, and the creation of a humanitarian corridor in southern Gaza to ensure that aid reaches the Palestinians.
The question now is whether Hamas will accept such a deal and if a call for a ceasefire will be heeded by Israel, our correspondent says.
Hamas has said that Israeli attacks on Gaza must stop and the crossings into the territory, which Israel controls, must be fully opened, before it agrees to a ceasefire.
Israeli Prime Miniser Ehud Olmert said on Tuesday that the military campaign in Gaza would continue until Israel had completely wiped out Hamas’s ability to fire rockets into Israel.
source: bbc.co.uk
Jan 07
Israel has halted military operations in Gaza for three hours in the first of a daily, planned ceasefire, it says.
An Israeli spokesman said it would allow Gazans to “get medical attention, get supplies… whatever they need“.
There were at least two air strikes on Gaza in the first few minutes of the ceasefire, and correspondents say it is unclear if it covers all of Gaza.
Israel’s move came as pressure built on it and the Palestinian militant group Hamas to accept a ceasefire deal.
The plan, backed by the UN and the US and proposed by Egypt and France, calls for an immediate ceasefire.
Responding to the proposal, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel viewed talks with Egypt “positively”. Israel’s security cabinet is meeting to consider the deal, but ministers are also expected to discuss expanding operations in Gaza.
Blockade
Israel’s military said the three-hour pause in operations to create “humanitarian corridors” for supplies and fuel would happen every day.
A Hamas spokesman told Al Arabiya television that the group would not launch any missiles at Israeli targets during the lull.
Israel has been criticised by aid agencies who have warned of a mounting humanitarian crisis for the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza, who are unable to escape from the conflict because of Israel’s blockade.
However Christopher Gunness, a spokesman for the UN relief agency Unwra, said the move did not go far enough.
“When you are trying to feed 750,000 people a day in Gaza as we are, you need a permanent ceasefire. You can’t do that in a three-hour window,” he said.
It follows one of the deadliest days since the offensive began last month, with more than 130 people killed on Tuesday.
Overnight, Israeli forces launched 40 fresh air strikes in Gaza, while Israeli media reports say nine rockets were fired into southern Israel from Gaza early on Wednesday.
Little official detail has been given about the French-Egyptian ceasefire proposal, but diplomats say it centres around measures to halt weapons smuggling from Egypt into Gaza, coupled with moves to ease the blockade.
A Palestinian official said Gaza’s Hamas rulers, who want an end to Israel’s blockade of the enclave, were debating the proposal, the Reuters news agency reported.
Israel wants to stop rocket attacks on southern Israel and to stop Hamas smuggling weapons into Gaza via Egypt, while Hamas says any ceasefire deal must include an end to Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip.
More than 600 Palestinians are now believed to have been killed since Israel began its offensive on 27 December.
Palestinian health ministry officials say at least 195 children were among those killed.
An Israeli attack on Tuesday on a UN-run school building, being used to shelter people who had fled their homes, killed 40 people, UN officials say.
The Israeli military said its soldiers had come under mortar fire from Hamas militants inside the school.
However, Unwra’s Christopher Gunness said the agency was “99.9 per cent certain” that there were no militants or militant activity in the school compound, and called for an independent investigation into the incident.
A spokesman for Hamas denied there had been any hostile fire coming from the school.
Since the start of its military operation in Gaza, Israel has lost seven soldiers on the ground. Four people within Israel have been killed by rockets.
At least five hit southern Israel on Tuesday, one of them injuring a baby.
Support for truce
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice welcomed the French-Egyptian plan, saying the US was “pleased by and wish[es] to commend… that initiative”.
Israel’s ambassador to the UN, Gabriela Shalev, did not say whether Israel would accept the proposal but said it would take it “very, very seriously”.
The contours of a possible diplomatic agreement are in place, the BBC’s Laura Trevelyan reports from the UN.
However, if Israel continues to control the flow of humanitarian aid into Gaza and can choose to stop it at any time this seems unlikely to command the support of Hamas, our correspondent notes.
Casualty claims in Gaza cannot be independently verified. Israel is refusing to let international journalists into Gaza, despite a supreme court ruling to allow a limited number of reporters to enter the territory.
source: bbc.co.uk
Jan 03
Felix Neureuther of Germany won the World Cup parallel slalom here on Friday in an event staged on an artificial slope to help promote Russia’s readiness to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.
France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange was second with American superstar Bode Miller taking third ahead of compatriot Ted Ligety in a competition held in the shadow of the Kremlin.
“I feel great,” Neureuther said. “It’s natural to feel great when you win.
“It was very interesting to compete on this artificial ramp. It’s completely different to a natural slope, but still a really challenging and interesting experience.”
The 24-year-old Neureuther defeated Bernard Vajdic of Slovenia in the opening round, Austria’s Mario Matt in the quarter-final and Ligety in the semis before beating FIS World Cup slalom section leader Grange in the deciding races.
Neureuther won the first leg of the final and finished even with the Frenchman in the second.
The referees decided to give the finalists the third deciding attempt but Grange missed his chance as he fell in the middle of the distance.
A special 200m artificial ski slope, with a 56m drop in height, was constructed within the campus of Moscow State University specially for the event.
The organisers however had to bring to Moscow a caravan of refrigerators with more than 3,000 cubic metres of natural snow from Siberia to provide the competitors with a top-class surface that fit strict FIS demands.
from: google.com
Dec 28
IT’s a strange world in which Michael Phelps can win a record eight Olympic gold medals and still be challenged for pre-eminence in the year of the Beijing Games.
But a bolt from the blue Caribbean, in the shape of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, managed to drag the spotlight from the Water Cube to the Bird’s Nest, as two of history’s greatest athletes framed the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.
International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge declared the two men the “icons of the Games”.
In a record-breaking year for records, the pair were also the foremost exponents of the art of going where no athlete has gone before.
Appropriately for the first Olympics staged in China, Phelps and Bolt represented the Yin and Yang of great champions — the swimmer and the runner, water and earth, a diet of 12,000 calories a day versus chicken nuggets for breakfast. Phelps lit up the Games by day (thanks to NBC’s insistence on morning finals in the pool) and Bolt by night.
But where Phelps’ triumphant march was expected, even demanded (NBC was counting on it), Bolt’s sudden rise to superstardom was a joyous gift for his troubled sport, beset by doping scandals which had tarnished its credibility along with some once-great names.
It takes a huge talent to hold 90,000 people in thrall but Bolt captured them at the Bird’s Nest from the moment he dashed down the straight to win the 100m in a world record 9.69sec, becoming the fastest man on the planet, despite a side-stepping celebration over the last 20m that may have cost him up to 0.1sec.
But Bolt’s Calypso rhythm and youthful exuberance brought much-needed star quality to the main stadium.
The only time that 21-year-old Bolt was deadly serious was when he stepped onto the blocks for the 200m final. A 200m specialist as a junior competitor, he was desperate to break his hero Michael Johnson’s lauded world record of 19.32sec from Atlanta in 1996.
Bolt ran the half-lap with his eyes only on that mark and every fast-twitch fibre straining forward, stopping the clock in an astonishing 19.30sec.
And he wasn’t finished there. The showman of the Games then combined with former world 100m record-holder Asafa Powell and his Jamaican team-mates to set a third world record in the 4x100m relay.
His name was attached to three of the five world records to fall at the Bird’s Nest.
If Bolt was the king of the track, Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva was the queen of the air, after she soared to a world record of 5.05m in the pole vault to clinch her second successive Olympic gold medal.
Dec 28
Relish the memories – 2008 was a special year for sport, and the outlook for the next few does not appear half so rosy.
Next year is thin in terms of big international events. The World Athletics Championships take place in Berlin, and it is left to rugby union – a minority sport globally – to provide another highlight when the British and Irish Lions tour South Africa, the world champions. And further ahead, the successor hosts of two of this year’s stellar events, the Olympic Games and the European Football Championships, have hard acts to follow, with fewer resources and the global economic crisis to combat.
The Beijing Olympics was the apex of 2008. China opened its doors to the world and demonstrated that it could organise a successful sporting extravaganza. It did so by hurling massive amounts of money and manpower at the Games, in a manner that perhaps only an authoritarian state could. The yin and yang nature of the event was symbolised by the happiness and pride of the Chinese people at hosting the world’s biggest sporting party on the one hand, and their government’s refusal to budge an inch over human rights on the other.
Dec 14
Two weeks after stunning spectators when he came from 65th to finish second in a downhill in Lake Louise, Switzerland’s Carlo Janka clinched his career first World Cup win during a giant slalom in Val d’Isere. The U.S. Ski Team’s Ted Ligety (Park City, UT) struggled under tough light and snow conditions to finish 12th.
The men’s giant slalom, along with the rest of this weekend’s alpine coverage, will be webcast on demand at UniversalSports.com.
Italy’s Massimiliano Blardone took second in the giant slalom and Gauthier De Tessieres of France was third.
Dec 13
GOYANG, South Korea : South Korean starlet Kim Yu-Na took first place in the ladies short programme at the ISU Grand Prix Friday, held in Goyang on the outskirts of Seoul.
In front of a huge home crowd, Kim scored 65.94 points to take top ranking despite making one mistake in her routine.
After nailing her opening jump combination of triple flip and triple toeloop, she botched the takeoff on her triple lutz, managing only a single rotation in the air.
A solid skate in the remainder of her routine enabled Kim to narrowly edge her Japanese rival Mao Asada, who is second at 65.38 points.
Nov 09
IOC pressure Great Britain to change doping laws ahead of London Olympics 2012
information, olympics No Comments »The IOC are growing increasingly frustrated at Britain’s refusal to introduce legislation to outlaw the possession, supply and distribution of performance-enhancing drugs.
Their stance leaves them out of step with other European countries such as Sweden, France, Italy, Greece and Germany where anti-doping laws mean athletes and their suppliers can go to jail.
Arne Ljungqvist, the chairman of the IOC’s medical commission, said he would be pressing for a change in the British law, which would be an important legacy of the 2012 Olympics.
The subject will be raised by the IOC when Olympic host and bidding cities gather in London later this month for a post-Beijing debrief.
The IOC are considering making it a condition of bidding for future Olympic Games that candidate countries have anti-doping laws. In the meantime, just as the Chinese authorities were persuaded to introduce new legislation in the run-up to this summer’s Games, Britain will be under pressure to fall into line.
Ljungqvist, who is also a board member of the World Anti-Doping Agency, said: “I think legislation is very important that criminalises certain offences as detailed in the WADA code because it allows public authorities to intervene where we cannot.
“We as sports authorities have our limited possibilities regulated by our code. We can do testing but we cannot do searches.”
Nov 05
There are endorsements that no one welcomes, however enthusiastic: Hamas for Obama, Osama for McCain. But what of the entire globe? Barack Obama goes into today’s vote with the overwhelming backing of the world beyond America’s borders in a presidential race that has gripped audiences like no election before.
Obamamania is at fever pitch across Europe, where his ratings regularly exceed 80 per cent. Germany, the Netherlands and France form the cheer-leading front row. Not since John F. Kennedy has France so fallen for a presidential candidate; if citoyens had the vote, Mr Obama would trounce Mr McCain by 72 points.
Urbane, intellectual and idealistic, Mr Obama “is the kind of American we love”, said Jack Lang, a Socialist and the long-serving Culture Minister of the late President Mitterrand. “His is the America of jazz and Fitzgerald and Falconer and Kerouac and Kennedy.”
In Russia, ordinary people are fascinated by the notion that America may elect its first black president, not least because even Moscow has almost no black population. Such is the expectation that Mr Obama will win that matrioshka “Russian nesting” dolls bearing his face have already been spotted for sale at Russian markets.
At an official level, Russia blames the US for the global economic crisis and the government line is that whoever wins must rein in imperialist ambitions and concentrate on the economy. But fears remain that Mr McCain would more hostile to Russia and more hawkish on Georgia, Nato expansionism and the Eastern European antimissile shield.
Oct 30
IOC president Jacques Rogge foresees no immediate threat to the Olympics from the global financial crisis and says the fight against doping will be a key priority for a second term in office.
Rogge, a 66-year-old Belgian who has led the International Olympic Committee since 2001, notified members last Friday that he will seek re-election next October for a final four-year term that will take him to 2013.
He spoke in a telephone interview with The Associated Press ahead of a news conference in Brussels, Belgium, on Thursday where he publicly announced his candidacy for another term at the helm of the IOC.
No challengers are expected and Rogge’s re-election is considered a formality at the October 2009 assembly in Copenhagen, Denmark.
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