‘I struggled without realising’: Tommy Freeman reveals mental toll of workload

England’s Tommy Freeman has revealed the extent of his mental struggles after the victorious British & Irish Lions tour of Australia at the end of a season when he exceeded the player welfare limits for the number of appearances.Freeman played in 34 games last season – 19 for Northampton, nine for England and six for the Lions – and has spoken of a “built-up anxiety” as a result of the workload. The mandated limit is 30, but players were given dispensation for the Lions tour on the proviso they were allowed five weeks off on returning from Australia and missed the first two rounds of the 2025-26 season.The 24-year-old, who started all three Tests against the Wallabies, was one of 15 England players to take part in the Lions tour. Ireland, England’s opponents at Twickenham on Saturday, contributed 18 to a squad overseen by their head coach, Andy Farrell

Winter Olympics: Unbeaten USA roll into women’s ice hockey final v Canada

A United States women’s hockey team already being hailed as one of the best ever assembled is right where they expected to be: playing for Olympic gold. The Americans brushed aside Sweden 5-0 in the first of Monday’s semi-finals, setting the stage for a seventh gold-medal showdown with Canada, who held on for a closer-than-expected 2-1 win over Switzerland in the nightcap.Twenty years ago, almost to the day, the USA women absorbed one of the great Olympic shocks when Sweden stunned them at the same stage in a shootout just down the A4 autostrada in Torino, ending a streak of 25 straight losses to the Americans during which they’d been outscored 187-29. There would be no such ambush this time, even if Sweden coach Ulf Lundberg had suggested the US team were “just human beings” and might not have been overly keen on facing his team in the semi-finals.The US dominated possession from the opening faceoff and struck first after six minutes when defender Cayla Barnes whipped a snap shot from the edge of the right circle into the top-right corner, marking the sixth straight game in which the Americans have scored in the opening period

Sri Lanka beat Australia by eight wickets: T20 World Cup cricket – as it happened

What a pleasure it was to cover that innings from Pathum Nissanka in real time.Congratulations Sri Lanka. Comizzerz to Australia.That’s us done for today but we’ll be back to OBO plenty more games from this exciting T20I World Cup.Thanks for tuning in, goodbye

Heraskevych ban reflects badly on the International Olympic Committee | Letters

Lizzy Yarnold says the ban on the Ukrainian skeleton racer Vladyslav Heraskevych centres on this rule in the Olympic charter: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas” (Olympic chiefs have got it badly wrong over Heraskevych ban and owe him an apology, 13 February).However, I’m not sure how the International Olympic Committee can say Heraskevych is presenting “political propaganda” when he simply has the images of deceased athletes on his helmet – there was no statement nor overt symbolism that is anti-Russia, and no mention of the war or nationalism etc.If those athletes had all died in a plane crash on holiday in the Caribbean, would they disqualify him? If his mother had died in the war and he had her picture on his helmet, would they disqualify him? If he was Christian and had a neck tattoo of a cross, would they disqualify him? This was a human tribute, not political propaganda. The IOC botched the interpretation of the rules here. I agree that they owe him an official apology

‘I just needed some time for myself’: Norwegian skier hides in woods after slalom gold heartache

For more than a century of Winter Olympic sport, athletes have dealt with defeat in almost every possible way: tears, tantrums, breaking things, breaking down. On Monday afternoon in Bormio, the Norwegian Atle Lie McGrath processed his grief in a novel way after the men’s slalom gold medal had slipped away. First, he threw his ski poles as far as he could and then he hid in the woods.“I just needed to get away from everything,” he said. “I thought I would get some peace and quiet, which I didn’t because photographers and police found me out in the woods

How British skeleton left the world in its tracks with golden Winter Olympics haul | Andy Bull

According to the British Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation, 3,500 people have signed up to audition for their skeleton Talent ID programme in the past three days, an extraordinary surge of interest in what has never been what you might call the most accessible sport.It is all after Matt Weston and Tabby Stoecker won Great Britain’s 10th and 11th Olympic medals in the sport, continuing a lineage that reaches back to 1928, when it was the winter sport of choice for the most reckless of a set of aristocratic adventurers. The 11th Earl of Northesk won bronze ahead of his teammate, and the pre-race favourite, Lord Brabazon of Tara. It is some legacy. After a century of competition, skeleton is the only Winter Olympic sport in which Britain lead the all-time medal table