US anti-doping accuses Wada of trying to ‘smear America’ amid Enhanced Games row

The war of words between anti‑doping bodies over the Enhanced Games has intensified after Usada accused Wada of attempting “to smear America”.Travis Tygart, president of the US Anti-Doping Agency, made the claim as he hit back at the World Anti-Doping Agency suggestion that it should do more to stop the pro‑doping event scheduled to take place in Las Vegas next year. Tygart said that Wada’s intervention was a “desperate attempt to divert attention” from its role in the Chinese swimming scandal of 2021.“For an organisation reportedly part of a criminal investigation by US law enforcement, the continued and blatantly false attacks from Wada president [Witold] Banka are a telling smokescreen,” Tygart said. “His attempts to smear America and our US Olympic and professional athletes is a desperate attempt to divert attention away from his failure in allowing China to sweep 23 positive tests under the carpet

Cheltenham’s November meeting heralds real start of National Hunt season

Three days of racing that starts on Friday has attracted nearly 400 entries, many hoping to return in March for the festivalThere are nine days of racing at Cheltenham each season before the track’s festival meeting in March. This time next week, with the showpiece event still four months away, five will be in the form book. It is, on the face of it, rather a waste of a magnificent racecourse (or two racecourses, since the New course takes over from the Old after the final afternoon of the November meeting on Sunday).But the paucity of racing at the home of jumping is, to some extent, the point. Cheltenham racing is National Hunt’s most precious resource and an increase in the supply would debase the currency

IOC edges closer to ban on transgender women in female Olympic events

The International Olympic Committee is edging closer towards implementing a ban on transgender women competing in the female category in time for the Los Angeles Olympic Games.Multiple sources expect such a ban to come into effect over the next six to 12 months with the new IOC president, Kirsty Coventry, making clear she wants to drive through her campaign pledge to protect the female category.Such a policy would also avoid potential conflict with the US president, Donald Trump, before the LA 2028 Games, after he signed an executive order to prevent transgender women from competing in female sport in February.The IOC, however, is still facing some internal resistance to a ban on athletes with differences of sexual development (DSD), who were reported female at birth but have male chromosomes and male testosterone levels.Such athletes, which include the London 2012 and Rio 2016 gold medallist Caster Semenya, have now been barred by World Athletics from the female category

Richard Sharp obituary

The rugby union player Richard Sharp was an England fly-half and captain best remembered for a scintillating try against Scotland at Twickenham that secured the Five Nations championship, and for home supporters was a warming ray of sunshine during the bleak, freezing winter of 1963. The flaxen-haired Sharp sold three audacious dummies to would-be Scottish defenders on his angled run to the line and John Willcox’s conversion secured a 10-8 victory.The try was vindication for Sharp, who a year earlier on the British & Irish Lions tour to South Africa had found himself unwittingly at the centre of a cause celebre when he was the victim of an act of thuggery by North Transvaal’s Mannetjies Roux, who hit the Oxford University student with a head-high tackle that broke the young man’s cheekbone. Sharp was knocked unconscious, then missed the first two Tests, and his absence had a bearing on the series, which the Lions lost 3-0. Even in South Africa there was an outcry that Roux was selected for the first Test, and the tourists were incensed

From floored to flawed: Does anyone want to win the Super Bowl this season?

The NFL is built on parity. But this season the NFC only has a few contenders while even the best teams in the AFC have worrying flawsNo league sells parity like the NFL: it’s the entire brand. But through 10 weeks of this season, this isn’t a league that is equally balanced between the good, the bad and the mediocre. It’s one where most of the league is simply fine. In the NFC, at least, there is some clarity

England touch down in Perth but sleepy Lilac Hill is an unlikely Ashes starting point

Just beyond the boundary’s edge, a cockatoo flew into the hole in a eucalyptus tree where it is nesting. Beyond that, the Swan River flowed. Galahs, chests as pink as those any number of Englishmen will be sporting in a couple of weeks’ time, snuffled on the grass. Other birds flitted around the park, even those with less eye‑catching plumage sporting eye‑catching names: black-faced cuckooshrikes; willie wagtails. Um, ducks