A gleaming tribute to Mary Rand’s gold | Brief letters

As a schoolboy, I was fascinated by coverage of the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. A few years later, on a family holiday, we visited Wells Cathedral. Outside the grounds lay a gleaming brass strip in the pavement marking the distance that Mary Rand long-jumped to create her world record. A lovely tribute to this remarkable person (Mary Rand, first British woman to win Olympic athletics gold, dies aged 86, 27 March).Anil BhattSunderland Your review of the fourth instalment of Alan Bennett’s diaries, Enough Said (24 March), says he nearly always notes the anniversary of the beginning of his national service: “8/8/52

‘The computer went bananas’: error at O’Brien yard removes horses from 2,000 Guineas

The betting market for the 2,000 Guineas at Newmarket on 2 May was thrown into confusion on Tuesday when two significant candidates from the Aidan O’Brien stable, Gstaad and Albert Einstein, were taken out of the race, apparently as the result of an administrative error.The chaos was then compounded later in the day by uncertainty over whether a plan to re-engage both colts if necessary at a cost of £30,000 each might be prohibited by the rules of entry, before the British Horseracing Authority confirmed that supplementary entries would in fact be accepted.Gstaad, the winner of the Breeders’ Cup Juvenile Turf at Del Mar in November, was priced up on Tuesday morning at around 6‑1 for the first Classic of the season, and seen as potentially the Ballydoyle first string for a race the stable has won a record 10 times.He assumed the role of O’Brien’s No 1 contender after Albert Einstein, the winner of his first two starts as a juvenile in 2025 but unraced beyond May because of injury, finished only sixth of 10 runners on his three‑year‑old debut in a Listed race at the Curragh three days ago.Despite that reverse, however, and a subsequent suggestion that Albert Einstein might revert to sprinting with the Commonwealth Cup at Royal Ascot as an initial target, the colt was still priced up at 20-1 for the 2,000 Guineas and O’Brien intended to confirm both two-year-olds at the latest declaration stage on Tuesday

‘Death hunted him since he was a kid’: how Lamar Odom survived to become a villain in his own tale

A new documentary charts the tragic events that led to the former NBA star overdosing in a Nevada brothel – and what came nextThere’s a version of the Lamar Odom story that ends in a Nevada brothel. It’s not hard to imagine the grand finale – the TMZ bulletin relating his fatal drug overdose, followed by emotional tributes to what was lost: a radical basketball prodigy of the New York tradition, a two-time NBA champion with the Kobe Bryant Lakers, a glittering career that spanned coasts and eras before caving under the weight of addiction. A cautionary tale of incandescent fame, with Odom’s celebrity wife Khloé Kardashian cast as a man-eater to eclipse her more notorious older sister, would have been the epilogue cemented in a thousand think pieces.But by living to tell the tale, Odom has instead become the latest fallen star to prove a core truism of Western mythmaking: heroes who don’t die young are doomed to live long enough to become the villain in their own tale.“There is a way of understanding Lamar where everything in his life is kind of in reaction to death hunting him since he was a kid,” says Ryan Duffy, executive producer of Netflix’s Untold sports docuseries

County Championship 2026: team-by-team guide to the new season

Surrey look well placed to reclaim the title after their runner-up finish last season while all eyes are on promotion for LancashireCaptain Tom Westley Coach Chris Silverwood Last season 6th Div OneEssex seemed to spend most of last summer chasing their tail. The bowling resources were stretched, with Sam Cook battling injury as well as spending time with England and Simon Harmer not romping through sides with quite the gusto he once did. Some prudent signings have added ballast: the zippy Zaman Akhter from Gloucestershire and young Mitchell Killeen, from Durham, can provide cover for Cook and the ever reliable Jamie Porter. Jordan Cox will miss the early part of the season with the Indian Premier League but Charlie Allison has a chance to make a name for himself after a fabulous 2025. Prediction 6thCaptain Kiran Carlson Coach Richard Dawson Last season 2nd Div TwoAfter 20 years skulking around Division Two, Glamorgan are finally back in the big time

The Breakdown | Parling’s TV spat with Doyle symbolises the tug of war for rugby’s modern soul

No prizes for guessing the most viewed rugby clip at the weekend. The number of views on X has long since passed three million and – spoiler alert – people were not studying the finer detail of Gloucester’s defensive effort at Villa Park on Saturday. Leicester’s Geoff Parling used to be just another stern-faced Prem coach; suddenly he is an unlikely global social media star.For those who missed it – and here’s hoping you enjoyed your mini-break on Jupiter – here is a potted summary. The TNT Sports presenter Craig Doyle and a new colleague, Liam MacDevitt, were on the pitch before the game, with MacDevitt being urged to take a kick at goal as part of his on-screen Prem initiation

Middlesex ‘drifting towards irrelevance’: Gatting leads revolt against club leadership

A group of past Middlesex players led by the former England captain Mike Gatting has delivered a withering assessment of the county’s leadership on the eve of the new season and warned the club risk “drifting towards irrelevance”.In an open letter to members – a clarion call before the club’s annual general meeting on 15 April – Gatting and his co-signatories have highlighted a lack of transparency and called the cricket setup “a mess”.The former West Indies opener Desmond Haynes and England’s Mark Ramprakash are among others to have put their names to the letter.They wrote: “Middlesex was once a byword for excellence in the game, a club with a proud history of success and a strong, competitive culture brought about by hard work on and off the pitch. Instead, around the counties the men’s teams now are variously regarded as ‘a soft touch’ and ‘lacking fight’