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First game of new Premier League season, 8pm kick-offArsenal’s opportunity | Football Daily | Mail ScottPlenty of debutants in the cast tonight. Every single one of them will have been dreaming of something like this …Mikel Arteta’s turn to talk pitchside to Sky. “The players need that desire to go again … I certainly have it … we have to create an opportunity … we don’t know what other clubs are going to do … we have to be the best version of ourselves … we have to deliver our game for 96 minutes every three days … if you are not capable of doing that, you are in trouble … we have to get better … we are trying to improve the team [in the transfer window] … but so far I am very happy.” Continue reading...

In this content-driven age, we consume sport as fleeting entertainment – but the fate of Captain Matthew Webb suggests we always havePull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. Three decades since my last swimming lesson, I found myself sitting in a lecture theatre chanting these words with a few dozen strangers, all of us trying not to take anyone’s eye out as we matched them to the actions.Pull. Breathe. Kick. Glide. I’ve been to enough Edinburgh fringe shows to inure myself to the embarrassment of audience participation. And, to be honest, this one was a pretty euphoric communal experience. It turns out you don’t need to be near water to marvel at a swimming feat, especially one that’s more than 150 years old. Continue reading...

Bolt’s name appears in Wythenshawe FC squad listTeam features several former Premier League starsThe sprinting legend Usain Bolt appears set to turn out for a star-studded Sunday league team in Greater Manchester after his name appeared in their online squad list.The eight-time Olympic champion, who still holds the world records for the 100 metres and 200m, appears on the player list for Wythenshawe FC Veterans on the Football Association’s Full-Time website. Continue reading...

39-year-old collapsed during event in JuneAmerican won world title in 2011 Former 1500m world champion Jenny Simpson says she will not return to running after she collapsed during a track event in June.Simpson, a three-time Olympian and one of the most accomplished American female runners in history, was pacing a mile group at an event in North Carolina when she went into cardiac arrest. She was given CPR before she was rushed to hospital, where she was placed on life support due to issues with her heart and lungs. Continue reading...

World No 1 makes ‘difficult decision’ to miss slamDraper still recovering from bone bruise in left armJannik Sinner will miss the US Open with a right knee injury. The world No 1 has not played a match since beating Alexander Zverev last month to successfully defend his Wimbledon title, missing the Masters 1000 events in Canada and Cincinnati. Great Britain’s Jack Draper is also out of the event.The news comes a day after his great rival Carlos Alcaraz, whom the Italian lost to in the final in New York 12 months ago, revealed he will make his comeback at Flushing Meadows after four months out with a wrist injury. Continue reading...

Nahuel Molina, Thiago Almada and Gavi also suspendedFifa issue $321,000 fine for Falkland Islands bannerThree Argentina players have been banned for their part in a brawl at the end of last month’s World Cup final against Spain, but they have only been fined for displaying a Falkland Islands banner after the semi-final win over England.Leandro Paredes has been given a 10-match ban and a $90,000 (£66,000) fine by Fifa’s disciplinary committee, while Nahuel Molina was given a seven-match suspension and fined the same amount. Continue reading...

The young Italian has a substantial lead but his rivals will not see him as being out of reach going into the Dutch GPThe Dutch Grand Prix may be hosting its final meeting on the Formula One calendar this weekend but its farewell heralds the opening of a championship run-in that is far from over. Rested, reset and ready to rumble, the title contenders in Zandvoort have an anticipatory air as they enter the sharp end of a fight which, as last season demonstrated, could yet be taken to the finale.Resuming after F1’s summer break there is, as always, a sprightly atmosphere to the sport. Team members have had time with their families and drivers have had a chance to decompress, assess, heck, even have a bit of fun, with Mercedes’s George Russell becoming engaged to his partner, Carmen Montero Mundt, and Lando Norris out and about in Ibiza with pals. Lewis Hamilton got his head down and trained hard, proclaiming himself fitter then ever, energised and refreshed, while Max Verstappen emerged at his home race to announce a new contract with his Red Bull team. Continue reading...

Jockey Juan Hernandez dashes to airport after victory‘He’s just so fast that it doesn’t matter what he runs on’His name is the Italian for a kiss but there is little delicacy or tenderness about Bacio, the front-running winner of the Nunthorpe Stakes here on Friday. He was headstrong and belligerent on the way to post and simply brutal once the race was under way, tearing down the five-furlong strip without seeing a rival on the way to a one-and-a-quarter length success.Juan Hernandez, Bacio’s jockey, had a plane to catch later on Friday – he has booked rides in California on Saturday afternoon – and his mount did all he could to ensure that he got to Heathrow on time, producing a carbon copy of his win in a five-furlong handicap at Royal Ascot in June. Continue reading...

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England wrapped up a comfortable victory but their red-ball men’s team will not be back in Leeds for a few yearsHarry Brook has sparkled in front of his own. The Yorkshireman ran the chase against Australia at Headingley three years ago and played a strong hand against India last year. On Thursday he was England’s top-scorer but the slightest misjudgment against Ali Usman’s left-arm spin on 91 was costly. He’s still waiting to take the helmet off at home, for Headingley to rise after he’s reached three figures in a Test match. He will have to keep waiting a few years.The ground finds itself without a men’s Test for the next two summers, not part of the England and Wales Cricket Board’s allocation for the visit of Pat Cummins’s Australia in 2027. It will have to wait until 2031 for that money-spinning fixture. With Old Trafford off the list too, there will not be a men’s Ashes Test in the north next summer. Sanjay Patel, Yorkshire’s chief executive, has called the absence of men’s Test cricket over the next two years “devastating” for the club, echoing the sentiments expressed in their most recent annual report and accounts. Continue reading...