Sports & Casinos UK

Follow all the latest news from day one of the festival Greg Wood’s tips | Sean Bowen interview | Email LukeThe first handicap at this year’s festival – promoted up the card after the Mares’ Hurdle moved to later in the week – is often the toughest nut to crack all week, as all bar one or two of the juveniles lining up will be making their handicap debut. That means, in turn – to no-one’s great surprise – that their trainers will have been doing all they can to show just enough form to get them into the race, but not so much that end up with too much weight. The mean price of the winners since the first running in 2005 has been 21-1, and while that is slightly skewed by the 80-1 victory of Jeff Kidder in 2021, there have also been two winners at 40-1, three at 33-1 and two at 25-1.The last eight winners, meanwhile, have all been trained in Ireland, and the last two were saddled by Joseph O’Brien, who fields Glen To Glen and Dignam this time around. Saratoga, meanwhile, is the mount of JP McManus’s (soon-to-be-ex) No.1, Mark Walsh, and has a very similar profile to the same owner’s Brazil, successful in this race in 2022. Manlaga, the winner of the Victor Ludorum at Haydock last time, is another live contender in the same colours, while Ammes, from the burgeoning James Owen stable, is also worth considering carefully as his excellent trainer has kept him away from hurdles since a strong run at Wetherby in October. My eventual pick in an ultra-competitive heat, though, is Faye Bramley’s Winston Junior, who has been put away since finishing behind my fancy for the Triumph Hurdle, Minella Study, in a strong race at Cheltenham in December. Continue reading...

⚽ Champions League news from the 5.45pm GMT kick-off⚽ Live scores | Read today’s Football Daily | Email ScottGalatasaray get the ball rolling. Liverpool desperately hoping to improve on the events of last September.The teams are out! And there’s some BREAKING NEWS: the atmosphere is hella hot at the Ali Sami Yen†. Cim Bom Bom! Galatasaray wear their classic red and yellow halves, Liverpool are in third-choice bottle green, a colour that may send shivers down the spine of the Candy generation. We’ll be off in a couple of Zadok-the-Priest-soundtracked minutes. Continue reading...

Former footballer accused of assault occasioning grievous bodily harm after incident outside Liverpool golf clubJoey Barton has been remanded in custody charged with attacking the headteacher of a school for children with additional needs.The former footballer was arrested after the incident outside a golf club in Liverpool at 9pm on Sunday. Continue reading...

With Indian Premier League investment on board, the Hundred has followed the IPL’s lead with a player auction for the 2026 season in London this weekA rather drab event space hidden away next to Boots near Piccadilly Circus feels a long way from the 18,000-capacity Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi, where the Indian Premier League auction was held in December, but the Hundred will take a significant step in the direction of its new big brother when the first major player auction in English sport takes place on Wednesday and Thursday.As is likely to be the case for all aspects of the competition moving forward the impetus for switching from a player draft to an auction has come from the new overseas investors, four of whom also own IPL teams, who having committed £975m to buying stakes of between 49% and 100% in the eight Hundred franchises, understandably want to control its future. Continue reading...

Masters powers past Kim for sprint gold redemptionAmerican claims 11th Paralympic gold medal at age 36Chernobyl-born star extends remarkable medal haulOksana Masters’ 11th Paralympic gold medal was “redemption” for the most decorated American Winter Paralympian.And it was clear just how much it meant to her. Masters screamed loudly several times in delight after winning the women’s sprint sitting discipline in Para cross-country skiing on Tuesday at Milan Cortina. Continue reading...

With its credibility swaying in the wake of a betting scandal, the very last thing the league needed was to be in business with a prediction platformThe timing of the suspensions was unfortunate. Or perhaps it was karmically inevitable.Forty-two days after Major League Soccer announced a new partnership with Polymarket – a prediction platform that lets its users bet on just about anything, including whether, when, and where one country will bomb another – a press release went out. A pair of Ghanaian-born former MLS players, Derrick Jones and Yaw Yeboah, had been banned from the league for life for betting on games, including their own.Leander Schaerlaeckens’ book on the United States men’s national soccer team, The Long Game, is out on 12 May. You can preorder it here. He teaches at Marist University. Continue reading...

Scot second in men’s visually impaired alpine combinedParalympicsGB mixed curlers lose to Italy in fifth defeatGreat Britain won their first medal of the Winter Paralympics on Tuesday as Neil Simpson imposed himself on a stacked field to claim silver in the men’s visually impaired alpine combined.Finishing second behind the home favourite Giacomo Bertagnolli, but ahead of Austria’s Johannes Aigner, who has won two gold medals at these Games, Simpson found the form the British team had been hoping for as he recorded a leading time in the final slalom race to pull himself up from fourth place in the standings. Continue reading...

Liam Rosenior has unlocked the forward and must do the same with Cole Palmer for the team to reach their potentialJoão Pedro had been a Chelsea player for less than two weeks when he faced Paris Saint-Germain in the final of the Club World Cup last summer. The settling-in period was intense. The forward had an impactful substitute appearance when he made his debut in the quarter-final win over Palmeiras, struck a clinical double when Fluminense were downed in the semi-finals and then, on a thrilling, sweaty afternoon in New Jersey, delivered the coup de grace when Chelsea became world champions thanks to a stunning demolition of PSG.It was 3-0 when João Pedro lifted a clever finish over Gianluigi Donnarumma in the 43rd minute, and the manner of the humiliation was hard for PSG to accept. Heads were scrambled as the newly crowned European champions felt their aura of invincibility ebb away at the end of an epic season. João Neves was shown a red card for a tangle with Marc Cucurella – who else? – and the loss of discipline even involved Luis Enrique, the PSG manager, appearing to slap João Pedro in the face when a mass brawl broke out at full-time. Continue reading...

Pair reportedly refused to board plane home Team’s departure for Malaysia ends Asian Cup saga Two more members of the Iranian women’s football team have reportedly sought asylum in Australia after refusing to board a flight back to their home country after competing in the Women’s Asian Cup tournament.A plane left Sydney airport on Tuesday night local time for Malaysia, reports said, with players and staff, ending a dramatic two days when five players were granted asylum after refusing to return home. Continue reading...

We take a look at the best images from the Games, including skiing, curling and ice hockey Continue reading...