Sports News

There wasn’t a dry eye as the assembled gathering of some of the world’s greatest ever athletes; including Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Simone Biles, Beatrice Vio, Nico Rosberg and Claudio Ranierie, paid homage to one particulate winner at  this year’s Laureus World Sports Awards. It was the Refugee team – 10 hand-picked refugees from Syria, Congo, Ethiopia and South Sudan - which competed at the 2016 Rio Olympic Games, taking part in athletics, swimming and judo was awarded for Sporting Inspiration.

The start lists are now live for the Müller Indoor Grand Prix Birmingham, which takes place at the Barclaycard Arena this Saturday February 18. A total of five Rio Olympic champions will be among 25 current global medallists competing at the world’s top indoor athletics meeting, which is the final of the IAAF World Indoor Tour. Sir Mo Farah will be one of those Olympic champions as he competes in the 5000m. The four time Olympic champion and five time world champion will face a field including Scotland’s Andrew Butchart, who ran the third fastest 3000m in the world this year with a time of 7:41.05 in New York on Saturday.

Novak Djokovic, last year’s Laureus World Sportsman of the Year, lit up the red carpet at the Laureus World Sports Awards in Berlin by showing his off dazzling white sneakers in an acrobatic leap in front of the world’s media. The image took the internet by storm and sent a message that sport can have the power to change the world.

The 2017 Vitality Superleague season promises to be one of the most exciting yet, with competition increased courtesy of three new franchises, talent spread across the league thanks to smaller playing rosters and new exciting players, plus venues and coaches. The weekly action promises to be fierce and exciting.

British tennis is enjoying its most successful period for 30 years, and the next generation of up-and-coming players can sharpen their technique using the same facilities that have helped inspire the nation's stars at two new junior academies at Spain's La Manga Club this year. The official overseas training base of the Lawn Tennis Association, La Manga Club has hosted the likes of world number one Andy Murray as well as British women's number one Johanna Konta, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund in recent years, and the resort will be running two extra programmes in 2017 – an 'Advanced Matchplay' academy and 'Junior Elite' academy.

Britain’s 60m hurdles world leader Andrew Pozzi will go head to head with Rio Olympic silver and bronze medallists Orlando Ortega and Dimitri Bascou, as well as rising star David Omoregie, at the Müller Indoor Grand Prix in Birmingham. Ortega of Spain and France’s reigning European champion Bascou, are just two of 39 current global champions and medallists competing at the world’s top indoor athletics meeting at the Barclaycard Arena on 18 February.

Innsbruck has been the starting, staging or finishing point of various major bikes races on more than thirty occasions. With the Tour of the Alps, the Ötztal Bike Marathon, the Crankworx Biking Festival, the Road Race and the Haute Routes Dolomites, this year Innsbruck will be hosting no fewer than five international élite biking events. And these will whet the appetite for the event highlight next year: in September 2018 Innsbruck will be the venue for the UCI – Road World Championships where the best road racers in the world will be gathering. 

Atlanta’s own Orrin ‘Checkmate’ Hudson is using the enthusiasm that is a part of his every day game plan to encourage the NFL to open the Georgia Dome for one last football celebration on Sunday, when the Atlanta Falcons face the New England Patriots in Super Bowl LI. Hudson is the founder of Be Someone, Inc., an organization that uses the game of chess to teach young people how to make the right moves in life.

Strathmore water has been announced as the national supplier of bottled water for both the IAAF World Championships London 2017 and the World Para Athletics Championships. Athletes, officials and volunteers at both events next summer will be hydrated by more than one million bottles of water being supplied by the water brand. This year will bring together more than 3000 world-class athletes from more than 200 countries, who will compete in 30 sessions across 20 jam-packed and action-fueled days as both the World Para Athletics Championships (14-23 July) and IAAF World Championships London 2017 (04-13 August) are hosted in London this summer.

The sporting legends pictured above attended the very first Laureus World Sports Awards in Monaco in 2000, where former South Africa President Nelson Mandela famously told them: ‘sport has the power to change the world.’ 17 years later, Mandela’s words still ring true and many of these legends will make a special return to Monaco next month to honour the greatest sportsmen and women of the past 12 months. 

9-times Olympic Gold medal-winning legend, Usain Bolt has lost one of his nine due to a doping case involving his teammate Nesta Carter. The IOC stated that Carter tested positive for methylhexaneamine, a banned stimulant, in re-analysis of samples from the 2008 Beijing Olympics with the ruling meaning that the entire Jamaican relay team, which included Bolt, can be disqualified and stripped of any medals won if one runner fails a doping test.

Golf Digest and GOLF Magazine have named northern Michigan's Forest Dunes' new innovative 18-hole reversible course – The Loop, designed by Tom Doak, as the Best New Public Course and the Best New U.S. Course You Can Play, respectively. The Loop joins Tiger Woods-designed Bluejack National, as the big winner in the private club category in each publication. They both have something in common according to Ron Whitten, Golf Digest's Architecture Editor: “Fun and playability” and “they represent the trend that many architects are embracing: build for the masses, not the elite players.”

A year on from the publication of ‘A Manifesto for Clean Athletics’ UK Athletics (UKA) has today launched its own ‘Clean Athletics’ brand with the aim of reinforcing UK Athletics’ commitment to athletes competing free from performance-enhancing drugs. ‘Clean Athletics’ will replace the former ‘Anti-Doping’ department. Last year’s manifesto called for a wide-ranging debate about measures that could be introduced to achieve a new era of clean athletics.

Sir Mo Farah and Dame Jessica Ennis-Hill lead an impressive shortlist at the 3rd Lycamobile British Ethnic Diversity Sports Awards, which will be hosted by Sir Lenny Henry at the London Hilton Park Lane Hotel. Sir Mo, the 2-time double Olympic gold medalist for 5000 and 10000 metres, leads an impressive group of sportsmen and women nominated for the third Lycamobile British Ethnic Diversity Sports Awards (BEDSAs).

It’s going to be a big year for Sandwell’s top young athletes, who are gearing up for a busy year in 2017. Eighteen year old para-swimmer Scott Hadley, from Tipton, is aiming to build on a brilliant performance at the National Para-swimming championships in Manchester last month. Overall Scott achieved four personal best performances from his seven races, including winning gold medals in the mens 100m Backstroke (category S8) and the mens 100m Breaststroke (category SB7) representing the Orion swimming club.

UK Athletics has confirmed Richard Bowker as the Chair-Elect who will succeed Ed Warner as Chair in January 2018. Bowker is currently a non-executive Director of London Marathon Events and is an Independent Director of the EFL (English Football League). A former Group CEO of National Express Group and Chair of the Strategic Rail Authority, he received a CBE for services to the Rail Industry in 2005.