Golf: Rory McIlroy recovered from an early hiccup to lead a European charge at the British Open yesterday while Sergio Garcia provided the fireworks at a blustery Royal Liverpool course. Northern Irishman McIlroy, the overnight leader, stumbled to a bogey on the first hole but was then a model of control as he picked up three shots to lead on eight-under with nine holes of his second round remaining. Popular Spaniard Garcia also bogeyed the first but then holed his approach shot at the second for an eagle two that produced a huge roar from packed galleries. Garcia gained shots on the fifth and the 10th, both par-fives, and was two shots behind McIlroy along with Italian Francesco Molinari.
Athletics: Jessica Ennis-Hill, the 2012 Olympic heptathlon champion, has given birth to a son, she announced yesterday. The Sheffield athlete tweeted: “Our beautiful baby boy Reggie Ennis-Hill was born yesterday. We couldn’t be happier.” Ennis-Hill, 28, is a former world heptathlon title holder but she missed the world athletics championship last year because of injury.
Doping: Ekaterina Iourieva became the second Russian biathlete this week to pick up a doping suspension after the retired 2008 world champion was handed a back-dated eight-year ban by the International Biathlon Union yesterday. The 31-year-old and Irina Starykh both failed drugs tests conducted in Slovenia last December. The ‘B’ samples for both athletes confirmed positive tests for the blood doping agent erythropoietin (EPO).
Tennis: Australian police have arrested six men over allegations they ran a gambling syndicate that benefited from knowledge about the fixing of tennis matches at state, national and international level. The arrests around the state of Victoria, which hosts the opening grand slam event of the year at Melbourne Park each January, followed a probe by the Purana Task Force, which investigates organised crime in the state. “Detectives are investigating allegations that a number of bets were placed on tennis matches where the outcome was pre-determined by at least one of the players involved,” read a statement from Victoria police.
Games: North Korea is threatening to pull out of the Asian Games due to take place in rival South Korea later this year, accusing the South of plotting to block its athletes from taking part. A rare meeting between the two sides on Thursday ended with no agreement on the size of the North’s contingent, which is expected to include about as many cheerleaders as athletes. Local media said the North had proposed sending 350 athletes and the same number of cheerleaders to the games, scheduled for Sept. 19 to Oct. 4 in the port of Incheon. The numbers were larger than those earlier provided by Pyongyang.
Badminton: Commonwealth Games women’s singles badminton champion Saina Nehwal has pulled out of next week’s Glasgow Games due to lack of fitness and failure to recover sufficiently from blisters on her feet. The Indian survived a match point in the 2010 final in New Delhi against Malaysia’s Wong Mew Choo to win the gold, which helped the hosts to second on the medals table, their best finish at the quadrennial multi-sport competition.