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Winter Sport: The Russian sports ministry is to lead an investigation into the death of a biathlete who collapsed and died during a race at the weekend, Minister of Sport Vitaly Mutko said. Alina Yakimkina (picture), 21, died during a Russia Cup biathlon race in Tyumen on Saturday in what Mutko described as a “huge tragedy”. Yakimkina, competing for the Republic of Udmurtiya, suddenly fell to the ground 700 metres from the finish of the individual race. According to the autopsy, acute heart failure was the cause of death.

Tennis: David Ferrer cruised past Rafael Nadal’s conqueror Fabio Fognini to win the Rio Open for the first time. The Spanish second seed needed just 83 minutes to dispatch the Italian 6-2 6-3 to add the Jockey Club Brasileiro crown to the Qatar ExxonMobil Open he won last month, taking his tally to two titles already in 2015. Ferrer saved four out of the five break points he faced as he extended his unbeaten head-to-head record against Fognini to eight matches.

Golf: James Hahn, whose wife is due to give birth to a daughter in three weeks, clinched his maiden PGA Tour title with a gripping play-off victory at the Northern Trust Open in California. Hahn, 33, ended a wild day of multiple lead changes on a difficult Riviera Country Club layout in wet and cool conditions by edging out fellow American Dustin Johnson and England’s Paul Casey for the win. Hahn struck his tee shot at the third extra hole and coolly sank the birdie putt before the long-hitting Johnson missed his attempt from 12 feet.

Athletics: North Korea has banned foreign runners from participating in an international marathon scheduled to be held in the capital in April, citing fears about the spread of the deadly Ebola virus. North Korea is thousands of miles from the epicentre of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and has reported no cases of the virus, which has killed more than 9,000 people. Nonetheless, its borders have remained closed to foreign tourists since last October, for fear the virus might spread, and it imposes a strict 21-day quarantine for foreign aid workers and diplomats, who have been told to stay in embassy compounds.

Cricket: England completed a clinical 119-run victory over Scotland in their cricket World Cup Pool A match at Hagley Oval yesterday to record their first win in the tournament. After they were crushed in their opening games by co-hosts Australia and New Zealand, England posted 303 for eight after being asked to bat then dismissed Scotland for 184 from 47.2 overs on a day which began under dark clouds and concluded in bright sunshine. Moeen Ali (128) produced a stream of delightful drives to reach his second one-day international century and shared a 172-run opening partnership with Ian Bell (54) to give England a grip on that match they were never to relinquish.

Rowing: The world of rowing was in mourning yesterday following the death at the weekend of Dan Topolski, the coach who led Oxford University to 10 straight wins in the Boat Race against Cambridge between 1976 and 1985. Topolski, 69, died after a long illness on Saturday. Topolski was at the centre of one of the greatest controversies in rowing’s history in 1987 which unusually put the sport on the front pages. Five Americans in the Oxford crew, led by Chris Clark, quit because of Topolski’s coaching methods, but he replaced them with relatively inferior rowers from the reserve crew and in one of sport’s great upsets, Oxford beat Cambridge six weeks later by four lengths in the Putney-Mortlake classic.