Boxing: Ireland’s Michael Conlan had a St Patrick’s Day to remember as he beat Tim Ibarra on his professional debut at Madison Square Garden. The super-bantam-weight stopped Ibarra in the third round of six in front of over 5,000 Irish fans in New York as he moved on from his Olympic heartbreak, where he insisted he had been cheated out of a gold medal at Rio 2016 by some poor scoring. Conlan was in no mood to leave this one up to the judges and forced the referee to step in when a powerful right hand left his US opponent on the ropes.

Doping: Kenya’s National Olympic Committee has escaped the threat of suspension after failing to adopt a new constitution but funding will continue to be withheld until further notice. The IOC froze financial support to Kenya nine days ago, after the country’s troubled national committee failed to adopt a revised constitution, and said it would discuss the matter at its executive board meeting last week, leading to speculation that it might ban the country. However, a Kenyan undertaking to bring in the new constitution later this month meant the IOC had stayed the threat of further action.

Baseball: Puerto Rico clinched a berth in the semi-finals of the World Baseball Classic with a 6-5 win over the United States in San Diego and remained unbeaten in this year’s tournament. Puerto Rico, runners-up to the Dominican Republic in the 2013 Classic, joined Japan and the Netherlands into the championship round leaving one spot available for the final games at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles this week. The last semi-final berth will go to the winner of the showdown between the US and Dominican Republic.