[attach id=579543 size="medium"][/attach]
Cycling: Nairo Quintana (picture) stamped his authority on the Giro d’Italia when he claimed the overall lead by winning the first big mountain stage as British hopes took a major blow in a motorbike incident yesterday. Defending champion Vincenzo Nibali was also dealt a big knock when he cracked on the final climb, a punishing 13.6-km ascent up the Blockhaus. Team Sky’s Geraint Thomas and Orica-Scott’s Adam Yates were both brought down in a crash at the foot of the climb when a stationary police motorbike at the side of the road caused a big pile-up. Thomas, who appeared to be suffering from a right shoulder injury, needed a couple of minutes to get back on his bike. Yates finished four minutes 38 seconds behind and Thomas’s ordeal ended 5:07 after Quintana had crossed the line.
Cricket: The winner of next month’s Champions Trophy in England and Wales will earn $2.2 million, the International Cricket Council (ICC) said yesterday. The overall prize money for the 50-over tournament between the world’s top eight sides had been increased by half a million from the last edition in 2013 to $4.5 million, the governing body said in a statement. The runner-up of the June 1-18 tournament will earn $1.1 million, while the other two semi-finalists will receive a cheque of $450,000 each.
Golf: Americans J.B. Holmes and Kyle Stanley used contrasting methods to end up in the same place, tied for the lead after the third round at the Players Championship in Florida. Holmes was wildly inaccurate off the tee, but somehow conjured a two-under-par 70 on the demanding TPC Sawgrass course in Ponte Vedra. The accurate Stanley shot a stress-free 72 to join Holmes at nine-under 207 with one round left in the PGA Tour’s flagship event.
Boxing: Nicola Adams relished her return to her home city of Leeds on Saturday night as she produced a fiery performance to stop Mexico’s Maryan Salazar after 35 seconds of the third round at the First Direct Arena. The double Olympic champion was roared in and out of the ring and produced a performance likely to stand her in good stead for a potential world title fight against one of Salazar’s compatriots.
Olympics: French president Emmanuel Macron is likely to meet the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) evaluation commission tomorrow in an effort to boost Paris’s bid to host the 2024 Games, sources said yesterday. Centrist Macron has pledged his support for the French bid and has said he would speak with the IOC’s commission “next week”. Sources inside the Paris bid team told Reuters that the meeting would probably happen “on Tuesday morning”.