Basketball: Women’s League SF (game 3 Luxol vs Hibs 70-57 (Luxol win series 2-1).
Cricket: Former Pakistan captain Salman Butt and paceman Mohammad Asif have lost their appeals against bans for spot-fixing, the CAS said yesterday. Butt and team-mates Asif and Mohammad Amir were banned by the ICC in 2011 for their roles in spot-fixing in the Lord’s Test against England in 2010. Butt, the orchestrator of a plot to bowl deliberate no-balls, was banned for 10 years. Asif and Amir were banned for five years.
Athletics: Jamaica’s world 100 metres champion Yohan Blake could miss the Jamaica International Invitational on May 4 and the Shanghai Diamond League meeting a fortnight later because of a hamstring injury. His coach Glen Mills said the right hamstring injury sustained by Blake during a 100 metres race on Saturday in Kingston was more serious than originally thought.
Horse Racing: Australian champion sprinter Black Caviar has been retired after an unbeaten career of 25 victories. The six-year-old mare won her final race in front of a sell-out crowd last Saturday when she claimed the TJ Smith Stakes at Royal Randwick in Sydney. Black Caviar won just under $8.28 million in career earnings.
Basketball: Eight-times Euroleague winners Real Madrid advanced to the competition’s Final Four after a 69-57 victory at Maccabi Tel Aviv gave them a 3-0 sweep in their best-of-five quarter-final series. Having thumped Maccabi twice at home, Real dominated proceedings at the boisterous Nokia Arena apart from a brief spell in the third quarter. The Final Four will be held from May 10-12 in London’s O2 Arena.
Boston Marathon: The organisers of the Boston Marathon said they planned to hold the 118th edition of the race next year. By announcing plans to proceed with the 2014 event, Boston’s organisers appeared on course to avoid a year’s hiatus such as the one that struck the New York City Marathon last November. Race officials in New York had to cancel the 2012 running of the New York City Marathon due to widespread damage from Superstorm Sandy. The New York race will return this year on November 3.