Cycling: Norway’s former world champion and double Tour de France green jersey winner Thor Hushovd will retire at the end of the season, drawing the curtain on a sparkling 15-year professional career. Hushovd won the world championships’ road race in 2010.
Snooker: Neil Robertson made a crucial clearance in the deciding frame to beat Shaun Murphy 5-4 and reach the semi-finals of the Wuxi Classic. Murphy looked set for a place in the last four of the season’s first ranking event until he missed a red on a break of 49, leading 65-25, in the deciding frame. Defending champion Robertson held his nerve with a cool 43 clearance to book a match with Barry Hawkins today and stay in the hunt for the £85,000 top prize.
Tour De France: Defending champion Chris Froome will lead Team Sky’s challenge for a third consecutive Tour de France crown but 2012 winner and fellow Briton Bradley Wiggins will not be part of the nine-man team named yesterday. Wiggins had been widely tipped to miss selection in the squad. Froome’s main support will be Australia’s Richie Porte, while the road captain will be Bernhard Eisel from Austria. The Tour begins in Leeds on July 5.
Cricket: England skipper Alastair Cook has got only worse after the team’s Ashes drubbing last year and should quit test captaincy, according to Australian spin great Shane Warne. The outspoken Australian has never been a fan of Cook’s captaincy and his constant criticism seemed to have flustered the 29-year-old left-hander. “This column is not a personal attack and never has been Alastair. Mate, you need to improve tactically or England need someone else in the job. And I am not the only one saying it,” Warne wrote in the Telegraph.
Golf: While Tiger Woods mainly struggled in his first competitive round in three months, Greg Chalmers birdied his last three holes to seize control of the Quicken Loans National in Bethesda, Maryland. Chalmers, 40, fired a five-under-par 66 on a difficult Congressional Country Club layout to take a one-shot lead in the opening round. The Australian left-hander ended his round in style with birdies at the seventh, eighth and ninth. Woods initially looked rusty and struggled with seven bogeys in his first 12 holes before recording three birdies in his last six to shoot a 74.
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Basket, NBA: Canada’s An-drew Wiggins (picture), from the University of Kansas, was taken with the number one pick of the 2014 NBA Draft by Cleveland Cavaliers on Thursday launching a great night for Canada and international players. Four of the first eight players selected into the world’s leading professional basketball league came from outside the United States. The 19-year-old Wiggins, an athletic, 6-foot-8 (2.03m) guard with great leaping ability who averaged 17.1 points and 5.9 rebounds last season, joins a Cavs team that was 33-49 last season in the NBA. “Just going in and creating impact off the bat,” Wiggins, nicknamed “Maple Jordan” for his explosiveness, said about coming to the NBA.
Athletics: Olympic silver medallist Galen Rupp comfortably won his sixth consecutive national 10,000 metres title at the US championships. America’s top distance athlete surged past runner-up Chris Derrick with around 500 metres remaining and finished in a time of 28 minutes, 12.07 seconds – more than a minute off his month-old US record – at Sacramento, California. “I was just trying to run as easy as possible. I didn’t want to make it any harder than it needed to be,” Rupp told reporters. “My plan all along was just to sit back and then go hard with a lap to go.” Derrick wound up six seconds adrift with Ryan Vail third.