Giro d’Italia: German Marcel Kittel confirmed he was back to his best when he claimed the second stage of the Giro d’Italia in Nijmegen, Netherlands, yesterday. Kittel, who endured an almost blank season last year because of a virus, outsprinted Frenchman Arnaud Demare and Italian Sacha Modolo. The Etixx-Quick Step rider, who now has 12 grand-tour stage wins to his name, had already won a stage on the Tour de Romandie last month. Dutchman Tom Dumoulin retained the overall leader’s pink jersey.
MotoGP: MotoGP world champion Jorge Lorenzo took pole position for the French Grand Prix at Le Mans yesterday while Yamaha team-mate Valentino Rossi struggled and could manage only the third row of the grid. Lorenzo was 0.441 faster than fellow-Spaniard and championship leader Marc Marquez, on the Honda, with the quickest lap yet on the short Bugatti circuit. Italian Andrea Iannone qualified third for Ducati despite a fall towards the end of the session. Rossi, winner of the previous race in Spain, will start seventh.
Athletics: Australian race walker Jared Tallent will receive his long awaited Olympic gold medal at a special ceremony in Melbourne next month. Tallent finished second in the 50 kilometre walk at the 2012 Olympics behind Russian Sergey Kirdyapkin, who was found guilty of doping last year and handed a three-year, two-month suspension by Russia’s anti-doping agency, backdated to the London Games. Kirdyapkin was one of three Russian athletes stripped of their London medals by the Court of Arbitration for Sport in March and athletics’ governing body the IAAF said they would re-allocate the medals.
Basketball, NBA: Kawhi Leonard scored 31 points to lead the San Antonio Spurs to a 100-96 victory over the Oklahoma City Thunder on Friday at the Chesapeake Energy Arena. Leonard shot 9 of 17 from the field to go along with 11 rebounds and three assists. LaMarcus Aldridge added 24 points and eight rebounds. Tony Parker posted 19 points as the Spurs took a 2-1 lead in the Western Conference semi-final.
Rio Olympics: Eliud Kipchoge, winner of the last two London Marathons, has been named in a preliminary Kenyan squad for the Rio Olympics, but there was no place for world record holder Dennis Kimetto. Kimetto did not make the cut for the men, having failed this year to reproduce the form that made him the only man ever to break two hours and three minutes, which he did in Berlin in 2014.