The mare Treasurethe Moment’s trainer, Matt Laurie, is thinking about a Caulfield excursion to wrap up her preparation leading into her first run back.

Treasurethe Moment lines up in the Group 1 Futurity Stakes (1400m) at Caulfield a week on Saturday, after trialling at Caulfield Heath on Wednesday in a jump-out.

Damian Lane partnered the mare as she jumped swiftly and commanded the 1000m heat from go to whoa.

Laurie conceded that having to set the pace wasn’t optimal, but Lane reported positively on the effort.

“I was hoping there would be a horse or two in there that would charge along, but unfortunately those ones were scratched,” Laurie said.

“It seemed likely that she would lead and she was quick away, but that’s the sort of horse she is, she gets there but comes off the bit, just touching the bridle.

She doesn’t work too hard, she relaxes beautifully. She was asked to quicken up a bit in the last two furlongs (400m), and she did that well and Damian was happy.”

Next Tuesday’s Caulfield gallops, hosted by the Melbourne Racing Club, precede the Group 1 card of Blue Diamond Stakes, Futurity Stakes and Oakleigh Plate slated for Saturday week.

Laurie is contemplating a return visit with Treasurethe Moment for a final gallop, similar to the setup for her dominant fresh win in the Group 1 Memsie Stakes over the Futurity Stakes track and trip.

“Another trip away for her final gallop wouldn’t hurt and then we’re ready to go,” Laurie said. “She’s done a lot of galloping at Mornington, so one more trip away would be great, but if not, we’ve got a great surface down there anyway. But either way, I’m happy with the prep so far and if she can produce what she did last time, she will be right there.” Fans eager for the Futurity Stakes can find extensive racing betting markets available now.

The post Treasure ticking over for Futurity Stakes return first appeared on Just Horse Racing.

Chris Gotterup is a betting man, though one of golf’s next big things isn’t a cash-on-the-line, checking-the-odds kinda guy. No, no. That’s forbidden, after all.  

But he knows a winner when he sees one. 

Take last week, when he was grouped with Scottie Scheffler for rounds one and two of the WM Phoenix Open. After 18 holes, Scheffler was playing most un-Scheffler-like, but Gotterup understood where things stood: The world No. 1’s two-over day was only a hiccup — and money couldn’t leave his wallet fast enough for round two, provided he could do such a thing. 

“Everyone has seen it out here,” Gotterup said. 

“If I could bet on golf, I would have put a lot of money on him to come out and play good on Friday.”

OK, OK, so you probably thought the same, and Scheffler did finish eight strokes better. How about this, then? If you really want to hear about a wager, and if you really want a peek at what’s underneath Gotterup’s Nike golf hat, he can tell you about the time his dad promised him he’d take him to Pebble Beach, the cathedral that is the host of this week’s PGA Tour stop, but only when he’d break par — then, when he was 13 or 14, Gotterup went out and shot a two-under 69 at Rumson Country Club in New Jersey. (“I have the scorecard somewhere in my house. … My mom’s like got it framed.”)

And there’s this: 

Know that his Masters trip in a couple of months will be his first — but that is by his own choosing. Gotterup’s been invited to the tournament before. 

And he said simply, thanks, but no thanks. 

He’s a player. And he’d go when he’d play. 

“I haven’t been invited to play, in general,” Gotterup said Wednesday. “But I would go down — one of my sponsors would do a dinner down there every Wednesday before and they would ask if I wanted to go over on Thursday and watch. 

“I don’t know, I feel like it would ruin my — like one, I don’t really like watching other people play unless I’m not playing that week. It’s just my, I don’t know, I’m kind of weird in that sense. Like I wanted it to be, like it’s the most hyped-up tournament in the sport and I don’t want to go over there and be a spectator; I want to play. 

“I had faith in myself that I was going to be able to do it as a player. Now that I’m going to be able to, it will be much more rewarding stepping on the first tee there rather than being a fan.”

He’ll go as a favorite, too. Last year, he won the Genesis Scottish Open. This year, he’s won the Sony Open and the WM Phoenix Open. He’s blended power throughout the bag with touch from up close. Those play well at Augusta National. 

As does confidence in one self.  

“It’s just one of those tournaments where I think — like here is similar in the fact that I could tell you every hole on that course even if I didn’t step foot on it,” Gotterup said. 

“So I’m excited to just kind of be out there and enjoy maybe in one of these off weeks, enjoy, like get the, not the nerves, but like the awe factor of it hopefully away and try to get settled in by the time the tournament comes. 

“Just talking to like at the Bridgestone, stuff that we’ve done, talking to Freddie [Couples] and Tiger [Woods] and Jason [Day] and all these guys like about it, it’s just the only tournament that everyone talks about all the time. I don’t know, it’s just exciting.” 

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France’s Julia ​Simon won the women’s 15-kilometre individual biathlon race at the ​Winter Games on Wednesday, making up for a single miss on the shooting range with a powerful skiing performance on the track ​to add ‌individual gold to a mixed relay victory. ⁠Simon’s compatriot Lou Jeanmonnot took silver, 53.1 seconds behind, with Lora Hristova securing ‌a surprise bronze for Bulgaria. However, it was Simon’s ⁠composure that stood out.

After a season that started slowly, the 29-year-old peaked for the Milan Cortina Olympics, displaying ​nerves of steel to anchor the France team ‌to victory in the mixed relay on Sunday.

Simon was imperious on Wednesday in the individual race, brushing off the single miss and ‌skiing with power and purpose.

Watch more2026 Olympics: Éric Perrot earns silver in 20km individual biathlon

With the top-ranked racers bunched in the middle of the ​pack and the field starting at 30-second intervals, competitors skied five three-kilometre laps, stopping four times at the range and alternating ​between shooting from prone and standing positions.

The winner is ​decided by the lowest overall time, but ​each miss on the range adds a hefty one-minute penalty, making precision a priority.

Jeanmonnot did ​her best to challenge in tough skiing conditions but her second miss proved to be the difference and she could not close the gap on the last lap.

There was huge joy ⁠for Bulgaria as outsider Hristova shot flawlessly to claim their first biathlon medal ⁠since Irina Nikulchina’s ​bronze in the 10 kilometre pursuit at Salt Lake City 2002.

(FRANCE 24 with Reuters)

A commemorative T-shirt on the Olympics online store marking the 1936 Games in Berlin under Adolf Hitler‘s National Socialist, or Nazi, government caught the eye of German media on Wednesday. 

The shirt shows a man wearing a laurel wreath, the quadriga chariot drawn by four horses atop the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and core details like the dates and location of the Summer Games in the capital.

It’s part of a collection of shirts for each of the modern-era Games, but, nonetheless, references probably the most politically contentious ones.

There are no references to Hitler’s government or its symbols and iconography on the shirt.

Early TV and radio-era games, first Olympic torch relay

The Games had already been awarded to Germany before the Nazis came to power, but hosting both the winter and summer events in 1936 provided Hitler’s regime with a stage to showcase the government and country internationally. 

Technological advancements like television and radio enabled the propaganda-reliant regime to double down on these efforts, with Joseph Goebbels paying particular attention to the event. 

The 1936 Games included the first Olympic torch relay of the modern era, a fact that the International Olympic Committee (IOC) commemorated online in 2020 to considerable public backlash because it used Nazi propaganda footage to recall the event.

Berlin Games took place as repression was starting to scale up

The Nazis tried to put a respectable foot forward for the event, removing antisemitic slogans and graffiti from Berlin’s streets and shop windows, moving those it deemed “undesirables” out of the capital, and toning down the rhetoric in its racist newspaper Der Stürmer.

But, nevertheless, the first signs of the coming Holocaust and of Hitler’s ambitions for wars of conquest were starting to materialize for those watching Germany closely. 

In the run-up to the Berlin Olympics in 1936, Nazi Germany remilitarized the Rhineland area on its western border, which its forces had been ordered to vacate after defeat in World War I. It implemented the “four-year plan” designed to prepare the economy and the military for war.

It stripped Roma and Jews of their voting rights that March, a month after the Winter Games in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. The leader of the SS black shirts, Heinrich Himmler, was named the chief of German police a few weeks before the summer’s Berlin Games.

Internationally, Hitler’s government signed its first treaties with future “Axis” allies Japan and Italy in 1936, and provided support to the nationalists under General Francisco Franco in Spain’s civil war.

Only a partial propaganda success for Hitler

The event did not prove satisfactory for Hitler. 

Although Germany led the overall medal tally, the United States dominated some of the highest-profile track-and-field events at the Olympic Stadium in Berlin. 

Hitler had wanted to attend and award all German winners with their gold medals, but only the German winners. He was reprimanded by the IOC when he left the stadium to avoid shaking the hand of high jumper Cornelius Johnson as he won the first US gold medal.

The head of the IOC at the time told Hitler he could either congratulate all the gold medalists, or none, so the dictator elected to honor none for the remainder of the Games.

This meant that Hitler never shook the hand of the most successful athlete of the Games, 22-year-old Black US athlete Jesse Owens, who won gold in the 100 meters, 200 meters, the 4×100-meter relay and the long jump. 

Edited by: Sean Sinico

DALLAS (AP) — Dallas Mavericks rookie teenage standout Cooper Flagg will miss their final game before the All-Star break and not play in the NBA’s Rising Stars game on Friday night because of a left midfoot sprain.

The Mavericks announced Wednesday night than an MRI revealed the injury that occurred in their loss at Phoenix a night earlier, when the 19-year-old had 27 points in 36 minutes. They said further updates will be provided as appropriate

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Flagg, the No. 1 overall draft pick last summer, is averaging 20.4 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.1 assists in his 49 games with Dallas.

The Mavericks (19-34) have an eight-game losing streak going into Thursday night’s game at the Los Angeles Lakers.

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AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba

SYRACUSE, N.Y. – Syracuse welcomed Chris Bell and the California Golden Bears to town for the first game of a two-game homestand, and it was an absolute wire-to-wire thriller in the Dome, one that would need more than the forty regulated minutes.

And despite countless missed free throws down the stretch, aggressive takes from Nate Kingz and JJ Starling, who combined for 48 points, helped lift Syracuse in both overtime periods when they needed it most, giving them a 107-100 win over the Golden Bears.

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And this was a game that saw just about everything. Two power outages, 67 combined free throw attempts, 28 lead changes, 11 combined players in double figures, and even William Kyle being forced to hobble off the floor late.

But despite everything that went wrong throughout the game, Syracuse experienced a feeling that they have not had much of late, a win in a close game down the stretch.

But the storylines began before the game even started, as one of the glaring questions Syracuse fans wanted answered was whether guard Kiyan Anthony would see the floor after being benched due to what Coach Autry determined was a coaching decision against Virginia. However, that question was answered quickly. Anthony checked into the game with 12:26 to go in the first half, but his impact in the early going was minimal, scoring only two points in ten minutes.

And for most of the first half, the impact Syracuse’s offense was providing as a whole was minimal as well.

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That was until the final two minutes. With Syracuse trailing 33-29, Kingz went on a run of his own. The lefty scored six consecutive points, and at halftime, the game was tied at 35 apiece.

Who is Vladyslav Heraskevych?

In Pyeongchang in 2018, the Kyiv native became the first Ukrainian to compete in skeleton at the Winter Olympics. Heraskevych also competed in Beijing in 2022. After the third of four runs there, he held up a sign with the English inscription “No war in Ukraine” for the cameras at the finish line of the run. Thirteen days later, Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Since then, Heraskevych has tirelessly used his sport to draw attention to the suffering of the people in Ukraine and to urge further strict sanctions against Russian sports. The skeleton racer was given the honor of being one of Ukraine’s flag bearers for the Milano Cortina Games’ opening ceremonies.

Heraskevych, however, is not among the likely medal contenders at the Olympics. He finished 12th in 2018 and 18th in 2022.

What is his dispute with the IOC about?

Heraskevych wants to wear his “helmet of remembrance” not only in training but also during the Olympic race in Cortina. It features images of Ukrainian athletes who were killed during Russia’s war on Ukraine.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) considers the helmet a violation of Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter, which states: “No kind of demonstration or political, religious or racial propaganda is permitted in any Olympic sites, venues or other areas.”

In 2020, the IOC Athletes’ Commission published guidelines on how to implement this rule. According to these guidelines, athletes should only be allowed to express political views during the Olympic Games at press conferences, in interviews in the mixed zones, at team meetings, on internet platforms or through media outlets.

IOC spokesman Mark Adams told a press conference this week: “There are 130 conflicts going on in the world. We cannot have 130 different conflicts featured, however terrible they are, during the field of play, during the actual competition.”

Therefore, Heraskevych is allowed to express his political views outside of competition, but not during the race.

Could a compromise be reached?

There is no current indication that this is possible. The IOC offered the Ukrainian the option of wearing a black armband during the competition — as a sign of mourning for his compatriots killed in the war.

“We feel this is a good compromise,” Adams said.

Heraskevych sees things completely differently.

“The IOC has turned the ‘helmet of remembrance’ into an absurd farce,” the Ukrainian said on Wednesday. He insisted that he was not violating any IOC rule and accused the IOC of “double standards.”

United States figure skater Maxim Naumov displayed a picture of his parents, who died in a plane crash, after his short program on Tuesday evening in Milan, without any objections being raised. Heraskevych has previously pointed to the example of German weightlifter Matthias Steiner, who held up a photo of his deceased wife after his Olympic victory in Beijing in 2008.

According to the IOC, the cases are not comparable. The rules have evolved since 2008. Naumov’s behavior was “a very emotional, very human, spontaneous gesture,” according to IOC spokesman Adams: “In a sense it highlights what we are saying, this Ukrainian athlete, he can do the same.”

What happens if Heraskevych defies the IOC ban?

The IOC Athletes’ Commission’s recommendation regarding violations of Rule 50 of the Olympic Charter states: “If an athlete or participant is in breach of Rule 50 and the Olympic Charter, each incident will be evaluated by their respective National Olympic Committee, International Federation [of the sport] and the IOC, and disciplinary action will be taken on a case-by-case basis as necessary.”

This leaves room for interpretation. In the worst-case scenario, Heraskevych could face immediate exclusion from the Olympic Games.

What have the reactions been?

Heraskevych has received support from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. On X, he thanked the skeleton racer “for reminding the world of the price of our struggle.”

Thomas Weikert, president of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), expressed understanding for Heraskevych’s action but advised him not to disregard the IOC ban and to abide by the rules.

Three time Olympic luge gold medalist Felix Loch, a close personal friend of Heraskevych, said if he were to be disqualified, it would be “sad and a bit of a scandal.” After all, there is “no text or anything like that” on the helmet in question, he noted.

This article was originally published in German.