Closer To Free has thrust himself into Blue Diamond Stakes calculations with a debut success at Caulfield over the weekend.
Having impressed in a Caulfield Heath heat last month for trainer Adrian Corboy, Danny O’Brien purchased Closer To Free post-trial and unleashed him in Saturday’s Blue Diamond Prelude (1100m) restricted to colts and geldings.
Priced at up to $201 initially for the Blue Diamond Stakes (1200m) on February 21 at Caulfield, the colt’s resolute win has seen him shorten to $7 second choice.
Handler Danny O’Brien contemplated bypassing this race for the Talindert Stakes (1100m) at Flemington the following Saturday, but sharp session on Wednesday altered that plan for the promising two-year-old.
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With Michael Dee at the helm leading all the way, Closer To Free ($13) prevailed by a length against $2.20 top pick Guest House, Eternal Warrior ($6) third by a short-head.
O’Brien rated Closer To Free highly even before his trial exertions.
“I saw him in the mounting yard before the trial because I had one in it and Adrian is one of the best, if not the best, breakers and he does all of our yearlings,” O’Brien said.
“I asked him what he was doing down here and he said he was trialling this one with the potential to sell him.
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“Before the horse left the mounting yard after the trial, I walked back with him and saw how easily he’d taken it. As Adrian was hosing the horse down, I bought him.
“He’s a beautiful colt and he’s got a proper pedigree. With Street Boss, his first three dams were all two-year-old stakes winners, so there is plenty to like about him.”
Clinton McDonald’s Streisand has climbed to $9 on the fourth rung of Blue Diamond betting following her win in the fillies’ Prelude division.
Ridden positively by Jamie Melham, the $3 fancy Streisand scored by three-quarters of a length from $51 outsider Chayan, with I Am Aria ($7.50) close up third, a short-neck away.
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After a luckless run when unplaced in the Blue Diamond Preview (1000m), Melham ensured a trouble-free trip up front this occasion.
McDonald and Melham teamed for Diamond glory two years ago courtesy of Hayasugi, although Ben Melham is poised to take the mount in a couple of weeks.
“She’ll go a long way in the Diamond,” McDonald said.
“I think she’s got the right mental aptitude for it and the toughness. I’ve said all the way along she’s a bit like Hayasugi, understated, tough.
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“This one has a bit more bitch about her, I suppose, a bit more temperamental whereas Hayasugi was a sweetheart.
“We’re happy to put up with her and we’re looking forward to the next two weeks.”
Philadelphia Eagles general manager Howie Roseman was faced with many questions about wideout AJ Brown from the local media at the league meetings on Sunday. Brown has been linked with a trade away from Philly this offseason, after a frustrating 2025 season with the team.
However, Roseman opted to offer a blunt response regarding Brown amid the ongoing trade speculation around the wide receiver.
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“I understand that there’s interest in the A.J. Brown story. I, unfortunately, don’t have a home under a rock,” Roseman said. “But my answer to any question on A.J. Brown is A.J. Brown is a member of the Eagles. From my perspective, anything you ask me about A.J. Brown, I’m going to go right back to that answer. But I understand the interest. I put on the TV, and I see that there’s interest, but my answer is A.J. Brown is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles.”
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The Eagles acquired Brown via a trade with the Tennessee Titans in the 2022 offseason. He helped Philly reach two Super Bowls, winning one in 2025.
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It remains to be seen if Brown will remain with the Eagles next season.
Howie Roseman’s Eagles will have No. 23 pick in 2026 NFL draft
Philadelphia Eagles GM Howie Roseman – Source: Imagn
Howie Roseman’s Philly won the NFC East crown last season. However, the Eagles crashed out of the playoffs with a loss to the San Francisco 49ers in the wild-card round.
Philly has the No. 23 pick in Round 1 of the 2026 NFL draft. Some draft experts have suggested that the Eagles might want to bolster their offensive line with their first selection this year.
Former Pakistan cricket team skipper Rashid Latif believe that ball-tampering scandal in the ongoing Pakistan Super League (PSL) was created just to ‘grab headlines’. The incident took place during the match between Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings when the on-field umpire Faisal Afridi took the ball from Haris Rauf for inspection after it exchanged hands between Shaheen Afridi and Fakhar Zaman. Faisal had a long conversation with his fellow umpire Sharfuddoula and decided to call for a replacement ball. The umpires were of the opinion that the ball was tampered with and things got worse when Shaheen struggled to provide a clear answer when asked by Pakistan great Ramiz Raja during the post-match presentation ceremony.
In a video on YouTube, Latif claimed that sometimes controversies are created in order to make competitions popular and added that with the ball-tampering row gaining traction, PSL will be dominating the headlines.
“I don’t want to talk about ball tampering. Otherwise I will have to talk about my playing days as it will be unfair to just talk about the current players. If any film is coming out and you know that it will be flop, it is made into a controversy. Like they did with The Hundred when they said that no Pakistan player will be playing. No one knew The Hundred before that. Now there is a controversy in PSL and it will become headlines. This news will not be relevant for more than 24 hours,” he said.
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Fakhar Zaman, pacer Shaheen Shah Afridi and Zimbabwe’s Sikandar Raza have denied ball-tampering charges, stemming from the Pakistan Super League match between Lahore Qalandars and Karachi Kings at the Gaddafi Stadium.
The 35-year-old Zaman was charged on Sunday night by match referee Roshan Mahanama with a Level 3 offence under Article 2.14 of the PSL Code of Conduct for Players and Player Support Personnel.
Zaman was found to have violated Article 41.3 of the PSL playing conditions, which prohibits any action that alters the condition of the ball.
Appearing before the former Sri Lankan cricketer, Zaman denied the charges against him.
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The charge relates to an incident just before the final over of the Karachi Kings’ innings, when they needed 14 runs to win.
Zaman was seen in discussion with Haris Rauf and Qalandars’ captain Afridi before the over.
Shortly thereafter, umpire Faisal Afridi requested the ball and, after inspecting it with his colleague, determined that its condition had been altered.
The match referee is expected to hold another hearing within the next 48 hours before delivering a verdict.
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The umpires penalised Qalandars five runs for altering the condition of the ball and subsequently replaced it. This left Karachi Kings needing nine runs in the final over, which they successfully chased down.
When Caroline Dubois defends her world title on Sunday at Olympia, she will be edging closer to the finish line in a packed race to become the No 1 female boxer in the world.
Harper has been in 10 world title fights at four weights in the last six years, and she enters Sunday’s fight as the WBO lightweight champion. She has held world titles at super-featherweight and super-welterweight – two weights separated by 24lb – since giving up her job as a potato peeler in a local chippie.
Dubois is unbeaten in 13 fights, and she has set her sights on becoming undisputed at lightweight and then moving up through the weights – or waiting for a fight with the leading American, Alycia Baumgardner. Dubois is in an elite group chasing the elusive title of women’s No 1, which is currently held by Katie Taylor, who is planning a farewell fight later this year in Dublin.
“She is certainly a good talker,” said Harper when the pair came face to face recently.
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Last December, Dubois switched promoters and signed a deal with Most Valuable Promotions (MVP), the American company run by Jake Paul and his business partner, Nakisa Bidarian. The Sunday show at Olympia is MVP’s first in Britain and marks Sky Sports’s return to boxing in a valuable and necessary partnership. The Olympia card features eight female fights, four for world titles.
Harper and Dubois could be the start of a series of all-British fights, the type that the women’s sport needs; genuine rivalries are essential. It should, in theory, be easier in women’s boxing to make big fights happen, because so many of the boxers have been prepared to move across the weights with an ease that is lacking in the men’s business.
Also on Sunday at Olympia, Chantelle Cameron, who beat Taylor in 2023, moves up two weights to fight for the vacant WBO super-welterweight title.
Chantelle Cameron (right) traded wins with Katie Taylor in 2023 (Peter Morrison/AP)
She would, if the fight was available, move down for a sensible and lucrative domestic fight at a lower weight. Bidarian has made it clear in the past that being part of MVP doesn’t exclude or protect a fighter from meeting other MVP boxers in risky fights.
Harper and Dubois are both part of the MVP business, and that has helped make the fight happen. It had been talked about for a couple of years, and too often in the modern boxing business there have been rivalries that never led to fights, due to separate rivalries between promoters and broadcasters. This has shifted slightly during the last two years with the increased involvement and influence of the Saudi Arabian boxing enterprise and their cash.
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Nakisa Bidarian (left) with Ellie Scotney ahead of Sunday’s Sky Sports show (Mark Robinson MVP)
It is an extraordinary weekend for women’s boxing, on which Dubois will be one of six British women in five world-title fights; the five bouts will involve a total of 11 world championship belts.
On Saturday night in Cardiff, Lauren Price defends her three welterweight belts live on the BBC. On the same Olympia bill as Dubois, and from the same gym in east London, Ellie Scotney will try and add the WBA belt to the three she owns and become the undisputed champion at super-bantamweight. It is the comeback women’s boxing needed.
Lazraq-Khlass, 26, competed at the 2024 Olympics in Paris and finished 16th in the heptathlon.
The AIU website states that a provisional suspension means that an athlete cannot take part “in any competition or activity in athletics prior to a final decision at a hearing conducted under the World Athletics Anti-Doping Rules or the Integrity Code of Conduct”.
In a recent case, former world 100m champion Fred Kerley, of America, was banned for two years for anti-doping whereabouts failures.
Europe’s youngest nation, Kosovo, stands on the brink of an historic achievement: a potential spot in the World Cup finals for the first time.
This marks a stark contrast to the 1990s, when football was banned under Serbian rule, forcing private games and players to wash in rivers or melted snow after matches.
Independent from Serbia since 2008 and only sanctioned to join world football in 2016, Kosovo will host Turkey in a decisive play-off on Tuesday.
Following a thrilling 4-3 victory over Slovakia last week, the winner will secure a place in the North American tournament this June.
Eroll Salihu, former secretary general of Kosovo’s federation, described the potential qualification as “historic, truly epochal.”
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Kosovo will face Turkey for a place at the World Cup on Tuesday (AFP via Getty Images)
He added: “This would be the realisation of a dream, for the generations who played in muddy fields and meadows to defend the honour and spirit of the sport.”
For a nation of 1.6 million, Kosovo’s football journey has been one of resilience. They lost nine of 10 games in their 2018 World Cup qualifying campaign.
Fortunes shifted when the federation began recruiting from its diaspora. This campaign has seen positive results, including victories over Sweden and Slovenia, securing their play-off spot.
Every match holds profound significance for a conflict-scarred country. Kosovo’s fight for independence, secured by a NATO air campaign in 1999, claimed over 13,000 lives.
Samir Ujkani, Kosovo’s first captain and goalkeeper, who moved to Belgium as a child, emphasised this duty: “People have suffered here, each of us has lost many family members. It is our duty to come back here and represent our country.”
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Excitement is reaching fever pitch across Kosovo. The national stadium, holding just 12,500 people – a fifth of many World Cup venues – saw tickets for Tuesday’s game sell out within minutes.
Now resold on the black market for up to 20 times their price, towns plan big screens in main squares for those unable to attend.
Adding to the high stakes, Kosovo’s government has pledged a bonus of one million euros (£850,000) should the team emerge victorious.
Jul 19, 2019; Miami Beach, FL, USA; A general view of custom PlayStation controllers sold by a vender during the Call of Duty League Finals e-sports event at Miami Beach Convention Center. Mandatory Credit: Jasen Vinlove-Imagn Images
For more than an hour, it appeared as if Team Yandex would get its revenge on Tundra Esports in the best way possible.
Then the clock struck midnight.
Despite dropping the first map and needing more than an hour to survive the second, Tundra beat Yandex 3-1 Sunday to win the ESL One Birmingham event in England.
The win came a day after Tundra swept Yandex 2-0 in the upper-bracket final to advance to the grand final and force Yandex into a do-or-die lower-bracket final to begin Sunday.
The $1 million Dota 2 tournament, featuring 16 teams, awarded $750,000 in prize money and $250,000 in club rewards as well as 35,460 ESL Pro Tour points spread among all participants.
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The competition, part of DreamHack Birmingham, began with a group stage, with teams split into two groups of eight. The top two teams from each group advanced to the upper bracket of the playoffs. The third- and fourth-place teams were delegated to the lower-bracket playoffs, with the remaining eight teams eliminated.
Yandex began the day with a 2-1 win over Xtreme Gaming in that lower-bracket final. Yandex took the first map in 41 minutes, dropped the second in 34 minutes, then took the winner-take-all third map in 34 minutes. Yandex was on red all three maps.
Ilya “CHIRA_JUNIOR” Chirtsov of Russia paced Yandex with a 26/15/29 kill/death/assist ratio in the win. China’s Wang “Ame” Chunyu posted a 22/12/22 K/D/A in the loss.
In the grand final, Yandex continued the momentum with a 41-minute on green. In the next map, Tundra and Yandex battled for more than an hour before Tundra emerged with a 62-minute win on green. The next two maps combined barely lasted longer than the second map, with Tundra taking the third in 38 minutes on red and 28 minutes on green to take the match and the title.
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After a quiet first map, Bozhidar “bzm” Bogdanov of Bulgaria led Tundra in kills in each of the victorious maps, finishing with a 46/15/53 K/D/A.
Alimzhan “watson” Islambekov of Kazakhstan posted a 37/16/32 to lead Yandex in defeat.
ESL One Birmingham final standings / prize pool (prize money, club reward)
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1. $250,000, $40,000 — Tundra Esports
2. $100,000, $30,000 — Team Yandex
3. $80,000, $25,000 — Xtreme Gaming
4. $60,000, $20,000 — PARIVISION
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5-6. $40,000, $15,000 — Team Spirit, Aurora Gaming
Wardley currently holds the WBO belt and has shown he is willing to take on anyone by accepting the hard-hitting Daniel Dubois as his first challenger.
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Speaking on the DAZN broadcast post-fight, Wardley was again asked about a potential clash with Itauma.
“Right now, we’re in different places. That is an emphatic victory, he deserves all the credit in the world because Franklin is a tough opponent and no one’s done that to him. I know first hand Moses has all the talent in the world.
“But we are in different places. He’s looking towards where I am currently as world champion. I’m looking at Oleksandr Usyk, Tyson Fury, Anthony Joshua. I’m looking higher than that still. There is a gap of separation where we’re at, and that’s only due to time and experience.”
The Ipswich man then outlined the only scenario in which the fight would become a ‘serious conversation.’
“Look, there’s four belts, there’s two of us. The only time this ever becomes a serious conversation is if I have two and he has two, and we have to look around and go, ‘what are we gonna do here?’ Are we gonna do a Klitschko where we just hold on to them, do our defences and hold down the gym with all four belts in there?”
Pushed on what his thinking would be should things play out that way, Wardley admitted that the carrot of undisputed dangling would be hard to turn down.
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“I would always want to be undisputed … The title of undisputed is something that I’m sure Moses himself will want to claim at some point and something I want to claim. Like I said, that’s the only time there would be a serious question, but it’s in the distant, distant future right now.”
As it stands, the division offers plenty of match-ups without splitting Ben Davison’s gym and forcing either Wardley or Itauma to seek another trainer. The intrigue from fans, however, only seems to be intensifying, and an expected order from the WBO to install Itauma as mandatory challenger – should Wardley keep his belt against Dubois in May – makes the situation a little more complicated.
France’s football team comes back from the US with two victories under its belt. Warm-up matches against Brazil and Colombia allowed the players to get used to the terrain ahead of the 2026 World Cup. Trainer Didier Deschamps was able to see his team in action, and work out any adjustments needed, before they compete. The final line-up is set to be revealed by Deschamps on May 14th.
Devin Haney is back in the market for his next opponent.
The three-division world champion moved up to the welterweight ranks in November of last year, dropping and outpointing Brian Norman Jr to win the WBO belt.
There are several options for ‘The Dream’ at 147lbs, including three potential unification fights. Lewis Crocker holds the IBF belt, Rolando Romero the WBA and Ryan Garcia the WBC.
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A rematch between Haney and Garcia following their controversial 2023 fight – overturned from a Garcia win to a no contest after a failed doping test – would be the preferred option for fans, but Haney had instead been in talks to face ‘Rolly’ Romero.
Romero beat Garcia last year to win the WBA Regular strap and was subsequently elevated to full champion when Jaron Ennis vacated to move up in weight. He has a mandatory challenger in Shakhram Giyasov, though appeared close to securing a two-belt bout with Haney for May in Las Vegas.
“Rolly [is] delusional acting like he some kind of draw but can’t sell out a ballroom. Thats why the fight hasn’t been made yet. The money isn’t right. I’m looking at other options he can go fight his mandatory since he’s such a draw.”
Whether or not negotiations with Romero can be salvaged remains to be seen, but this development opens the door to the Garcia rematch, and the latter’s promoter, Oscar De La Hoya, has said he is very keen to make that happen next.
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