The heavyweights will be busy today. Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Yohan Blake, Elaine Thompson and Warren Weir will all get their season going at today’s Camperdown Classics inside the National Stadium and the Milo Western Relays set for Catherine Hall in Montego Bay.In Kingston, the majority of athletes from the Racers Track Club are expected to be on show with the notable exception being the world’s fastest man Usain Bolt.In addition to Blake and Weir, the likes of Edino Steele, Zharnel Hughes and Kemar Bailey-Cole are expected to open up in the 400m, which get under way at 4:30pm.The newest member of the club, Michael O’Hara will also compete for the first time for his new club as he is down to participate in the 200m.Today’s event will be the final leg of the Digicel Grand Prix series for high school athletes in the Corporate Area to qualify for next Saturday’s finale at G.C. Foster College.Athletes from Calabar High, who were absent from the Corporate Area meet in midweek are expected to be at today’s Classics in large numbers and in addition to the Grand Prix, there will also be cash incentives for the top male and female high school teams in the Class One 4x100m relays.In the west, fierce competition is expected as the high-powered MVP Track Club arsenal will be on show with Sprintech and G.C. Foster College providing the challenge.RELAY TEAMSMVP will be relying on world and Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, Elaine Thompson and Stephenie-Ann McPherson in the female relays, while the likes of Julian Forte and Nesta Carter will provide leadership among the males.Sprintech has a formidable squad themselves with Sherone Simpson, Anneisha McLaughlin, Jura Levy and Gayon Evans carrying the flag for the Maurice Wilson-coached unit.We should also see fireworks in the high school category as Edwin Allen, Holmwood Technical and Hydel will lock horns. Among the males, all eyes will be on St. Elizabeth Technical following their fine performances at Western Championships last Saturday with the red hot Nigel Ellis and Jauvaney James leading the way.Action gets under way at the Camperdown Classics at 8:30 a.m. with the Western Relay starting at noon.
SATURDAY, MARCH 5 WATFORD VS LEICESTER CITY, VICARAGE ROAD WATFORD (4-4-2) GOMES, NYOM, BRITOS, CATHCART, ANYA, ABDI, WATSON, CAPOUE, JURADO, IGHALO, DEENEY OKAZAKI, VARDY, ALBRIGHTON, DRINKWATER, KING, MAHREZ, FUCHS, HUTH, MORGAN, SIMPSON, SCHMEICHEL LEICESTER (4-4-2) After this week’s midweek games Leicester City are three points clear of their closest rivals with 10 games to go. Though Leicester drew 2-2 with West Bromwich Albion on Tuesday, defeats for Spurs, Arsenal and Manchester City leaves Claudio Ranieri’s team in charge in the Barclays Premier League. On Wednesday Watford lost 1-0 at Manchester United, leaving them in 12th place in the Premier League. The Hornets have now failed to score in six of their last eight Premier League matches. And Watford have scored just 13 goals in 14 home league games and when they went to the King Power Stadium in November they lost 2-1. Only once before have these teams met at Vicarage Road in the Premier League in February 2000 and it ended in a 1-1 draw. Leicester were unbeaten in their first nine away games, winning six and drawing three. But their most recent away fixtures have seen then win just twice while losing twice and drawing the other. The Foxes still boast the most victories (16), fewest defeats (3) and most goals scored (51); their goals for is already five more than they netted over the whole of last season and just four short of their highest number of Premier League goals, in the 1999-00 campaign. Watford, meanwhile, have won just once in their last five league games at Vicarage Road. The home side are still without Jurado and Tommy Hoban while Leicester suffered a blow when N’Golo Kante was ruled out for two weeks with a hamstring problem.
KINGSTON:Some fresh faces were in the winner’s circle as the Jamaica Squash Association staged its first junior tournament of 2016 at the Liguanea Club in Kingston, recently.In the girls’ Under-13 age group, newcomer Alia Haddad emerged the winner after beating Madeline Jones 11-3, 11-6. Similarly, in the boys’ Under 13 B category, debutant Luke Hussey beat Josh Shirley 11-8, 11-6 and Mathew Sewell 11-1, 11-3 to take the top position. Shirley and Sewell were second and third, respectively.Asher breakthroughAnother breakthrough winner was John Paul Asher, who came out on top in the boys’ Under 15 age group. Firing on all cylinders, Asher beat second place finisher, Kyle Haddad, 11-1, 11-5 and dished out an 11-5, 11-0 defeat to Alex Desnoes, who was third.However, while some of the newcomers had an impact, some of the seasoned campaigners also made their presence felt. All Jamaica Under 15 girls champion, Mia Mahfood, took care of business, beating long-time rival Mia Lake 11-5, 11-9 to win her age category.In the same vein, All Jamaica Under 11 boys’ champion, Tobias Levy, topped the Under 13 boys’ competition after posting an 11-6, 11-4 win over Aman Dhiman, who finished second; and an 11-5, 11-2 beating to Brady Holmes, who finished third.”It was exciting to see new faces taking top positions in some age groups, while some of our stronger players are continuing to shine,” said Junior Squash Programme manager, Gill Binnie.”It’s early days yet, but we’re seeing positive signs from our juniors as we start the preparation for the Caribbean Championships this summer.”
CASTRIES, St Lucia (CMC):The Australian duo of Mike Hussey and Shane Watson have congratulated St Lucia Zouks teammate Darren Sammy, following the St Lucia government’s decision to rename the Beausejour Cricket Ground in his honour.Watson, who retired from international cricket following the recent Twenty20 World Cup in India, hailed Sammy as a “great leader” and said he was looking forward to playing alongside him at the Zouks’ home ground in Gros Islet.”I knew when I first signed up for CPL how passionate the West Indies public are, but to receive this news about the St Lucia government’s decision to rename the national stadium in honour of one of their favourite sporting sons is a huge thing, especially for someone so young, who has so much top-level cricket ahead of him,” Watson said.”Darren is a great leader and a true champion in all regards, and I know how passionate he is about the Zouks. He deserves this accolade for the manner he has led the West Indies team, and this is an honour for all time.”It really excites me about being a part of CPL 2016, and I can’t wait to step out on the Darren Sammy National Cricket Stadium this summer.”Hussey, meanwhile, affectionately known as ‘Mr Cricket’, called the honour for Sammy an “incredible accolade”, and heaped praises on West Indies for winning the T20 World Cup.”To win a world title for your country is the ultimate accolade and I would like to offer my congratulations to fellow Zouks man Darren Sammy, coach Phil Simmons, and the West Indies team on their win last weekend in the ICC World T20,” said Hussey, who averaged 51 in 79 Tests and 48 from 185 one-dayers.Sammy led West Indies to the second T20 World Cup title when the Caribbean side beat England by four wickets in the final of the tournament in India last Sunday.
STRAIGHTFIGHT The second race over 1100 metres for $180,000 claimers should come down to a straight fight between hat-trick seekers SIR D, with promising apprentice Linton Steadman again in the saddle and EUSEBIA under four-time champion jockey Omar Walker. Both are extremely fit, but the Steadman Curtis-trained EUSEBIA looked the more fluent in victory and is given the edge over SIR D and REIGN OVER ALL in an eight-horse field. The Steven Todd-trained DOOLAHIN has been a model of consistency, having finished 3-1/2 lengths third to ALYCINTH over 1100 metres on Heroes Day, and will prove hard to beat in the third race over 1000 metres for maiden three-year-olds. The chestnut filly by Legal Process out of Lady Naragin has less to do in present company and with title-chasing jockey Robert Halledeen taking the ride and needing every winner if he hopes to catch Shane Ellis in the championship race, DOOLAHIN is preferred to MEET JUSTIN. BRAVE PROSPECT, with Ellis riding for trainer Neive Graham and popular owner O’Shaun Connection, is a strong fancy to win the fourth race over 1820 metres to be contested by nine $250,000-$210,000 claiming horses. A three-year-old colt by Seeking The Glory out of the 1999 derby winner Good Prospect, BRAVE PROSPECT, who was previously trained by 14-time champion Wayne DaCosta, finished 11 lengths fifth to ORIGINAL TRAIN over 1400 metres in much better company last Saturday, and despite the presence of the recent winner AUDRE’S BLESSING and the useful BROWN GIRL, should make no mistake in a race of this nature. The last two races in the first Super-6 should be won by FRANFIELD, who carries a mere 50.5kg for the services of 4kg claiming apprentice Bebeto Harvey and STIR IT UP under top apprentice rider Linton Steadman. Their respective dangers are TRADITIONAL PRINCE and TASHIE BABY. With DI COBRE at 27-1 and KIMMY’S TRAIN at 25-1 scoring upset wins early on the Heroes Day programme, the first Super-6 had no takers. As a result, the carryover to tomorrow’s first Super-6 stands at $1.3 million. The Pick-9 and second Super-6 start anew with $1 million and $750,000, respectively. The Pick-9 will embrace races two to 10, the first Super-6 from race one to six, the late Super-6 from race five to 10. We look at the first Super-6, which commences with a 4-y-o and up maiden condition race over 1600 metres in which TWILIGHT ROCKET under leading jockey Shane Ellis, MY FAVOURITE DANCER with apprentice Andree Powell aboard, SMART TRAIN under former champion Wesley Henry, and ALL FOR GLORY with Rayan Wilson astride, the fancied horses. Although the form in maiden races is usually unreliable, TWILIGHT ROCKET from the stables of top-line trainer Anthony ‘Baba’ Nunes gets a glorious chance to open his account despite topweight of 57.0kg. The four-year-old colt beat all barring GIRSHOM over 1400 metres when installed a 3-5 favourite on October 10 but finished 1-1/2 lengths ahead of MY FAVOURITE DANCER in third and SMART TRAIN in fourth. All are expected to figure prominently, none moreso than TWILIGHT ROCKET, who will report even fitter for this race. FIRST SUPER-6 FANCIES 1. TWILIGHT ROCKET 2. EUSEBIA/SIR D 3. DOOLAHIN 4. BRAVE PROSPECT 5. FRANFIELD/TRADITIONAL PRINCE 6. STIR IT UP/TASHIE BABY
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP): Serena Williams put up both hands after sending a forehand long and high over the baseline in the first set. She wanted nothing to do with yet another unforced error in her Australian Open final against Angelique Kerber. For the second time in as many majors, Williams fell short of equalling Steffi Graf’s Open-era record of 22 Grand Slam singles titles. No. 7-seeded Kerber had never played in a major final and had lost five of her six previous career meetings with Williams, but she responded with a stunning 6-4, 3-6, 6-4 upset win over the six-time Australian Open champion. Williams had won the title every previous time she’d reached the final at Melbourne Park, and was overwhelming favourite to continue that streak against Kerber, who joked she was “one leg in the plane to Germany” when she faced match point in her first-round win over Misaki Doi. “I mean, every time I walk in this room, everyone expects me to win every single match, every single day of my life,” Williams said in her post-match news conference. “As much as I would like to be a robot, I’m not.” The 28-year-old Kerber used acute angles to keep Williams guessing, tossed in two drop shots for a crucial break in the long sixth game of the third set, and continually tried to pass the 21-time major winner or forced errors at the net. And she had five service breaks — two in the first, and three in third set — against the top-ranked Williams, who hadn’t dropped a set in the previous six rounds. “My whole life I was working really hard and now I’m here and I can say I’m a Grand Slam champion,” said Kerber, who had only reached the semi-finals twice at the majors and hadn’t been beyond the quarterfinals since Wimbledon in 2012. “It sounds really crazy and unbelievable.” She is the first German woman to win the Australian title since Graf in 1994, and is projected to rise to No. 2 in the rankings next week. It took her 33 majors to win the title — sixth on the list for longest waits that is topped by 2015 U.S. Open champion Flavia Pennetta’s 49. Williams admitted previously she became nervous and was stalled for a while trying to get to 18 major titles, to equal Chris Evert and Martina Navratilova’s career marks in second spot in the Open era. For three majors, Williams didn’t reach the quarterfinals, but when she finally won her 18th, it triggered a roll of four straight major titles. Now she’s on 21.
DRIVING FINISH After Genesee Street got away alertly, Ramgeet kept the three-year-old bay filly narrowly ahead until the middle of the stretch, where he inched cleared in a driving finish to complete a pillar-to-post victory in a time of one minute, 11.94 seconds. Ramgeet then grabbed a 2 1/4-length win on the 5-1 chance Lookin Awesome in the US$7,100 sixth race, going 1700m. Lookin Awesome was crowded and checked at the start, forcing Ramgeet to drop the four-year-old bay gelding to the inside and racing him in the back of the 10-horse field. Ramgeet angled Lookin Awesome out going into the second turn and made his bid six-wide into the stretch. The animal closed on the leaders under steady urging, snatched the lead near the sixteenth pole and drew off while drifting wide to clock 1 minute, 46.75 seconds. Ramgeet returned in the US $7,000 next race to land another pillar-to-post victory astride the odds-on favourite Profound Victory, which finished 21/2 lengths clear over 1,300m. He vied for the lead through the first half of race before edging the five-year-old bay gelding clear through the final furlong under urging for a time of 1 minute, 17.03 seconds. PHOENIX, Arizona (CMC): Andrew Ramgeet stepped up his bid to take over the race for the jockeys’ title at Turf Paradise with a triple on Sunday’s eight-race card. The former Jamaica champion jockey moved his aggregate to 45 – two adrift of track leader Scott A. Stevens – with the season at the track in the south-western United States, due to be concluded in May. Ramgeet logged a 11/2-length victory aboard the odds-on favourite Genesee Street in the US$6,300 second race contested over 1200 metres on the dirt.
Things change. When the boys’ triple jump open evolved into two events at Boys and Girls’ Championships in 2014, the record – 15.83 metres by Clive Pullen in 2013 – stayed on the books. Pullen’s mark emerged as the Class One standard while the Class Two boys established records in the brand new event. History hasn’t precisely repeated itself with the evolution of the boys’ 400 metre hurdles Open. As with the triple jump, the 400 metre hurdles debuted at Champs this week in both the Class One and Class Two categories. However, the former Open record – 49.01 seconds by Jaheel Hyde, then of Wolmers’ Boys School – has left the record books. That could have been avoided. As with the Pullen mark, Hyde’s 2015 performance could have been preserved at the Class One record. It’s not the first time great marks have been consigned to obscurity at Champs. More than 20 years ago, there was a move to have running event records all time electronically. Manually timed records were swept away. That makes sense in the sprints, where the accepted differential between electronic times and manual times is 0.24 seconds. That’s too much. However, there is a greater tolerance and the electronic/manual timing differential is smaller at 0.14. The move wiped schoolgirl Olympian Claudine Williams off the Champs record books. Her all-time Class Two 800 metre best of 2 minutes 05.6 seconds is largely forgotten. The record on the books is significantly slower. That shouldn’t happen to the Hyde mark, which is a national junior record. Application of the triple jump record preservation logic should preserve the 49.01 as a target for the Class One boys. After all, he was himself a Class One athlete when he dazzled everyone with that big display of his world class potential. Moreover, the Class One 400 metre hurdles is contested with the same hurdle height as the old Open version. The triple jump split has doubled the number of boys learning the event. The change in the hurdles may yield benefits, too. That can be evaluated in time, but hopefully, Hyde’s mark can re-emerge as the Class One mark. Such a move would be simply following established procedure. – Hubert Lawrence has attended Champs since 1980.
Caribbean Foods Limited through its Foska Oats brand continues to show its support for sports after handing over a $1 million cheque to Melbourne Cricket Club towards their 2017 programme. The sponsorship will go towards Melbourne’s cricket academy, camp and 5K road race with the senior cup team now expected to wear Foska Oats branded gear as a part of the agreement. “The academy that started last year (is for) all cricketers, you don’t have to be affiliated with Melbourne. The sponsorship is always good, and we are thankful to Foska Oats for their contribution to the development of Melbourne,” Mark Neita, Melbourne’s club president said during a media launch at Melbourne Oval on Thursday. “We also have a learning centre open to the young cricketers attending the academy and camps. We want to pay attention to the educational aspect of the cricketers. We want fully developed kids,” Neita disclosed. Melbourne is under renovation and Neita pointed out that the brand will attract sponsorship. “In order to attract sponsorship, we have to protect the brand. We spent $7 million to renovate the facility. We want to ensure a first class facility at Melbourne,” he added. Christopher Ramson, a director of Caribbean Foods Limited said that his company is committed to the partnership formed with Melbourne. ‘The Foska Oats brand is pleased to once again be aligned with the Melbourne Cricket Club, and the development of the sport of cricket in Jamaica. Melbourne Cricket Club, like Foska Oats has had a long and successful history in Jamaica, especially in the area of youth development,” Ramson said. “This is one of the reasons that in 2015, when we were approached by Mark Neita, that we did not hesitate on forging a relationship with Melbourne Cricket Club through the Foska Oats/Melbourne Cricket camp. This is a relationship that has not only helped in securing the future of Jamaica’s cricket through the development of young players, but a relationship that will provide so many young people with the opportunity to help themselves out of poverty and difficult circumstances through sports,” he added. President of Jamaica Cricket Association (JCA) Wilford ‘Billy’ Heaven commended Melbourne for their development programme. “We need to apply educational skill to play the game. For us to read the game, we want to be properly developed in the mind. We want to thank you Mr Ramson,” Heaven said.
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Durant’s first trip to India is the latest move by the league to grow the game there, much as it is doing in China.The academy opened in May to train some of the country’s top talents. Since 2008, the NBA has staged more than 1,500 events in 30 Indian cities.FEATURED STORIESSPORTSEnd of his agony? SC rules in favor of Espinosa, orders promoter heirs to pay boxing legendSPORTSRedemption is sweet for Ginebra, Scottie ThompsonSPORTSMayweather beats Pacquiao, Canelo for ‘Fighter of the Decade’ End of his agony? SC rules in favor of Espinosa, orders promoter heirs to pay boxing legend McGregor blasts Cerrone in 40 seconds in UFC return Ai-Ai delas Alas on Jiro Manio: ‘Sana pinahalagahan niya ang naitulong ko’ MOST READ 2017 NBA Most Valuable Player, Kevin Durant of the Golden State Warriors gestures during his tour of NBA Academy in Greater Noida near New Delhi, India, Friday, July 28, 2017. Durant is in India to support the continued growth of basketball in the country and meet the elite prospects of NBA Academy India. (AP Photo/Altaf Qadri)NEW DELHI — Kevin Durant is in India to help the NBA make inroads in a nation of 1.3 billion.Durant took part in a camp in New Delhi, where the Golden State Warriors star helped set a Guinness world record Friday for the largest basketball lesson — 3,459 participants across multiple venues. The NBA Finals MVP met young players at the NBA Academy, with hundreds more joining by satellite from four other cities across the country.ADVERTISEMENT Indian national gunned down in Camarines Sur Sports Related Videospowered by AdSparcRead Next