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Real Madrid’s Cristiano Ronaldo has received a generous paycheck from a Chinese soccer team, his agent Jorge Mendes told Sky Sport recently. The unidentified Chinese buyer had offered the newly crowned four-time golden ball winner an annual salary of over €100 million ($105 million), Mendes claimed—double Ronaldo’s current yearly earnings in salary and bonuses. But the Portuguese star, who won championship titles with both his national team and Real Madrid…

Australia is world-famous as a swimming nation. We have a celebrated beach culture, not to mention more privately owned pools per capita than any other country. Yet few urban Australians would consider swimming in their city’s river. Almost every major Australian city sits on the banks of a large river. But judging by online reactions to the suggestion of a dip in the Brisbane river, most people are worried about…

Andy Murray wins Wimbledon again – 10 July 135mm lens 1/1600 f4 ISO 1000 Championship-winning point at Wimbledon is always a bit nervy for me even though I have done many of them over the years. There are some pretty big decisions to be made – what lens do you go on as you don’t know where on the court they will celebrate? Do you go upright or landscape? Are…

Australia is world-famous as a swimming nation. We have a celebrated beach culture, not to mention more privately owned pools per capita than any other country. Yet few urban Australians would consider swimming in their city’s river. Almost every major Australian city sits on the banks of a large river. But judging by online reactions to the suggestion of a dip in the Brisbane river, most people are worried about…

When Moussa Camara scored a late first-half equalizer against Mukura earlier this month in a Rwandan Premier League match, fans of the Rayon Sports forward didn’t know for what to cheer: the player’s skill or his apparent belief in witchcraft. Just three minutes before the Mali-born player booted in what would be the final goal of the 1-1 draw, he was spotted fiddling with something near the opponent’s goal post. According…

The judge said Sport England’s current policy defined sport as involving “physical activity” and its move to reject reclassification of bridge was correct. During the case, Sport England argued that bridge was no more a sporting activity than “sitting at home, reading a book”. Speaking after the decision, Sport England’s director of sport, Phil Smith, said: “Our job is to help the nation to be more physically active. We recognise…

A “lack of clarity surrounding dual roles” between British Cycling and Team Sky, “resentment amongst some riders and BC staff who did not have Team Sky roles/contracts”, and perhaps most pertinently, the “serious reputational risk to many stakeholders posed by a doping scandal at Team Sky” were all flagged up by the 2011 Deloitte report jointly commissioned by British Cycling and UK Sport to look into the relationship between British…

Just when Hope Solo thought she couldn’t be more of an outcast, her former teammates kicked her hand-picked equal-pay advocate to the curb. US women’s national soccer team players said Wednesday that attorney Rich Nichols, whom the combustible goalkeeper reportedly “convinced” the team to hire two years ago, will no longer serve as the union’s counsel in contentious contract negotiations with the US Soccer Federation. Before Solo was issued a…

The British Cycling president, Bob Howden, insists he is prevented from confirming what was in a package delivered to Sir Bradley Wiggins five years ago due to the UK Anti-Doping investigation into the matter. Wiggins announced his retirement on Wednesday but the contents of the package given to him at the end of a race in France in 2011 are the subject of a Ukad investigation into alleged “wrongdoing”. The…

Did you know the Chicago Cubs won the World Series? It’s the end of 2016, and here we are, looking back at the year that was, and no one is pointing out that the Cubs won the World Series. Seems like everyone has forgotten, even though you would think that we would be inundated with Cubs stories right now. You know, articles like “The Cubs Are 2016’s Biggest Story,” “Year…

We’re a few short days away from 2017 so it’s a good time to look back at the top 25 baseball stories of 2016. Some of them took place on the field, some of them off the field and some of them were creatures of social media, fan chatter and the like. No matter where the story broke, however, these were the stories baseball fans were talking about most this…

Meet the Most Impressive Jewish Baseball Team Ever Assembled December 29, 2016 by Jeffrey Boxer Wikipedia Major League Baseball is headed to Israel. Or at the very least, a squad of American-Jewish ballplayers are. Ahead of Team Israel’s first appearance in the bi-annual World Baseball Classic – MLB’s answer to the FIFA World Cup – eleven professional athletes are embarking on their own Birthright trip. From January 3-10, the group…

MLB’s broadcast booths don’t have that much turnover. (via Marianne O’Leary) It’s 11 o’clock at night, Central time, and Brandon Liebhaber is still at the ballpark in Jackson, Tenn. He’s not taking extra fielding practice or discussing a new arm slot, though; he’s paging through stacks of press releases, coordinating interviews, and killing a forest’s worth of trees printing out packets of information for the coaches on situational stats for…

When the 2017 World Baseball Classic begins in a little more than two months, Team Canada will be without their best player and biggest superstar. Reds first baseman Joey Votto is skipping the tournament to work on the parts of the game he has “decided were lacking” this past season. Here is Votto’s statement, which he released through the Reds: Votto, who grew up in Toronto, hit .326/.434/.550 (160 OPS+)…

The British Cycling president, Bob Howden, insists he is prevented from confirming what was in a package delivered to Sir Bradley Wiggins five years ago due to the UK Anti-Doping investigation into the matter. Wiggins announced his retirement on Wednesday but the contents of the package given to him at the end of a race in France in 2011 are the subject of a Ukad investigation into alleged “wrongdoing”. The…

In a neatly maintained archive of papers held in the library at Brunel University, the pioneering campaigner for action to prevent sexual abuse in sport Prof Celia Brackenridge compiled a catalogue of horrific cases that came to court in the 1990s. Included in the files is a note on the Channel 4 Dispatches programme that in 1997 exposed several instances of abuse in football. Tragically the Brackenridge archive comprises reports…

MLB’s broadcast booths don’t have that much turnover. (via Marianne O’Leary) It’s 11 o’clock at night, Central time, and Brandon Liebhaber is still at the ballpark in Jackson, Tenn. He’s not taking extra fielding practice or discussing a new arm slot, though; he’s paging through stacks of press releases, coordinating interviews, and killing a forest’s worth of trees printing out packets of information for the coaches on situational stats for…

We’re a few short days away from 2017 so it’s a good time to look back at the top 25 baseball stories of 2016. Some of them took place on the field, some of them off the field and some of them were creatures of social media, fan chatter and the like. No matter where the story broke, however, these were the stories baseball fans were talking about most this…

We’re a few short days away from 2017 so it’s a good time to look back at the top 25 baseball stories of 2016. Some of them took place on the field, some of them off the field and some of them were creatures of social media, fan chatter and the like. No matter where the story broke, however, these were the stories baseball fans were talking about most this…

The Team Israel roster for the 2017 World Baseball Classic. Photo: Courtesy of Team Israel. JNS.org – Ten American-Jewish professional baseball players representing Israel in an international tournament will soon visit the Jewish state. The players, members of Team Israel’s squad for the next World Baseball Classic (WBC) tournament — scheduled for March 2017 in Seoul, South Korea — will visit Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, an Israeli Air Force base, the Masada fortress…