Sports
Recent history repeats for first five gold medallists at WIC Nanjing 25
There was a feeling of deja vu on the first day of action at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Nanjing 25.
Three of the gold medallists – 60m winner Jeremiah Azu, triple jump champion Andy Diaz Hernandez, and pentathlon gold medallist Saga Vanninen – stood atop a major podium for the second time this month, having struck gold at the recent European Indoor Championships two weeks ago.
The two other winners today, shot put champion Sarah Mitton and high jump victor Woo Sanghyeok, collected their second world indoor titles, having won in previous editions.
Diaz Hernandez was the first winner of the day, taking triple jump gold with a world-leading 17.80m to break his own outright Italian record.
Another jumps gold was decided in the evening session as Woo regained the title he first won in 2022, beating Olympic champion Hamish Kerr with a winning leap of 2.31m.
A high-quality shot put tussle resulted in Mitton retaining her crown with 20.48m. The pentathlon reached its conclusion at a similar time as Vanninen landed gold with 4821.
The evening session drew to a close with the men’s 60m final as Azu held off a strong challenge from Australia’s Lachlan Kennedy to take gold by 0.01 in 6.49.
[World Athletics]
The likes of Mondo Duplantis, Grant Holloway and Jakob Ingebrigtsen added to their ever-growing medal collection on Saturday (22) at the World Athletics Indoor Championships Nanjing 25.
Duplantis picked up his third world indoor pole vault title, doing so with a winning vault of 6.15m. Holloway also claimed his third world indoor crown, winning the 60m hurdles in 7.42. Ingebrigtsen’s 1500m triumph marked his first world indoor title, adding to the numerous global golds he has earned outdoors.
Ethiopia’s 3000m winner Freweyni Hailu and 60m champion Mujinga Kambundji of Switzerland collected their second world indoor crowns, adding to the ones they won in 2024 and 2022 respectively.
Some new faces also emerged, though, as the likes of triple jump champion Leyanis Perez Hernandez, pole vault winner Marie-Julie Bonnin and 400m champions Amber Anning and Chris Bailey earned their first individual major international gold medals on a day where nine titles were decided.
[World Athletics]
The first IPL after the mega auction brings with it much anticipation of new alliances and loyalties. Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will be thrilled that their latest acquisitions played an impactful role in their emphatic start to IPL 2025 against defending champions Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR).
Josh Hazelwood used the spongy bounce to scuttle KKR’s powerplay and death overs with analysis of 4-0-22-1, Krunal Pandya ended Ajinkya Rahane’s high-intent fifty in a spell of 4-0-29-3, Suvash Sharma salvaged an ordinary night with the massive wicket of Andre Russell, and Phil Salt killed the chase with 56 off 31, identical score to Rahane’s. A regular fixture at RCB, Virat Kohli then sealed the game with 59 off 36 with 22 balls to spare in the chase of 175.
Known for pushing convention, KKR played safe with their captaincy choice post the auction. Rahane the batter will have to allay doubts practically every day, but he got off to a good start as he and Sunil Narine smashed 98 runs in overs four to ten. However, KKR were outplayed pretty much throughout the night outside those seven overs.
It was just two overs at the top but that comprises 10% of the innings in T20s. Hazlewood, unavailable last IPL, was re-acquired by RCB at the auction. Coming off a long injury layoff, he started as if he had never been away: hard length, good pace, extra bounce. He had Quinton de Kock dropped before getting him two balls later in the first over. Then he had Narine swinging and missing through the third over.
RCB did help Rahane out, but he allayed some of the doubts around his batting with a high-intent innings even as Narine struggled to come to terms with the uneven bounce on the pitch. RCB kept feeding him straight balls, and Rahane kept picking them up over the leg side: all his first 30 runs came there. Once Narine joined the mayhem, that slow start was exorcised.
One of the key moments was Narine going after his former team-mate Suyash, who tends to get the better of batters when they play him as a legspinner. Narine kept going over the off side as 22 came off the ninth over.
KKR were 107 for 1 in 9.5 overs when Narine tried to crash Rasikh Salam over the off side but was done in by the extra bounce. Struggling for options until that point, RCB could then go back to Krunal as Rahane and Venkatesh Iyer can both be shut down by spin. In each of his last three overs, Krunal, who used clever changes in pace, picked up a wicket with quicker balls. Rahane holed out to deep midwicket while Venkatesh and Rinku Singh were castled.
The wicket of Rinku brought in Russell, cue for RCB to bowl legspin. Russell’s ordinary record against the wrong’un continued as he failed to pick one from Suyash and lost his middle stump. Since 2018 he averages 13.41 and strikes at 123.24 against the wrong’un. That wicket was worth about 40 runs.
Angkrish Raghuvanshi couldn’t get going as the ball gripped the surface. Hazlewood and Yash Dayal used the middle of the pitch masterfully to concede just 23 in the last four overs.
Salt, who played a huge role in KKR’s title run with an average of 58.33 and a strike rate of 185.18 in Kolkata last year, soon reminded KKR they should not have let him go. The first ball of the chase was crashed wide of mid-off for four. The intent never stopped especially with Kohli turbo-charged during the powerplay. KKR were forced to bring in Varun Chakravarthy in the fourth over, and Salt took 20 off him. Also, the ball had stopped gripping by then possibly because of the dew.
By the time Varun got the better of Salt, RCB had reached 95 in 8.3 overs. The asking rate had dropped under seven, and Kohli was never going to let such a chase slip. However, what will thrill RCB is that Kohli kept the intent up and sought to get them a big net-run-rate boost. He slog-swept Varun for a six in his last over when it would have been easy to just play him out. New captain Rajat Patidar played the perfect little hand at the other end with 34 off 16 as RCB romped home.
Brief scores:
Royal Challengers Bengaluru 177 for 3 in 16.2 overs (Virat Kohli 59*, Phil Salt 56, Devdut Padikkal 10, Rajat Patidar 34,Liam Livingstone 15*; Vaibhav Arora 1-42, Varun Chakravarthy 1-43,Sunil Narine 1-27) beat Kolkata Knight Riders 174 for 8 in 20 overs (Ajinkya Rahane 56, Sunil Narine 44, Angkrish Raghuvanshi 30, Rinku Singh 12; Krunal Pandya 3-29, Josh Hazlewood 2-22, Yash Dayal 1-25, Rasikh Salam 1-35, Suyash Sharma 1-47) by seven wickets
[Cricinfo]
Sprinter Chamod Yodasinghe gave Sri Lanka enough reasons to celebrate by securing a semi-final berth in the 60 metres dash on day one of the World Indoor Athletics Championship in Nanjing China on Friday.
The athlete trained by Sanjeewa Weerakkody clocked a blistering time of 6.70 seconds to secure a third place decided by photofinish. He was aiming at bettering Yupun Abeykoon’s 60 metres national indoor record at the world stage but was behind even his own personal best competing less than 24 hours after landing in China. Despite not going beyond the semi-final stage Yodasinghe’s achievement will augur well for the sport.
Sri Lanka Athletics has been largely depending on Italy based sprinter Yupun Abeykoon for country’s representation at global events in the shortest sprint. With his semi-final appearance Yodasinghe has proved beyond doubt that he is ready to impress at the big stage.
Yodasinghe’s heat performance was ranked 24th among a field of 58 athletes who faced starter’s orders in eight heats.
While Kaveesha Bandara was scheduled to compete in the 60 metres hurdles heat yesterday (Saturday) Sri Lanka’s men’s and women’s 4×400 metres relay teams are set to compete in the relay finals in the final two events of the three-day competition.
by Reemus Fernando
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