At nine years old, skateboarder Mazel Alegado has the world at her feet.

Now the United States resident has her eyes set on reaching the Olympic Games. 

“I’m really proud that I got here. My dream is to be a pro skater. I would love to go to the Olympics,” she told Japan Today. “I was so excited you know, because I was able to skate Asian Games. It was so fun,” she added.

She was inspired to take up the sport after watching her brother. “We were at my cousin’s house and I saw my brother skateboarding and I was like, ‘Can I try? Can I try?’ I got on the board and just loved it,” she said.

Alegado’s best score in the final came in her first run, when she posted 52.85.

Japanese skateboarder Hinano Kusaki, 15, claimed gold while China bagged silver and bronze with, respectively, 20-year-old Li Yujuan and Mao Jiasi, 15, finishing on the podium.

Skateboarding has attracted some of sport’s youngest athletes. Britain’s Sky Brown turned 13 shortly before claiming bronze at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics while silver medallist Kokona Hiraki was 12.

(BBC)

Sachithra Senanayake, the former Sri Lanka offspinner, has been granted bail by the Colombo Chief Magistrate’s court, the police media division has confirmed. Senanayake had been arrested on September 6 on charges related to match-fixing. Bail was granted on two sureties of LKR 5,000,000 each, while the previously court-imposed travel ban is still in effect. He will appear before court again on December 12, 2023.

Senananayake, 38, is alleged to have attempted to convince players to fix in the 2020 Lanka Premier League. Although he was not himself a player in this tournament, and is understood to have been overseas at the time, Senanayake is alleged to have contacted more than one player taking part in the LPL. This information was then allegedly conveyed to the tournament’s anti-corruption officers.

The arrest was made under the Prevention of Offences Relating to Sports Act, which was introduced in 2019. Under this law, “any person who solicits, entices, persuades, or instructs any person… to influence the result, progress, conduct … of any sport, commits the offence of corruption in sports”. This is the first arrest made under this act.

Senanayake had had something of a storied career before being pulled up on his action in 2014. He’d been a key part of Sri Lanka’s triumphant 2014 T20 World Cup campaign, and had also been bought for USD $625,000 by Kolkata Knight Riders in the 2013 IPL season.

Although he made a return in 2014 with a remodeled bowling action, his career declined thereafter. He played the last of his 49 ODIs in December 2015, and the last of his 24 T20Is in 2016. He also played one Test in 2013, but didn’t take any wickets.

(Cricinfo)