Kelly Slater, widely regarded as the greatest professional surfer of all time, said on Tuesday “this feels like the end” after being knocked out of a competition in Australia and losing his place on the world tour. The 52-year-old American, an 11-time world champion, was already out of contention for a spot at the Paris Olympics this summer. “This feels like the end,” he said, fighting back tears, following elimination from a World Surf League event at Margaret River, near Perth. Slater did not definitively say he was retiring and has hinted several times before that his professional surfing c ..read more

The president of French professional cyclists’ union (UNCP) on Thursday called on the UCI, the world governing body, to take “responsibility” for making the sport a safer place.  Pascal Chanteur said he was “angry” about the recent spate of high speed crashes which have seen three of the world’s top riders land in hospital in the last week.  “Do we have to wait for the umpteenth death? For a rider to have both legs cut off and lose his life, so that people become aware? If that’s the idea, we’re not far off,” Chanteur told AFP. After Wout van Aert broke his collarbone and several rib ..read more

Kenyan athletes staged a protest at Nyayo stadium last week, delaying the selection trials for the All Africa track and field games.  The Kenyan athletes, and many fans, were angry that national sports managers planned to take just one person per discipline in the competitions happening in Accra later this month. Kenya has historically taken three people per discipline. “How can the government take only one athlete? What happens to the rest who have invested for this day?” asked 800m world champion Mary Moraa, who led the protest, according to Kenyan journalist Michelle Katami. Jaded Keny ..read more

The Springboks rugby team and their captain, Siya Kolisi, have been nominated for the prestigious 2024 Laureus sports awards, considered the Oscars of the sporting world. The team won back-to-back Rugby World Cup titles after securing the number one place in France last year with a 12-11 win over the New Zealand All Blacks at the Stade de France. The team previously won Laureus awards for their Rugby World Cup wins in 2007 and 2019. This year, the Springboks were again nominated in the World Team of the Year category alongside teams from the European Ryder Cup, Germany’s men’s basketball, Man ..read more

There was something darkly comic about James Small losing his life in a strip joint. Some of us might have lost other things — our virginity, our wallets, our self-respect, we might even have lost our mates or our marriages in strip joints — but Small wasn’t a small gestures kind of guy. He was all in. And there he was, at The Harem strip club in Bedfordview, a Johannesburg suburb, having his ticker call time on a life he seemed to lose long before he dropped dead.  Maybe it’s excessive to say he lost his life before he died. Maybe it’s more genteel to say he misplaced a life, in the way ..read more

When football matches cross midnight (local time), weird things happen. Goal-keepers turn into princes, penalty-takers turn into pumpkins, and the world takes a turn for the fabulous.  Bafana Bafana’s Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) quarter-final against Cape Verde in the Ivorian capital of Yamoussoukro on Saturday was surely a case in point. With the score deadlocked at nil-all, and the witching hour approaching, Ronwen Williams, the Bafana Bafana goal-keeper, contrived to jolt us sleepyheads back home wide awake. Darting off his line to narrow the angle with the Cape Verde’s Gilson Tavar ..read more

Afrobeats tunes competing with cheers, Nigerians celebrated a tense penalty victory over South Africa on Wednesday night as their team advanced to the Africa Cup of Nations finals after a scrappy semi-final match. Substitute Kelechi Iheanacho handed Nigeria a 4-2 penalty shootout victory over South Africa after their knock-out game in Bouake, Ivory Coast.   The match ended 1-1 after extra time and Nigeria, the three-time African champions, will now face hosts Ivory Coast in the final on Sunday. At the Tiger Bar in the Ikoyi district of Nigeria’s economic capital Lagos, the last penalty t ..read more

Substitute Kelechi Iheanacho scored to give Nigeria a 4-2 penalty shootout victory over South Africa on Wednesday after an Africa Cup of Nations semi-final thriller in Bouake.   The match finished 1-1 after extra time and the three-time champions will face hosts Ivory Coast or the Democratic Republic of Congo, who meet later, in the final on Sunday. Both regular-time goals also came from penalties with captain William Troost-Ekong scoring after 67 minutes for Nigeria and Teboho Mokoena equalised from a 90th-minute spot-kick. The Mokoena equaliser came after Nigeria thought they had score ..read more

There is no such thing as a comfortable victory for South African sports teams or athletes. They always have the nation biting its nails when getting a job done.  The Banyana Banyana side looked to be cruising in their Africa Cup of Nations (Afcon) final in 2022, but conceded a late goal and kept us on the edge of our seats before they claimed the cup. The Springboks’ entire Rugby World Cup run last year consisted of closely contested games in which there was just a point between them and their opposition in every single knockout game.  South Africa’s last sporting success, which ca ..read more

In an interview with Drew Forrest, the Test opener insists our first-class game cannot be fixed using another, entirely different, format This content is restricted to registered users and subscribers. Get Your Free Account The Mail & Guardian is committed to providing all our readers with the best possible experience. Please register your free account now. Your registration is your first step to becoming an M&G community member. Register Registration enables: - M&G newsletters access - notifications - the best possible experience Already registered? Login here Want to subsc ..read more