Lance Armstrong has vehemently denied fresh doping allegations and attacked lapses in anti-doping protocol that allowed a French newspaper to gain access to his stored urine samples from the 1999 Tour de France. ”The unfortunate thing is that you’re dealing with something you could be faced with the rest of your life,” he said.
”Cricket’s sudden assertion of itself on the international sporting scene seems not only out of character, but somehow unnatural, as if a high tide had come instead of a low, or a summer had followed an autumn. Indeed, nothing has jolted and upset the natural order of things than England’s magnificent resurgence against Australia,” writes Tom Eaton.
Brett Kebble may be preoccupied with the loss of his mining empire, but his venture into fishing is looking even shakier. Allegations of broken promises, dodgy licence applications and attempts to use political influence swirl around the South Atlantic Fishing Company, an empowerment firm set up by Kebble’s JCI to hunt tuna and swordfish off the west coast.
”The transfer market exists to teach managers humility. Even Jose Mourinho should feel chastened from time to time. Despite his public pronouncements, in his private moments, he might ask himself whether it really was essential to spend £8-million on Tiago, the midfielder offloaded to Lyon on Wednesday,” writes Kevin McCarra.
In their World Cup run, South Africa are playing Russian roulette — with two bullets chambered. Bafana Bafana’s progress to the World Cup is now an ambition rather than a certainty after losing lead of the group to Ghana. Although both teams have 15 points, Ghana’s position at the top is not just down to alphabetical order or goal difference.
The JSE Securities Exchange (JSE) was mixed in noon trade on Friday in a market that lacked overall drivers. While heavyweight dual-listed stocks were generally firmer on the back of positive performances offshore, moves in the rest of the market were mostly stock specific, dealers said.
Michael Owen wants to go home. Real Madrid want him to go home. Newcastle simply want him and have offered a club record £16-million to end their Premiership drought. And in World Cup year, England’s leading goal-scorer finds himself in limbo.
Jane Taylor is an academic of note and only someone familiar with the world of academe would devise such an astonishing motive for a homicide, in her new novel <i>Of wild dogs</i>, writes Barbara Ludman.
After the Chinese herb mocrea in the 1990s and the African potato five years ago, moringa powder is the latest craze for Zimbabweans battling one of the world’s highest HIV/Aids infection rates. ”Do you want to feel well, have a healthy appetite and live longer?” a pamphlet on a supermarket noticeboard screams in bold print.
The sound of the Kwani Experience travels far beyond the concrete that spawned it. Their sound is clearly the progeny of a long list of South African innovators, writes Kwanele Sosibo.