Italian speedster Valentino Rossi kept his word by winning the Qatar MotoGP in dramatic fashion on Saturday to further hammer home his superiority in motorcycling’s premier class. Rossi, who had claimed the title with four races to spare, denied fellow Italian Loris Capirossi a third successive MotoGP victory.
A burst of four tries that included a hat-trick in 14 minutes to flying Western Province right wing Egon Seconds blew away the 2005 Absa Currie Cup hopes of the Natal Sharks as they succumbed 45-21 to Western Province in a rugby match of great intensity in Durban on Saturday.
The Falcons were pushed all the way by the Mighty Elephants before emerging 35-31 winners in a pulsating Currie Cup first-division semifinal played at the Bosman Stadium in Brakpan on Saturday afternoon. Their reward is a final in Brakpan on October 14 where they will meet the Pumas.
Boland and the Leopards produced a spectacle seldom seen on a rugby field by playing suicide rugby that produced a nine-try thriller in their Currie Cup clash at Wellington on Saturday. Boland won the match 39-26. The two premier-division minnows made their intentions clear early on with a high-tempo exhibition of daring rugby.
The Lions edged the Cheetahs 37-36 in a thrilling Currie Cup encounter played in front of a small but appreciative crowd at Ellis Park Stadium in Johannesburg on Saturday evening. Nine tries were scored in all — five by the visitors — as both teams threw caution to the wind in their bid to qualify for the semifinals.
Robbie Keane came off the bench to score the winner, and Tottenham rallied from a two-goal deficit to beat second-place Charlton 3-2 on Saturday in the English Premier League. In another comeback, Ruud van Nistelrooy scored twice to lead Manchester United to a 3-2 victory at Fulham.
Like a pressure cooker suddenly reaching boiling point, Mamelodi Sundowns began to sizzle in the second half of a 4-0 Coca-Cola Cup victory against Lamontville Golden Arrows in Mamelodi on Saturday afternoon. In Cape Town, a goal in the 106th minute by Mfundo Shumana led Ajax Cape Town to victory over Bush Bucks.
An incomprehensible screed of words carved by a grief-stricken schizophrenic French farmer into his bedroom floor has become Paris’s most controversial new art exhibit. Since the Plancher de Jeannot (Jeannot’s Floorboards) went on display last week, it has created an unprecedented stir.
The capital city of soul and rock’n’roll has hit hard times. In its heyday, Elvis was its king in his Graceland mansion. Yet today the stardust of Memphis is gone, replaced by high unemployment, crime and grinding poverty. Now an unlikely figure, the former boy-band member Justin Timberlake, has emerged as its would-be saviour.
On Monday, assuming last-minute negotiations overcome all hitches, Turkey will formally start negotiations to bring its 70-million-plus citizens into the European Union some time between 2015 and 2020. Yet in Europe and in Turkey there are signs that a backlash might have started. Polls show that support for EU accession has slumped from 75% in December last year.