Kumar Sangakkara scored his third Test double century on Thursday as Sri Lanka reached 395 runs for five wickets at lunch on the second day of the second cricket Test against South Africa. Resuming on 157, Sangakkara survived a chance after adding 20 runs to his overnight total.
Just a few hours before she was supposed to board the United States Olympic tennis team’s flight to Athens, Serena Williams sent word via e-mail that she wouldn’t be going to the summer Games because of a bad left knee. ”I’ve never been this disappointed in my career,” Williams said from Florida on Wednesday night.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
The Olympic flame began a final swing through the suburbs of Athens on Thursday before a journey after dusk up the Acropolis Hill to the 2 500-year-old Parthenon, the icon of Athens’s ancient glory. As the flame travelled around ancient monuments and through blue-collar districts, thousands of Athenians turned out to cheer.
Special Report: Olympics 2004
Touring the endless hallways and sweeping decks of the Queen Mary 2, you’ll find gleaming wood panelling, deep red carpeting and authentic Art Deco details. You’ll also find a hall of fame with larger-than-life, black-and-white photographs of some of the many stars who sailed on the ship’s predecessor, the Queen Mary: Buster Keaton. Bing Crosby. Charlie Chaplin. Elizabeth Taylor.
The art of lobbying is being perfected this week in the modernist marble interior of the Hilton hotel in Athens. The city’s magnificent Olympic stadium may be the focus of the world’s attention when the games of the 28th Olympiad open on Friday night, but the Hilton will be the real heart of the games.
He’s not yet advertising for a speechwriter, but Lemmer respectfully suggests that Oom Thabo seriously considers hiring someone with some talent along those lines. It might avoid the sort of stupendously pointless sound bite offered up to SAfm news as the prez congratulated South African women judges on the launch of the local chapter of the International Judges Association in Benoni on Monday.
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Zimbabwe’s Sports Minister, Aeneas Chigwedere, accused Britain on Wednesday of pressuring Greece into barring him from attending the Athens Olympics and described the decision as ”completely out of order”. EU member Greece announced on Tuesday it will bar Chigwedere from attending the Olympics.
Two trains collided head-on in north-western Turkey on Wednesday, killing six people and injuring about 30 others, an official said. Firefighters were trying to enter the first car of one of the trains to pull out passengers. The car was smashed and flipped over in the collision near the village of Tavsancil in Kocaeli province.
A man who once weighed more than 450kg has lost 144kg under the care of a team of doctors and hopes to lose 203kg more. Patrick Deuel (42) of Valentine, Nebraska, weighed 482kg when he was admitted to Sioux Falls’s Avera McKennan hospital eight weeks ago. Deuel is on a 1 200-calorie-a-day diet.