New Bafana Bafana coach Stuart Baxter said he was impressed after he concluded his first training session with the national side at the Free State Technikon on Wednesday in preparation for Saturday’s 2006 World Cup Group B qualifier against Cape Verde at Vodacom Park.
Springbok manager Arthob Petersen has refuted comments attributed to the South African Rugby Football Union’s (Sarfu) Piet Heymans during a radio interview in which Heymans is reported to have said that the Springbok players have no confidence in Sarfu president Brian van Rooyen.
Five Boks sent off in shaky match
Llewellyn Herbert, South African holder of the 400m hurdles record and medal winner at the 2000 Olympics and the 1997 World Championships, started his 2004 international campaign in fine style with a victory at an IAAF Grand Prix 11 meeting in Milan on Wednesday.
Triple French Open champion Gustavo Kuerten insists he can be a force in world tennis again despite the hip injury that is threatening to bring an early, heartbreaking finish to his career. He lost in Paris to Argentina’s David Nalbandian, who went through to the semifinals with a 6-2, 3-6, 6-4, 7-6 (8/6) win on Wednesday.
East Timorese marathon runner Aguida Amaral spends her days pounding the dusty streets of the world’s newest nation, training hard for the Athens Olympics, where the tiny country’s flag will fly for the first time. Amaral is one of two East Timorese marathon runners preparing to leave for Athens.
The Olympic torch returns to Sydney after an absence of four years on Friday — but only after Greek and Australian officials resolved a gold-medal spat that threatened the visit down under. Sydney, host of the 2000 Games, will be the first stop in the international leg of the torch relay ahead of the Athens Games in August.
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Paul McCartney says he got no thrill from heroin, but found cocaine more to his liking for a time. ”I tried heroin just the once,” McCartney said in interview published on Wednesday in the Daily Mirror newspaper. Despite enjoying cocaine for a time, he said he eventually turned against the drug.
Ousted Haitian president Jean-Bertrand Aristide is not a refugee in South Africa, but a free person and a guest of the government, Minister of Foreign Affairs Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma said on Wednesday. She told reporters in Pretoria that Aristide will be allowed to make political speeches while in the country.
African governments will work with big business to launch projects that will shore up the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (Nepad) continental economic rescue plan, Mozambique’s President Joaquim Chissano said on Tuesday at the opening of a three-day World Economic Forum for Africa conference.