Latest - Denmark midfielder Christian Eriksen has joined Premier League club Brentford, seven months after he suffered a cardiac arrest during a European Championship match.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Eriksen, who collapsed during the game against Finland in Copenhagen and was given life-saving CPR treatment in front of shocked fans and team mates, has signed for Brentford as a free agent for the rest of the season.
"I'm happy to announce I've signed for Brentford and can't wait to get started and hopefully see you all very soon," Eriksen said in a video post.
The former Tottenham Hotspur and Inter Milan player is now fitted with a special heart-starting device known as an Implantable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD).
Eriksen, 29, has not played a competitive match since his collapse, although he has been training with his former club Ajax Amsterdam to build up his fitness.
Inter Milan terminated his contract in December because the ICD device is not permitted in Serie A.
Eriksen will be re-united with Brentford manager Thomas Frank who supervised the Denmark Under-17 team he played for.
Eriksen, capped 109 times by Denmark, was given the green light by doctors last month to resume his playing career and is aiming to be available for the World Cup.
-Reuters
More positive cases in Beijing
During the past four days China has detected 119 COVID-19 cases among athletes and personnel involved in the Beijing Winter Olympics, with authorities imposing a "closed loop" bubble to keep participants, staff and media separated from the public.
Photo: AFP
The tally from the weekend showed 37 new cases on Sunday, and 34 on Saturday, with most testing positive after arrival at the airport, Games organisers said.
Russian biathlete Valeria Vasnetsova said her own Olympic ambitions were over after testing positive twice following her arrival in Beijing, one of three Russian positive tests announced on Monday.
"Unfortunately, my Olympic dream will remain just a dream," Vasnetsova wrote on social media. "Maybe one day I will find the strength to rise again but it will be a completely different story."
Eight athletes or team officials were among 28 people who had tested positive on arrival at the airport on Sunday.
International Olympic Committee member Emma Terho, who heads the IOC's athletes commission, also tested positive and said she has been in isolation since the weekend.
Some 3,000 athletes, along with coaches, officials, federation delegates and media are expected for the Games which official open on Friday.
-Reuters
F1 mandates vaccination
Formula One will make it mandatory for all personnel working in its paddock to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19, without exemption, starting this season.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
The mandate will apply to anyone entering the paddock -- an exclusive area in which teams and drivers set up shop for a race weekend.
This will include all competitors, hospitality staff, members of the media, the governing FIA, Liberty Media-owned commercial rights holders FOM and even celebrity guests.
The mandate was approved at a December meeting of the FIA's World Motor Sport Council.
The new rules call into question the future of long-time medical car driver Alan van der Merwe.
The South African, who played a pivotal role rescuing Romain Grosjean from a fiery crash in the 2020 Bahrain Grand Prix, has chosen not to get vaccinated for personal reasons. The FIA did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the vaccine mandate or Van der Merwe's future.
Formula One is set for a record 23-race calendar this year.
-Reuters
Womens test cricket should be five days
Women's test matches should be played over five days to produce more results, current and former players said after England and Australia battled out a thrilling draw in Canberra on Sunday.
Australia's brave declaration set up an intriguing fourth and final day at Canberra's Manuka Oval where England fell agonisingly short of a record run chase and the rain-hit Ashes contest ended in a draw.
"The greatest Test match that I have been luckily enough to be involved in...Now for 5 day Test please," tweeted Australia player-turned-commentator Lisa Sthalekar.
The issue has been discussed by the International Cricket Council but women's test matches are still played over four days.
England captain Heather Knight backed the idea before the start of the one-off test match, especially considering how rarely women's tests are played.
Team mate Kate Cross said women cricketers were fit enough to cope with the physical demands of longer matches.
"I think we're ready for five days of cricket now," the seamer said in Canberra.
-Reuters
Lampard to manage Everton
Everton have appointed former Chelsea boss Frank Lampard as their manager on a two-and-a-half-year contract.
Photo: PHOTOSPORT
Everton sacked Rafa Benitez this month after a 2-1 defeat at Norwich City left the Merseyside club six points above the relegation zone.
"I'm very hungry to get started. After speaking to the owner, chairman and the board, I very much felt their passion and ambition. I hope they felt my ambition and how hard I want to work to bring it together," Lampard said in a statement.
Lampard, 43, started his coaching career at second-tier Derby County in 2018 and after one season in charge he became manager of Chelsea, the club he helped to win several major trophies in 13 years as a player.
The former England midfielder led the London side to a fourth-placed league finish and the FA Cup final in his first season but was dismissed in January last year after a poor run of results.
Everton are now 16th after Duncan Ferguson took charge of one game as caretaker manager, losing to Aston Villa.
-Reuters
Carlos to play for pub side
Brazil World Cup winner Roberto Carlos will make an appearance for an English pub team after they acquired his services in a dream transfer raffle on auction website eBay.
Roberto Carlos Photo: AFP
The 48-year-old former full back, who played for Real Madrid and was well-known for his swerving free kicks, will swap the yellow of Brazil for the red shirt of Shrewsbury & District League side The Bull In The Barne.
He will appear as a substitute in a game in February.
Carlos, who won the 2002 World Cup with Brazil and three Champions League and four La Liga titles with Real Madrid, might find the changing facilities more basic than what he is used to said club striker and secretary Matthew Brown.
"We play on a pitch next to Hanwood Village Hall. The changing room is proper Sunday league, pretty basic, a couple of the showers don't work," Brown said.
-Reuters
Surprise at judge appointment
A Chinese figure skating judge who served a suspension for giving preferential marks to his compatriots will serve on a technical judging panel at the Beijing Winter Olympics, competition records show, drawing consternation from a competitor affected by his work in the past.
Huang Feng received a one-year suspension in June 2018 for biased judging of pairs figure skating at the Pyeongchang Olympics that year.
For the Beijing Games, which begin on Friday, Huang is listed as a technical controller, an official who supervises technical specialists and can propose corrections regarding the level of difficulty identified for a given element.
When the International Skating Union disciplinary commission suspended Huang in 2018, it said he had shown "obvious and systematic bias" at the Pyeongchang Games.
Figure skating has been rocked by judging scandals and conflicts of interest, including a purported vote-trading scheme at the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics that sparked sweeping reforms.
At the 2018 Games, Canadian pairs skater Meagan Duhamel and partner Eric Radford won bronze. Duhamel said that when she studied the detailed scores, she realised one judge had been particularly harsh in marking some pairs.
She was not surprised when Huang was suspended later that year.
-Reuters