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In the searing 108-degree heat, far from his Louisiana health care business, Army Col. Scott Desormeaux and his soldiers are on a dusty base near Syria’s northern border, helping Syrian rebel forces battle Islamic State militants and keeping an eye on Russian troops in the region. It’s tough duty for the soldiers. But their deployment to the Middle East last November is just a small part of the blistering pace of missions that members of the Louisiana National Guard and America’s other citizen-soldiers have faced in the past 18 months. Beyond overseas deployments, Guard members have been called in to battle the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and protests against racial injustice. For many, it’s meant months away from their civilian jobs and scarce times with families. While Guard leaders say troops are upbeat, they worry about exhaustion setting in and wonder how much longer U.S. businesses can do without their long-absent workers. Back home in Louisiana, …

[Read more...] about Breakneck pace of crises keeps National Guard away from home

British Gymnastics has announced a four-year partnership with Matchroom Sport to promote an annual World Cup of Gymnastics at the O2 Arena in London. The first one-day event – featuring eight national teams competing in six men’s events and four women’s – will be held on April 8, 2017. Tickets go on sale to the general public this week and Matchroom’s Barry Hearn said he expected all 18,000 seats to sell out very quickly. “We are looking at staging something spectacular,” said Hearn, speaking at a launch event held at the Shard. “It is going to be lavish, it is going to be party-time, it is going to be an absolutely magnificent celebration of a wonderful sport.” Announcing that the compe­tition will also be shown in its entirety live on Sky, Hearn suggested that gymnastics was a sport poised to take off into the mainstream. “I cannot believe the number of people who’ve told me they love gymnastics since the Olympics,” he said. “10.8 million watched Max [Whitlock] win gold …

[Read more...] about ‘Let’s get ready to tumble’ – Gymnastics joins forces with Matchroom’s Barry Hearn

A Belarusian Olympic athlete says she is scared of coming back home and is seeking political asylum in Europe after criticising her coaches at the Tokyo Games. Kryscina Tsimanouskaya told Belarusian media on Sunday that she has been kicked out of the team and forcibly taken to Tokyo airport where she is waiting for a flight to Istanbul. Belarus has been in political turmoil since last August when Alexander Lukashenko was handed a highly dubious election win, which sparked massive street protests and staggering police violence. Several top Belarusian athletes have been kicked off the national team for publicly siding with the opposition, and some of them detained and mistreated in custody. Ms Tsimanouskaya, a sprinter, was kicked out of the team after she posted a video, criticising a last moment decision to put her on the team’s relay race as Belarus found itself short of athletes who had done enough doping tests. ”It turns out that our very cool leaders have decided …

[Read more...] about Belarus athlete ‘forcibly removed’ from Olympics after criticising coach

The news that Helen Glover, mother of three and double Olympic rowing champion, is targeting a return to the British team for the delayed Games in Tokyo was always going to thrust her back into the limelight. So perhaps it was rather fortunate then that the 34-year-old last week got a helpful reminder of being the centre of attention, on account of turning into a viral television story. “At least people can understand the kind of chaos that’s going on in the house!" laughs Glover from her home near Maidenhead when the subject of that live BBC Breakfast interview is raised; the one in which she attempted to show how parents can perform easy workouts from home, only for her one-year-old twins Bo and Kit to wail disruptively on screen, leave presenter Naga Munchetty in hysterics and the subsequent internet clip garner attention from as far away as Australia. Glover was so petrified of the reaction that she initially steered clear of social media. She need not have worried. Upstaged …

[Read more...] about Helen Glover exclusive interview: Double Olympic champion and mother of three, on trying for Tokyo 2020

An hour’s bus ride next to Sir Andy Murray , a meal with clairvoyant Adam Peaty and a humbling gym session with Team GB’s rugby sevens squad… When Justin Rose sits down to watch the men’s Olympic golf tournament this week, what he anticipates being “a bittersweet feeling” will be informed by more than simply his victory at Rio in 2016. “I’ve been going around for five years knowing I’m the only living male with an Olympic golf gold, so it will be a little weird, yes,” Rose, 40, says. “Listen, I so wanted to be in Japan to defend and essentially I have nobody else to blame but myself that I’m not. But I do look at last year’s postponement and wonder. I had done enough to qualify 12 months ago. I was in. But then in just an Olympic golf sense, the pandemic has affected the tournament so much more than me.” When the 72-hole strokeplay event tees off at Kasumigaseki Country Club at 7.30am local time on Thursday (Wednesday, 11.30pm BST), only three of the world’s top 10 and 11 …

[Read more...] about Justin Rose exclusive interview: ‘For golf to thrive as Olympic sport we need top players to take part’

Rory McIlroy could have been at Wembley on Wednesday night  – “with my Danish top on,” the Northern Irishman joked – but instead he is glad to be in North Berwick desperately trying to put his game, and most notably his driving, in shape for next week’s Open Championship. McIlroy, 32, was had been due to skip this Scottish Open, but when the Covid-19 travel restrictions meant his wife Erica and baby daughter Poppy had to remain in the United States, he delighted the country, the European Tour and sponsors with an unexpected late entry. And after his tie for 59th at last week’s Irish Open, McIlroy’s form plainly needs another outing before the challenge awaiting 450 miles south at Royal St George’s. “I was pretty rusty last week at Mount Juliet,” he said. “I didn’t really practise the week after the US Open [where he finished seventh] and it showed in my game. So it’s been nice to link back up with Pete [Cowen, his coach] and work on some stuff these last couple of days.” It is …

[Read more...] about Rory McIlroy in Scotland in bid to get rid of the rust ahead of The Open

Tommy Fleetwood is taking inspiration from the return to form of his friend Harry Kane as he tries to launch his own challenge for major honours on home soil. Fleetwood, the former European No 1 , has fallen outside the world’s top 30 after a frustrating first half of 2021 that has seen him feature on leaderboards, but failing to record a strokeplay top-five. In short, the 30-year-old has resembled a striker getting into the correct positions but unable to score at the crucial moments . Fortunately, he has an ally who has provided a fine example in the merits of perseverance and patience. “I met Harry at a golf day last year and we have kept in touch,” Fleetwood said after his first-round 66 here at the Scottish Open. “I haven’t wanted to bother him during the Euros, but we have spoken a bit and I’ve told him it’s great to see the lads doing well - and him, of course.  I don’t think people give enough credit to how much pressure is on them to go and do it. “It’s interesting, …

[Read more...] about Tommy Fleetwood taking inspiration from Harry Kane in bid to land title before The Open

In less than 24 hours Darren Clarke managed to lift the Claret Jug on the 18th green at Royal St George’s, then lose it in a nearby back garden and then return with it the next morning to produce a euphoric winner’s press conference that changed tradition forever. Yet it was what he did with it at the end of this swirling fantasy that remains uppermost in his recollection. Darren Clarke, Open champion, returned home to Portrush and presented it to his two sons. “This is for you,” the tearful father told Conor, 10, and Tyrone, 12 as the trio embraced. “That’s my principal memory of that win, certainly the one I cherish most,” Clarke tells Telegraph Sport . “After everything they’d been through in the years before... it's like any dad, you want to make your kids proud. I think they realized it. They realize it even more now they've grown up - their dad’s an Open champion. But right there, that was a very special moment.” The Clarkes had lost Heather, 39, five years before to …

[Read more...] about Darren Clarke interview: ‘I’m not going back to The Open as a ceremonial golfer, just to wave at fans’

To Bryson DeChambeau, the norm remains the enemy. Professional golfers normally bellow at their caddies, but the American has named Brian Zeigler as his new bagman - and he happens to be someone who has previously been paid to scream obscenities at DeChambeau. The pair will arrive here at The Open Championship on Monday after revealing the news on social media in wacky style. Zeigler, a coach in DeChambeau’s home city of Dallas, dived into a swimming pool with his new employer’s bag of clubs over his shoulder. DeChambeau followed him in and the duo proceeded to laugh riotously into the camera. “We’ve done a lot of fun stuff together,” DeChambeau told his Instagram followers, before explaining their relationship to golf.com . “We did a lot of speed training stuff together,” he said. “He was the motivator and the hype man. He helped me reach records I never believed I would get to.” View this post on Instagram …

[Read more...] about Bryson DeChambeau picks ‘hype man’ Brian Zeigler as his new caddie – a man paid to scream obscenities at him

Never mind English football’s 55 years of hurt, what about English golf’s 52 years? That is how long since the nation celebrated an Open winner on home soil. Ian Poulter sums up this anomaly in one word - “bonkers”. “Tony Jacklin at Lytham in 1969… that’s nuts,” Poulter said. “And if you think about it, it’s 29 years since [Sir Nick] Faldo last won the Open for England anywhere [at Muirfield]. We’ve had a few go close and this, of all weeks, would be a good time for one of us to end the wait.” Poulter knows all about the Wembley woe on Sunday night . The 45-year-old was so determined to be there to see the Three Lions win their first trophy since 1966 that he completed an unlikely, and ultimately futile, mad dash to Wembley from the Scottish Open in North Berwick. “It was all a bit crazy,” Poulter said. “I shot 63, got to 17-under, but couldn’t leave the course as I was leader in the clubhouse and might have been in a play-off. Then there was a 90-minute weather delay, then …

[Read more...] about Ian Poulter looking to ‘ride patriotic tide’ and end England’s 52 years of Open hurt