logo
Dubois in talks to fight Usyk in July at Wembley

Dubois in talks to fight Usyk in July at Wembley

BBC News15-04-2025

Daniel Dubois and Oleksandr Usyk are in talks to fight at Wembley Stadium on 12 July.The rival heavyweight champions hold all four major world titles between them, with Dubois the IBF champion and Usyk the WBA (Super), WBO and WBC belt holder.Usyk, 38, is undefeated in 23 fights and has a win over Dubois, stopping him in August 2023.Their rematch would be for the undisputed heavyweight title as well as offer 27-year-old Dubois the chance of revenge.While talks are ongoing between both camps, no contracts have been signed.Dubois has won three fights since his defeat by Usyk, securing a knockout in each of them.If the Londoner cannot reach terms with Usyk, he will be ordered by the IBF to face 49-fight veteran Derek Chisora who the IBF has as its number one contender.The projected date in July comes in the middle of a busy period in sport with Katie Taylor's trilogy fight against Amanda Serrano on 11 July in New York, the final weekend of Wimbledon on 12 and 13 July and the Women's Euro 2025 also under way.Usyk is keen to fight for the undisputed title once more before he retires after he was forced to vacate the IBF belt before his rematch with Tyson Fury last December.The Ukrainian, who was also undisputed champion at cruiserweight, has suggested he will retire after two more fights.Dubois was due to defend his IBF belt against Joseph Parker in February, before illness caused him to withdraw from the contest in fight week.Usyk's most recent fight was his second win over Fury, when he confirmed himself as the number one heavyweight in the world.No British fighter has held the undisputed heavyweight title in the four-belt era and the last Briton to be undisputed heavyweight champion was Lennox Lewis in 1999.

Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Lizzie Deignan's farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads
Lizzie Deignan's farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads

The Guardian

time38 minutes ago

  • The Guardian

Lizzie Deignan's farewell tour off to tricky start on Yorkshire home roads

There was personal celebration but professional frustration for Lizzie Deignan on the opening day of her final Tour of Britain when her Lidl-Trek team failed to stop the Mauritian national champion, Kim Le Court, taking the first stage win and overall race lead in Redcar. Deignan's valedictory race on British roads began with a fast 85.6km opening stage, from Dalby Forest to the beachfront in Redcar, and took in some of her longstanding training roads within an hour or so of her home in Otley, West Yorkshire. But although her team had strength in depth in the 20-rider pursuit of the day's breakaway, they proved unable to close down Le Court and Kristen Faulkner, the Olympic champion, who stayed clear to contest the seaside finish. 'We had a clear plan and executed it exactly as we wanted,' said Le Court, riding for the AG Insurance-Soudal team. 'I'm really happy that the legs reacted and I was able to pull it off for the team. We'll see how long I can keep the jersey for. Friday is a stage that suits me a bit more, so I'm going in with a bit more confidence than today.' Deignan was prominent throughout the stage, but whenLe Court, winner of this year's Liège-Bastogne-Liège, broke clear on Langburn's Bank, the steepest gradient of the second classified climb, Deignan's Lidl-Trek team was distanced. Le Court's powerful acceleration on the 16% sections at the base of the climb proved too much for her rivals, including Deignan's teammate, the Paris 2024 silver medallist Anna Henderson, who tried to give chase but was unable to follow the move. Only Faulkner, of EF Education-Oatly, was able to close the gap and the pair, who joined forces on the descent, then worked together to build a half-minute lead on their pursuers during the undulating run into Redcar. Even though Deignan's team had four of their five riders in the chasing group, and were aided both by Cat Ferguson's Movistar team and the French FDJ-Suez team, they were unable to close down the half-minute advantage. But Faulkner almost came unstuck on a right-hand bend in the closing kilometres, misjudging her speed and skidding to a halt against a traffic island. Sportingly, Le Court, knowing that their break had a better chance of success if the pair stayed together, waited for the American. While Lorena Wiebes, a past stage winner, took third in the sprint, Ferguson, making her debut in the race, was the first British finisher on the stage, finishing fifth. The junior world road race champion is now sixth overall, 18 seconds adrift of Le Court. Ferguson, who also took the lead in the best young rider classification, admitted she had expected there to be a regrouping in the final kilometres. 'I thought it would definitely come down to a sprint,' the 19-year-old said, 'so for the two to stay away was a surprise. They were too strong, so credit to them for staying away.' By her own admission Deignan's days as an overall contender are probably gone, but Skipton-born Ferguson, seen as her natural heir, is well-placed to make an impact as the race goes on. 'I've not thought about my strategy yet,' she said, 'but I'm just going to take it day by day and approach each day like we did today, like a real team.' Friday's second stage of the four-day race takes the peloton from Hartlepool to Saltburn-by-the-sea and finishes with the infamous hairpins of Saltburn Bank, the venue for recent National Championships. The steep climb to the finish is well-known to British riders in the peloton and was pivotal to the outcome of the women's road race in 2023 and 2024, both of which were won by Pfeiffer Georgi, of the Picnic PostNL team.

Classy Calandagan chasing Coronation Cup crown
Classy Calandagan chasing Coronation Cup crown

Leader Live

time39 minutes ago

  • Leader Live

Classy Calandagan chasing Coronation Cup crown

No stranger to British soil, Francis-Henri Graffard's four-year-old won the King Edward VII Stakes at Royal Ascot last term, but then had to settle for second when returning for top-table action against City Of Troy in the Juddmonte International and then in the season-ending Champion Stakes. 'We would really love a first Group One with him and that's what we would like to do this year, he deserves to win a Group One and we're hoping it will be on Friday,' said Nemone Routh, racing manager for owners the Aga Khan Studs. 'I suppose the only real doubt is handling the track and he's probably never run on anything like Epsom before. 'He's a very balanced horse and we imagine he is going to be OK but you never know until they get there and run. We are confident he is going to run well, he always runs well.' Calandagan was again runner-up at the highest level when returning to action in Dubai in April, with this race immediately earmarked for the gelding's next outing, a ploy the owners almost pulled off with Meydan scorer Dolniya in 2015 when going down narrowly to Pether's Moon at Epsom. 'We were happy with his run in the Sheema Classic, he got a little bit far back but that's because he was drawn on the inside and he's not a horse with a huge amount of early speed,' continued Routh. Race 8⃣#DWC down to the last two races!🏇 DANON DECILE from 🇯🇵 Japan bagged the title of the fastest in the Dubai Sheema Classic race! 日本のダノンデサイルがドバイシーマクラシックで最速の座を勝ち取りました!#DubaiRacing#DWC25 #DubaiWorldCup #ドバイ競馬… — Dubai Racing Channel (@DubaiRacingTV) April 5, 2025 'He finished the race well and took the race well, he's very straightforward and we've been happy with his preparation. 'We won the Sheema Classic with Dolniya and then came to this race and it gives them enough time to get over the trip to Dubai as you're winding them up quite early in the season to run in a Group One, which is quite a big ask for a horse coming out of winter. 'The gap gives them enough time to get over that and then run well and Francis had always earmarked this race for after Dubai. This has been the plan for a while and we hope he's in great form.' Giavellotto ended a winter of globetrotting by finishing fifth in the same Meydan event as Calandagan and now makes his UK return fresh from his trainer Marco Botti enjoying Italian Derby glory in his homeland. Botti said: 'He's in good form and with Epsom you never know whether they'll handle the track or not, but he ran at Goodwood and handled the undulations there and it's not a big field, so fingers crossed he'll handle it. 'He's proven now that over a mile and a half he's quite effective. It's not an easy race, but he deserves to be there.' Aidan O'Brien will saddle a pair of St Leger heroes Jan Brueghel in Continuous as he looks for back-to-back Coronation Cup victories following Luxembourg's success 12 months ago. O'Brien explained how Jan Brueghel was a late substitution into the race following a shuffling of the Ballydoyle pack, but expects him to improve for his reappearance second in the Alleged Stakes. 'Everyone was standing in line behind Kyprios and when Kyprios was retired we had to find a Gold Cup horse and it was between him and Illinois,' said O'Brien. 'We just felt we could give Illinois the first go at it as he won at Chester and his preparation was going to fit into the Gold Cup, when that happened Jan Brueghel could take Illinois' position in the Coronation.' Of Jan Brueghel, he added: 'He was second to one of Joseph's (O'Brien) the first day over a mile and a quarter and he will definitely be much happier going a mile and a half. 'I'm never surprised when they get beat. Obviously he was a Leger winning starting back over a mile and a quarter, so he was always going to lack race sharpness and fitness at that time of the year. 'Joseph's horse beat him nicely on the day, but we thought it did our horse good and he learnt a lot and he came out of the race well.' Ralph Beckett's Irish Oaks heroine You Got To Me will make her first appearance in the colours of Amo Racing, while Andrew Balding's Bellum Justum and the Charlie Appleby-trained Ancient Wisdom finished seventh and eighth respectively in the Derby last year and have banked some smart form since.

LTA commits to introducing equal prize money at Queen's and Eastbourne by 2029
LTA commits to introducing equal prize money at Queen's and Eastbourne by 2029

Leader Live

time39 minutes ago

  • Leader Live

LTA commits to introducing equal prize money at Queen's and Eastbourne by 2029

Women will play at Queen's Club next week for the first time in more than 50 years at the inaugural HSBC Championships, featuring the likes of Emma Raducanu, Katie Boulter and top-10 stars Madison Keys and Zheng Qinwen. The LTA announced on Thursday it would pay total prize money of 1.415million US dollars (approximately £1m), the highest for a WTA 500 event of its draw size this year. A post shared by LTA (@lta) But that is still less than half of the prize pot that will be paid out to the male players the following week for the equivalent tournament on the ATP Tour. At the Lexus Eastbourne Open, a joint WTA and ATP event staged the week before Wimbledon beginning on June 23, the difference is even starker, with the women's prize fund of 389,000 US dollars (approximately £287,000) significantly inferior to the more than £630,000 that will be paid to the men. While prize money is equal at the grand slams and some joint tour events, generally remuneration on the WTA Tour is substantially lower than the ATP. The LTA stated an aim to achieve parity before 2029 but its rationale comes against a £4million loss made across the grass-court events it staged last year – Wimbledon is run by the All England Club – with the men's event at Queen's the only profitable tournament. Scott Lloyd, the governing body's chief executive, said: 'We are making significant increases this year to the women's prize money at Queen's and Eastbourne and want to achieve equal prize money as soon as possible. 'The LTA is committed to growing women's tennis, both at professional and grass-roots level, and this move is an important part of that commitment. 'This year fans will be able to enjoy both men's and women's tennis on the biggest stages that we can offer and we want to develop the tournaments so that the women's events deliver a path to profitability and greater visibility for the sport.' Ticket sales for the women's event at Queen's are currently around 80 per cent, with the men's tournament sold out, while 55 per cent of those purchasing WTA tickets have been female.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into the world of global news and events? Download our app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store