Dame Lisa Carrington to miss 2025 international season
1News can confirm Dame Lisa Carrington will skip this year's international kayak season.
She will return to international competition next year with her sights firmly set on the LA 2028 Olympic Games.
The eight-time Olympic gold medallist is back to full training after claiming three gold medals at the Paris Olympics but won't be competing internationally. The weekend's sport unpacked. Every Monday morning.
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RNZ News
12 hours ago
- RNZ News
Only the best being encouraged to showcase cricket in Olympics' return at LA 2028
USA cricketers during the under-19 Women's World Cup, Malaysia, 2025. Photo: Hazrin Yeob Men Shah/Icon Sportswire / PHOTOSPORT Cricket will return to the Olympics after 128 years at the 2028 Games and the popular view is only the best teams should showcase the game in Los Angeles, even if it means leaving out hosts the United States. Both the men's and women's competitions will be a six-team contest in the 20-overs format when cricket is played in the Olympics for the first time since 1900. The International Cricket Council is yet to announce the qualification format but is likely to pick the top six teams in the official rankings at a cut-off date. The US rank 17th in the men's list and 24th in the women's, which makes their position untenable in the cricket competitions of their home Olympics. "I'd love an associate member to get in there but let's be realistic," Sumod Damodar, who represents associate members like the US in the ICC Chief Executives' Committee, told Reuters. "Should the US get an automatic place? I'll say let's put the best that we can on show. "We're coming back into the Olympics after 128 years. We need to make that impression so that people will say, 'Okay, we don't want them to go back and beg 'please include us' before every Olympics'. "Like track and field, we need to become a regular Olympic fixture. We need to show them that this product is worth it." With Brisbane hosting the 2032 Olympics and India bidding for the 2036 Games, Botswana cricket chief Damodar hoped cricket would feature in the next three Olympics and beyond. "We need to send the best six teams to showcase our game from the perspective of what it has in store for us, for the public, and the spectators in the future Olympic Games," he said. Damodar added the ICC should announce a cut-off date some time next year giving all members enough time to improve their rankings. USA Cricket did not reply to a Reuters email seeking its view but Sanjay Govil, who owns the Washington Freedom franchise in the Major League Cricket (MLC) in the US, also said only the best should represent cricket at Los Angeles. "It should be based on merit, because we also want to make sure that it's competitive, right?" Govil said. "I think we should have the six best teams because otherwise it would be unfair to leave out a team to accommodate USA." -Reuters
Otago Daily Times
3 days ago
- Otago Daily Times
Wollaston thanks team-mates for victory
Ally Wollaston celebrates victory at the Tour of Britain in Glasgow. PHOTO: SWPIX New Zealand cycling star Ally Wollaston has sprinted her way to overall victory on the final day to win the Tour of Britain. The Suez FDJ professional went into the last stage of the UCI World Tour race around the streets of Glasgow trailing emerging British star Cat Ferguson, from Movistar, by 3sec. Wollaston revelled in the circuit racing, picking up the time bonuses in winning all three of the intermediate sprints in Glasgow then securing the overall honours with a desperate final sprint for third on the stage. It gave the Kiwi rider the vital last four bonus points to secure the overall victory on general classification. "I'm a little bit overwhelmed," Wollaston said. 'I knew it was a lot to pull off today, winning three sprints and having to still get seconds in the final. I knew the race really had to go my way today. 'I'm so, so immensely grateful for my team-mates for making it pan out that way. I really couldn't have done that on my own out there. 'If you looked at every sprint that I did well in today, I was never isolated. I had a team-mate going into the last corner every single time and it made a world of difference. 'This means the world to me. It's my first World Tour victory in GC. 'Often a lot of the times on the track, I race best in omniums when I'm not leading from the front, and I think I found it super-motivating today not having to defend the win. I find it a lot easier on the mind chasing rather than defending." Wollaston has won two world titles on the track as well as silver and bronze medals at the Paris Olympic Games. While the New Zealand star won a World Tour race in Australia in February, this was her first World Tour GC win in a stage race. "It came down to the last sprint, and there was a moment of doubt halfway through that last lap where I thought 'I just cannot do this today', and my team-mates really helped me pull it together and pulled me to the front for the final.'' The final stage was held on an 8.4km city-centre circuit in Glasgow. — APL
Scoop
3 days ago
- Scoop
‘A Win For The Squad': Young 49er Team Strikes Gold At European Champs
Press Release – Yachting New Zealand Rising Kiwi 49er team Seb Menzies and George Lee Rush struck gold at the European Championships in Greece overnight – their proudest sailing achievement to date and the first major success for New Zealand in the class since a silver medal at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games. Menzies and Lee Rush secured overall victory in a strong men's skiff fleet with a day – and the medal race – to spare, having taken the lead on the second day of competition in Thessaloniki. They delivered a calm and consistent performance across the week, notching 11 top-10 finishes from 12 fleet races, before also placing fourth in the double-points medal race to win the regatta by a commanding 54 points. American crew Nevin Snow and Ian MacDiarmid were second, with Uruguay's Hernán Umpierre and Fernando Diz third. New Kiwi pairing Sam Bacon and Blake McGlashan narrowly missed out on the medal race with a 13th-place overall finish – their best result since teaming up last year. Another emerging duo, Mattias Coutts and Oscar Gunn, placed second in the silver fleet (27th overall), while Francesco Kayrouz and Hamish McLaren finished 49th. 'It's been incredibly hot and light all week,' said Lee Rush. 'Lots of waiting, really long days – often getting off the water around 7 or 8pm. It's been pretty taxing in that sense, but we kept things simple and tried to keep doing what we were from the start of the week.' Lee Rush credited their strong position early in the regatta with giving them belief. 'We had a really good second day that put us in the lead, but there was still all of finals racing and the medal race to go, and the points were tight. At that stage, we weren't even sure we'd make the medal race, let alone the podium or a win. But we followed that up with another solid day, and it started to feel possible.' One key improvement, he said, was their starting. 'Our starts have really come along – we've been working hard on it. We've only been competing overseas for the last two years, and it takes time to get comfortable with it [starting] at this level.' Menzies and Lee Rush teamed up in 2021 and found success quickly, finishing third in the 29er at the 2022 youth sailing world championships, followed by gold in the 49erFX at the junior world championships. But the move to the full 49er hasn't been without its challenges. Gaining the necessary weight to stay competitive in stronger breeze has been the biggest hurdle, Lee Rush admits. 'It's been our top priority for a few years now. We're getting there, but it's a long-term thing. It takes time to adjust to the 49er – the racing, the starting, just doing regattas and building experience.' They've been steadily climbing the ranks over the past year. They finished fourth at last year's junior world championships, just days before Isaac McHardie and Will McKenzie took 49er silver at the Paris Games. In the Olympic medallists' absence, Menzies and Lee Rush won the 2025 Oceanbridge Sail Auckland in February, placed ninth at the Princess Sofia Trophy in Palma in April, and came 13th at French Olympic Week in Hyères a fortnight later. Their progress owes a lot to the depth and quality of the New Zealand 49er squad, which includes Bacon and McGlashan, Coutts and Gunn, and Kayrouz and McLaren. 'We had a really solid training block back home in the New Zealand summer. There are consistently five high-level boats pushing each other, all working towards the same goal. Not many countries have that kind of depth, and being part of a squad like this makes a huge difference,' he said. 'We're all close. We train together, travel together, stay together overseas. That bond helps, especially when we're pushing each other at such a high level, and it's a big part of why we've got to this point.' Winning the European championships is unquestionably a career highlight. 'Seb's had a lot of success in the 420, but for me, this is definitely number one, and I think he'd put it pretty high up there, too. It's a senior class. It's not a world championship, but it's still a massive win, and we didn't expect to be winning an event like this so soon in our 49er campaign.' The pair have their sights set on the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, but know there's a long road ahead. 'It's a great result; to be able to show that we can perform against other top-level boats and that we can put together a regatta across a full week and keep ourselves consistent and calm under pressure. But it's still just one regatta, and we have a lot to prove,' Lee Rush said. 'More importantly, it's special for the whole squad. We're all working towards the same goal – trying to get one of us to go to the Olympics and perform in 2028. This is definitely a win for the squad as much as it is for us.'
