Katie Taylor finally gets her ‘fairytale ending’ with Croke Park homecoming

Slovenian wins stage 12 as Mas strengthens position Tim Merlier claims stage two in Tour of Britain Spain’s Enric Mas extended his overall lead in the Vuelta a España with a late attack on his rivals as Slovenia’s Jakob Omrzel won stage 12 to Calar Alto on Thursday. Movistar rider Mas burst out of a chasing group including red jersey contenders Primoz Roglic and Felix Gall with around ​13km of the mountainous 166.6km ride left and powered away. Roglic and Gall, who began the day second and third on general classification, could not respond as Mas finished 27 seconds clear of Roglic to strengthen his hold on the race...

At this week’s world championship, the women’s record holder who once feared a 5K will try to top her own 144-hour distance – and beat the US men’s mark While many teachers head back to school this week, middle-school math teacher Megan Eckert will be 5,000 miles from her classroom in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She has a good reason to miss a few classes: she’ll be competing at the Global Organization of Multi-Day Ultramarathoners World Championship. On Thursday, more than 100 runners will gather on a start line in Balatonfüred, Hungary, and attempt to run as many miles as they can in six days...

Former official says he ‘tried to stay in the centre circle’ Referees’ group thought to be puzzled by remarks The former Premier League referee Mike Dean claims he used to take part in secret challenges while officiating, including trying to stay in the centre circle for as long as possible, as he confessed to “just joking about” during matches. The remarks, made by one of the most well-known officials in the English game, have been met with bemusement by refereeing officials who say there is no evidence of any such behaviour having ever taken place. Dean was a member of the select group of referees for more than two decades before he retired in 2022 and a brief spell as a video assistant referee followed. In an interview on Jamie Vardy’s podcast this week, Dean shared anecdotes from his time as a top-flight official in the pre-VAR era. “We used to say, ‘We’ll kick off now. Right, see how long we can go without blowing a whistle,’” he said. “I’ve done that a few times in the Premier League, before VAR obviously – [I] went 20, 25 minutes without blowing a whistle...