Cycling
Lance Armstrong will return to the Tour de France to ride two stages in the Massif Central region next month.
The disgraced American, who was stripped of his record seven Tour titles for using performance-enhancing drugs, will ride alongside former England footballer Geoff Thomas on stages 13 and 14.
Thomas, who made the announcement at a media conference in Birmingham yesterday, is riding the entire route of the 2015 Tour a day ahead of the professional peloton to raise money for Cure Leukaemia.
Armstrong will join the group on Thursday, July 16 for the 198.5-kilometre route from Muret to Rodez and Friday, July 17 for the 178.5km from Rodez to Mende.
The Mende finish is up a steep climb to the Mende Aerodrome.
Armstrong last rode the Tour in 2009 and 2010 and his decision to ride alongside Thomas has angered many, including UCI president Brian Cookson.
Thomas says the group are prepared for the furore Armstrong’s presence will provoke.
“We’ve got rolling road closures and motorbikes,” Thomas said.
“They’re confident they can deal with any situation.
“We’re not being silly about this. We know it might be a bit hectic for a few days, but I’ve had to weigh up the pros and the cons with this.
“I just think the awareness has gone worldwide. It’s up to me and our team to turn that into profit in the charity.”
Cycling
Australia vice-captain Steve Smith dismissed the pre-Ashes banter of former England spinner Graeme Swann after chalking up a century on day two of the opening tour match against Kent at the Spitfire Ground in Canterbury.
The 26-year-old may be the number one ranked Test batsman in the world, but that did not stop Swann taking a dig in the build-up to the anticipated series, which starts in Cardiff next month.
Swann, who retired midway through the 2013-14 Ashes, claimed Australia’s premier batsman did not “strike fear” into the England team, lacked “great technique” and suggested he could struggle to score runs in the English conditions, especially on wickets with swing.
Smith, however, dismissed such small talk after another impressive display at Canterbury.
“That does not really bother me. It is pre-Ashes and a little bit of banter,” he said.
Athletics
Mo Farah has given his backing to coach Alberto Salazar and will continue training under him following his response to doping allegations.
The British double Olympic champion says he believes in the evidence provided by Salazar and will continue to work with him.
Salazar issued a lengthy rebuttal of almost 12,000 words denying the claims made by BBC Panorama and US investigative website ProPublica that he violated several anti-doping rules, including using testosterone medication on Farah’s training partner Galen Rupp when he was 16 in 2002.
Hockey
Ireland's men sealed their place in the quarter-finals of the Hockey World League in Antwerp thanks to a comfortable 6-0 victory over China, with Alan Sothern taking the individual plaudits with a hat-trick.
The early exchanges of the second quarter saw China try to test the Irish defence but it was ‘the Green Machine’ which struck first. Sothern scored twice in quick succession.
Peter Caruth scored the third goal of the contest after a terrific link-up between Michael Watt and John Jackson that set up a tap-in.
David Harte was forced to make a stunning save in the first two minutes of the second half but an Irish counter-attack led by Sothern earned the men in green a penalty corner. Ronan Gormley duly scored from an intricate well-worked PC routine to make it 4-0.
Sothern was given too much space by the Chinese defence and earned his hat-trick a minute later. Stephen Dowds was next on the scoresheet and scored the fastest goal of the World League semi-Finals so far with a 130km/h shot from the top of the circle.
The positives of the quarter were marred by a neck injury to Harte following a collision with a Chinese striker. Harte was stretchered off the pitch and FitzGerald took over for the remainder of the match.
The fourth quarter saw both teams’ discipline tested and it was nine versus nine at one point thanks to several yellow cards but no more goals were to follow and the match finished 6-0.
This victory secured Ireland’s spot in the quarter-finals with one pool game still left to play, against Belgium at 5pm tomorrow, a match which will be shown live on Sky Sports 1.
