Sports

LONDON: Six-time Olympic champion Chris Hoy, who spearheaded a golden period of British track cycling dominance, announced his retirement Thursday, content he had nothing left to prove after a long and stellar career. Britain’s most successful Olympian, who won two golds at the 2012 London Games to add to three from Beijing four years earlier and his first in Athens in 2004, said the time was …

LOS ANGELES: Olympic swimming great Michael Phelps has thrown cold water on a report that he would come out of retirement with a view to swimming at the 2016 Rio Games. “Why do I keep getting texts about coming back?” Phelps said on Twitter Friday night after a Florida television station reported he planned to return to the pool. Peter Busch of an NBC station in Fort Myers, Florida, …

TEHRAN: Arch foes Iran and the U.S. have found some common ground in the fight to save wrestling as an Olympic sport. U.S. wrestling coach Zeke Jones on Tuesday called the sport an important “ambassador,” suggesting possible cooperation to fight a decision by the International Olympic Committee to drop wrestling from the 2020 Games. “Wrestling has brought closer the people of Iran and the U.S.,” Jones …

PARIS: Wrestlers around the world on Wednesday vowed to fight to save the ancient sport’s Olympic status, after the International Olympic Committee voted to drop it for the 2020 Games. Japan and Turkey — whose cities Tokyo and Istanbul are bidding to host the Games in seven years’ time — led the calls for the world body to reconsider, as an online petition was organised urging a …

BEIJING: Three-time world table tennis champion Zhuang Zedong, a key figure in 1971’s groundbreaking “pingpong diplomacy” between China and the United States, died Sunday, China’s official Xinhua News Agency reported. He was 72 and had struggled with cancer since 2008. Zhuang won new fame by presenting a gift to American player Glenn Cowan, who had inadvertently boarded a bus carrying the Chinese team at …

LOS ANGELES: Shamed cyclist Lance Armstrong wants to return to competitive sport, but says the driving force behind his belated doping confession was the well-being of his five children. “The biggest hope and intention was the well-being of my children,” Armstrong told talk show host Oprah Winfrey in the second segment of their televised interview that aired on Friday. In the first installment aired …

PARIS: Formula One supremo Bernie Ecclestone believes Michael Schumacher was wrong to return to the sport, claiming the German had severely damaged his legacy as a seven-time world champion. The 43-year-old Schumacher quit the sport in 2006 before being tempted into an ill-fated return in 2010 at Mercedes where he spent three seasons being largely outshone by teammate Nico Rosberg. He brought the curtain down on …

BEIRUT: Rain fell in waves and thunder cracked as the annual Beirut Marathon got under way early Sunday, with a slightly depressed turnout thanks to the weather. Those who did show up for the marathon or other races were undeterred, however. Over 33,000 people registered for the race, but the rain and rivers of water they caused in the streets clearly kept …