 | « Back to article | Print this article |
Sports Shorts: Lindsey Vonn admits relationship with Tiger Woods
Lindsey Vonn has revealed how she and Tiger Woods make their romance work despite constant media attention.
The champion Alpine skier told E! News that having their life on display was never easy, but according to her, sports and trying to be No. 1 in what they do connects them together.
The 29-year-old ski racer asserted that they had so much in common in that regard that they always came back to that.
Vonn, who won the gold medal in downhill at the 2010 Winter Olympics, added that no matter what anyone had to say around them, the duo knew who they were and that was all that mattered.
She missed the Sochi Games after failing to recover from a knee injury.
- Please click NEXT for more...
Suarez completes redemption with England's Footballer of the Year award
Liverpool striker Luis Suarez completed his redemption from outcast to hero when he was named England's Footballer of the Year by the Football Writers' Association (FWA) on Monday.
The prestigious honour completes an award double after he was named the Professional Footballers' Association (PFA) player of the year last month.
The 27-year-old Uruguayan finished ahead of team mate Steven Gerrard and Yaya Toure of Manchester City in the poll of England's football writers. The honour follows an astonishing turnaround for Suarez, who began this season serving the remainder of a 10-match ban imposed for biting Chelsea's Branislav Ivanovic last April.
Although he missed the first five games of the season, the controversial striker, who will play against Gerrard and England in the World Cup in Brazil next month, is the Premier League's top scorer this season with 30 goals with one match remaining.
Suarez polled 52 per cent of the vote of around 300 members. Last year he polled two votes.
"He did only receive two votes last season," FWA chairman Andy Dunn told Sky Sports," although there was a groundswell of support for him last season, but our voting opened just 12 hours after the biting incident at Anfield, so that was taken into account."
The FWA award is not only based on a player's achievements on the pitch, but also on their behaviour and example throughout the season and Dunn continued: "While nobody would say Suarez is whiter than white you have to say his behaviour throughout the season has been very good.
"I think the football writers have taken that into account.
"There is an element of redemption - allied with those 30 goals and the sensational talent he has displayed all season -and it has made him a very popular choice."
Suarez becomes the 10th Liverpool to win the award and one of their previous winners, Ian Rush, praised Liverpool manager Brendan Rodgers for the way he handled a difficult period at the start of the season after Suarez tried to engineer a move in the off-season.
- Please click NEXT for more...
Juventus celebrate third successive title with win over Atalanta
The Juventus fans were in a mood to party and their team lived up to expectations as they celebrated winning a third successive Serie A title with a 1-0 victory over Atalanta on Monday.
A second-half Simone Padoin strike enabled the champions to enjoy the moment in front of their supporters by maintaining their 100 per cent home record.
Antonio Conte's side, handed their 30th championship thanks to AS Roma's 4-1 defeat at relegation-threatened Catania on Sunday, are on 96 points, 11 ahead of Roma and only a point away from equalling the all-time record set by Inter Milan in 2007.
“Winning the league three times in a row after finishing seventh twice and making a bit of a mark in Europe, with a quarter-final finish the Champions League and the semi-finals of the Europa League... I don't think Juventus could have done any better,” Conte told Sky Italia.
“Tonight is the latest confirmation of what my team is made of, both as a team and as men. I think my greatest satisfaction in is having transmitted a exceptional mentality.”
Padion's powerful 72nd-minute strike which careered in off the post following a nifty flick from Paul Pogba secured Juve's 18th straight home league win and they only have to beat Cagliari to finish the season unbeaten at the Juventus Stadium.
Conte made eight changes to the side which failed to overturn a 2-1 deficit in their Europa League semi-final with Benfica and they were rarely troubled by an Atalanta team who stayed in 11th on 47 points and now have no chance of European football.
- Please click NEXT for more...
Witness feared Pistorius might shoot himself
A defence witness in the murder trial of South African track star Oscar Pistorius told the court on Monday she feared the double amputee would shoot himself with the gun he used to kill his girlfriend on Valentine's Day last year.
Carice Viljoen and her father Johan, the manager of Pistorius's up-market Pretoria housing complex, were first on the scene after the 27-year-old shot dead his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, in the early hours of February 14, 2013.
She said she feared Pistorius might use the gun he had left upstairs to kill himself after emergency services staff asked him to fetch the already dead Steenkamp's identification.
"I was scared that he might shoot himself," she told the court as the trial resumed after a two-week adjournment. "I couldn't hear him. I called out to him to hurry up with the bag."
Pistorius's defence hinges on his assertion that he heard a noise in the middle of the night and thought it was an intruder climbing into the bathroom adjoining his bedroom.
When he heard another noise coming from the toilet he fired four shots through the door, thinking an intruder was behind it. Steenkamp, a 29-year-old law graduate and model, was hit by at least three of the four hollow-point rounds fired and died almost instantly.
The state argues that Pistorius killed her deliberately in a fit of rage after the couple had a row.
Viljoen was the second defence witness called on Monday, taking the stand after her father.
The testimony from both painted a picture of Pistorius as a broken man in the immediate aftermath of the killing. Johan Stander said Pistorius was "torn apart, broken, desperate, pleading" as he prayed for Steenkamp to stay alive.
- Please click NEXT for more...
Blake ban reduced to four-and-a-half years
Jamaican 400 metre runner Dominique Blake's six-year ban for a second doping offence has been cut to four-and-a-half years on appeal, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said in a statement on Monday.
CAS said it had reached its decision "in view of some mitigating factors" although it added that "the athlete has failed to establish that she bears no significant fault or negligence."
Blake tested positive for the banned stimulant methylhexanamine at the 2012 Olympic trials, her second doping offence after she tested positive for ephedrine in 2006 for which she was banned for nine months.
Blake finished sixth at the trials and was picked as a relay runner for the London Olympics but did not compete.