Hours after Kevin Durant knocked him out of the top five on the NBA’s all-time scoring list , Jordan was all smiles as he walked to Victory Lane to greet Tyler Reddick after the driver’s win Sunday at Darlington Raceway.
Reddick — who drives for 23XI Racing, which is co-owned by Jordan and veteran driver Denny Hamlin — joined NASCAR Hall of Famers Dale Earnhardt and Bill Elliott as the only Cup Series drivers to win four of the first six races in a season.
To do so, Reddick had to overcome a malfunctioning battery and a large deficit in the final 50 laps. Afterward, Jordan jumped the track’s safety barrier to greet Reddick and his team with some hard high fives and enthusiastic cheers.
“I think the key to him winning was just keeping his head,” Jordan said after the race. “We just had to get the car right, and I think he did an unbelievable job. I just wanted everything to be good, because once he gets back out there, then I feel like his competitive juices are going to carry him all the way to the end. He earned it all week, and I’m real proud of the team.”
Earlier this year, Reddick became the first NASCAR driver to start the season with three consecutive wins. He stands atop Cup Series standings, leading second-place Ryan Blaney of Team Penske by 95 points. Reddick’s 23XI teammate Bubba Wallace is currently in third place.
One night earlier, Durant scored 27 points in the Houston Rockets’ 123-122 victory over the Miami Heat to overtake Jordan for fifth place on the NBA’s all-time leading scorer list. In his 18th season, Durant has 32,294 points — two more than Jordan, who played 13 seasons for the Chicago Bulls and two for the Washington Wizards. Durant and the Rockets play the Bulls in Chicago on Monday.
Jordan has yet to comment publicly on the matter, but Durant had plenty of praise for the man considered by many to be basketball’s GOAT on Saturday during his postgame news conference.
“I’ve been inspired by all of these players that I’m either coming close to or passing up, and MJ is in a world of his own,” Durant added. “He’s in a galaxy of his own as somebody that I look up to, respect and who basically shaped the game for me.”
Durant also pointed out that Jordan would have scored many more points had he not taken multiple seasons off during the span of his playing career.
“He left a few, I want to say, thousand or so points on the table, too, with the amount of games he missed,” Durant said. “… He scored points quickly, man. So he set the bar high, and it’s pretty cool to reach that bar.”
The first 45 minutes was the epitome of two teams cancelling each other out – but once the second half began the landscape was set for City’s win.
They were the more progressive, aggressive side. Their attacking intent started to overwhelm Arsenal, the pressure became impossible to resist. Smoother on the ball and more cohesive than an Arsenal side based on organisation, the traffic only flowed one way.
Arrizabalaga already had Arsenal’s nerves on edge with an injudicious dash from goal which resulted in a yellow card for a panicked foul on Jeremy Doku.
Much, much worse was to come for Arsenal and their goalkeeper.
It remains six years since Arteta won his one and only trophy as Arsenal manager, and the way in which his team went into their shell here will be a concern that he must hope is not repeated as the pressure mounts in the closing weeks of the season.
Former Manchester City goalkeeper Joe Hart told BBC Sport: “Manchester City played to win. I think that’s what they’re bred to do over ten, 15 years. I think now they’re very much bred to win. I think they’ve been really disappointed with the FA Cup final at the end of last season [when they lost to Crystal Palace].
“A lot will be read into it putting a marker down or whatever, but I don’t think so. I think it was just about Manchester City winning trophies, which is what they’ve done so regularly recently – and this is another big one.
“It is also a huge day for Pep Guardiola, who’s won everything, but now stands alone in terms of managers winning the League Cup. He’s won it five times, going one clear of Sir Alex Ferguson. How much of a testament is that to his ability, his special touch and what he’s done over the years with Manchester City?”
Arteta is braced for the battle to recover from this setback and focus on three trophies, saying: “We had eight amazing months with this team. Today is a disappointment. We need to use that fire in the belly for the next two months to have an incredible season.”
He told BBC Radio 5 Live: “It’s painful, especially for our players and supporters, because we really wanted to lift that trophy. It was two very different halves, especially the first half when I think we were better than them and had the best two chances of the game.
“We didn’t capitalise on that. Credit to them for what they have done. A really sad day.”
He must hope it is the last sad day of what has been an outstanding season so far – for Guardiola, he will hope City’s win, and the manner in which it was achieved, will play on Arsenal’s nerves.
As word evidently reached activists in the last few weeks that disturbing allegations of sexual abuse against Chicano civil rights icon Cesar Chavez were forthcoming, things started to happen without much explanation.
Groups began to cancel long-planned parades, dinners, lectures and fundraisers scheduled for Chavez’s birthday on March 31. People who I’ve known for years suddenly weren’t returning calls or texts about what was going on. Longtime defenders of Chavez — who stood by their hero even as revelations in this paper and in biographies over the past generation showed there was a dark side to the man — suddenly became hard to reach.
When the United Farm Workers and the Cesar Chavez Foundation put out statements Tuesday morning that “troubling allegations” against their patriarch were considered credible enough for them to offer help to his victims, the silence transformed into dread. There was a discomfort similar to waiting for a tsunami — that whatever was coming would change lives, shake institutions and make people question values and principles that they had long held dear.
And like a natural disaster, what emerged about Chavez was far worse than anyone could’ve expected.
Wednesday morning, the New York Times published a story where two women whose families marched alongside Chavez in the fields of California during the 1960s and 1970s disclosed that he sexually abused them for years when they were girls. Just as shocking was the revelation by Dolores Huerta, Chavez’s longtime compatriot and a civil rights legend, that he had once raped her at a time when their leadership in the fight to bring dignity to grape pickers earned national acclaim and amounted to a modern-day Via Dolorosa.
The silence has transformed into screams. Politicians and organizations that long commemorated Chavez and urged others to follow his ways are releasing statements by the minute. My social media feed is now a torrent of friends and strangers expressing empathy for Chavez’s victims and outrage, disgust and — above all — disappointment that someone considered a secular saint by many for decades turned out to be a human more terrible than anyone could’ve imagined.
There will be questions and soul-searching about these horrifying disclosures in the weeks, months and years to come. We will see a push for the renaming of the dozens of schools, parks and streets that bear Chavez’s name across the country and even the rebranding of Cesar Chavez Day, a California state holiday since 2000 devoted to urging people to give back to their communities and the least among us.
The reckoning is only right. Much of the Latino civil rights, political and educational ecosystem will have to grapple with why they held up Chavez as a paragon of virtue for too long above others just as deserving and, as it turns out, nowhere near as compromised.
In any event, the myth has been punctured.
A portrait of Cesar Chavez on a mural on Farmacia Ramirez, 2403 Cesar E Chavez Ave. in East Los Angeles.
(James Carbone / Los Angeles Times)
Chavez’s biography always reads like an entry in the “Lives of the Saints” genre of books that Catholics used to read about the holy men of their faith. The son of farmworkers who became a Mexican American Moses trying to lead his people to the promised land of equity and political power. An internationally famous leader who lived a mendicant’s life. Who devoted decades to some of the most exploited people in the American economy. Honored with awards, plays, posters. Murals, movies and monuments. President Biden even kept a bust of Chavez at his Oval Office desk.
It was a beatific reputation that largely persisted even as the union he helped to create lost its influence in the fields of California and a new generation of activists looked down on Chavez for his long-standing opposition to immigrants who came to this country to work without legal status. Admirers kept him on a pedestal even as former UFW members alleged over the last two decades that the boss they once idolized purged too many good people in the name of absolute control. The hagiography continued even as a new generation of Latinos came of age not knowing anything about him other than an occasional school lesson or television segment.
I was one of those neophytes. I first heard his name at Anaheim High School in the mid-1990s and thought my teacher was talking about Julio Cesar Chavez, the famous Mexican boxer. I was thrilled to discover that someone had bravely fought for the rights of campesinos like my mom and her sisters, who toiled in the garlic fields of Gilroy and strawberry patches of Orange County as teenage girls in the 1960s, the same time that Chavez and the UFW were enjoying their historic wins.
“Who’s Cesar Chavez?” my Mami responded when I asked if his efforts ever made her work easier.
My admiration for Chavez continued even as I learned about some of his faults. I was able to separate Chavez the man from the movement for which he was a figurehead. Long-maligned communities seek heroes to emulate, to draw hope from, to hang on their walls and share their quotes on social media. We create them even as we ignore that they’re flesh and blood just like us.
Chavez seemed like the right man at the right moment as Mexican Americans rose up like never before to battle discrimination and segregation. Now, Latinos and others who admired Chavez have to grapple with his moral failings of the worst possible magnitude at the worst possible time: when there’s an administration doing everything possible to crush Latinos and we’re looking for people to look up to like never before.
He remains one of the few Latino civil rights leaders known nationwide — and Chavez is nowhere near as known as acolytes make him out to be. Some people will argue that it’s unfair he will likely get wiped away from the public sphere while other predatory men from the past and present largely maintain their riches and reputations.
But that’s looking at the abuse revelations the wrong way. For now, I will follow what those most directly affected by Chavez’s actions are telling us to do.
The UFW and Cesar Chavez Foundation were wise to not try to defend the indefensible in their statements and instead consider any victims first before deciding how to decide what’s next for them.
The Chavez family put out a news release that states “we honor the voices of those who feel unheard and who report sexual abuse.”
Huerta wrote in an online essay: “Cesar’s actions do not reflect the values of our community and our movement. The farmworker movement has always been bigger and far more important than any one individual.”
Another of his victims told the New York Times of Chavez’s legacy: “It makes you rethink in history all those heroes. The movement — that’s the hero.”
The fountain in the Memorial Garden surrounds the gravesite of Cesar Chavez and his wife Helen Chavez at Cesar E. Chavez National Monument in Keene, Calif.
(Francine Orr)
The face of that movimiento brought inspiration to millions and improved the lives of hundreds of thousands. That’s why we shouldn’t cancel the good that Chavez fought for alongside so many; we should direct the adulation he once attracted and the anger he’ll now rightfully receive toward the work that still needs to be done.
To quote an old UFW slogan that Chavez transformed into a mantra, la lucha sigue — the fight continues. It’s a statement that’s more pertinent than ever, damn its imperfect messenger.
WASHINGTON — At a Senate hearing Wednesday to consider the confirmation of Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) as Homeland Security secretary, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) opened by asking whether “a man with anger issues” can set the right example for federal immigration agents.
Mullin, President Trump’s pick to replace Secretary Kristi Noem, faced tough questions before the Senate Homeland Security Committee about how he would carry out the administration’s mass deportation effort and how he would steer the agency in the wake of controversies that led to Noem’s firing earlier this month.
For his part, Mullin said he will work to ensure a secure homeland as well as to “bring peace of mind and confidence to the agency.”
“My goal in six months is that we’re not in the lead story every single day,” he said.
Throughout the hearing, Democrats made digs at Noem while examining Mullin’s character and ability to lead the nation’s largest law enforcement agency. Most Republicans painted Mullin as a good man and a hard worker while chastising Democrats for punishing federal workers with the continued Homeland Security funding shutdown.
The leadership shake-up comes amid intense scrutiny over increasingly violent immigration enforcement tactics since last year that intensified after the shooting deaths of two protesters in Minneapolis by immigration agents, which Noem — without evidence — called domestic terrorism.
She was fired days after testifying before congressional oversight committees, during which she faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike.
“It’s not the role of the secretary to be a cable news commentator in the wake of a crisis” said Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.). “This is a role where temperament matters, where judgment matters and where experience matters.
“We have seen under Secretary Noem’s leadership how shortcomings in these traits can compound the challenges that already come with leading a large and complex department, and now more than ever, we need a DHS secretary who is a steady hand, who will provide thoughtful leadership, follow the facts, tell the truth, and hold agency officials accountable when they need to be.”
Paul brought up incidents to illustrate why Mullin is not fit for the job, including a time in 2023 when he nearly got into a fight in a Senate hearing room and more recently when Mullin called Paul “a freaking snake.”
Paul also confronted Mullin for saying he “completely understood” why Paul was assaulted by a neighbor in 2017, which left him with six broken ribs and a damaged lung.
Mullin did not apologize for his remarks and instead accused Paul of smearing his character.
“I’ve worked with many people in this room,” Mullin told Paul. “It seems like you fight Republicans more than you work with us.”
But Mullin added that their personal differences wouldn’t keep him from doing his job — “it’s bigger than partisan bickering” — and asked Paul to let him earn his respect.
Paul appeared unmoved. Referencing the 2023 near fight with Sean O’Brien, the head of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Paul asked Mullin to “explain to the American public how a man who has no regrets about brawling in a Senate committee can set a proper example.”
Mullin was prepared for the moment: O’Brien was sitting behind him. The union president, he said, has become a close friend.
“Both of us agreed we could have done things different,” Mullin said.
This particular run of seven games will define City’s season on all four fronts – losing twice against Real means their trophy prospects have been reduced to three.
That could be down to two on Sunday with a huge clash against the Gunners, who are hungry to rid their tags of ‘nearly men’ by ending a trophy drought which stretches back to 2020.
“On Monday [after Carabao Cup final] hopefully we will wake up and it is a sunny day,” said Guardiola. “It is not crucial, it is a football game, we are going to try to win with a good performance.
“We will challenge against the best team in England so far, the best team in Europe because look at their results in the group phase, they were first and have lost three or four games all season. We will challenge them and we have to see how we are competing against them.”
City were held to a surprise 1-1 draw at relegation strugglers West Ham, which has left them nine points off the pace in the Premier League with eight games to go – and a monumental effort is required to overturn that particular deficit.
And the FA Cup is no formality either, with City hosting rivals Liverpool in the quarter-final on Saturday 4 April after the international break, with league games immediately after against Chelsea and Arsenal.
Guardiola said: “After one or two weeks, we play against them in the Premier League and it is a good mirror to see what we have to do to achieve [like] them. I am old enough to see that one football game is not the big happiness or a loss is the end of the world, it’s just a game.
“In the end, the results have not been good except Newcastle but I have the feeling we are an extraordinary team with many, many, many good things that I love.
“We are still not complete, we are not aware in certain moments and departments, we have to be more clinical but my feeling is it is a question of time.”
WASHINGTON — President Trump’s sweeping act of clemency for rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol also should apply to a man charged with planting pipe bombs near the national headquarters of the Democratic and Republican parties on the eve of the Jan. 6, 2021, riot, the suspect’s attorneys argue in a bid to get his case dismissed.
In a court filing Monday, defense attorneys assert that Trump’s blanket pardons extend to the charges against Brian J. Cole Jr. because his alleged conduct on Jan. 5, 2021, is “inextricably tethered” to what happened at the Capitol the next day. They’re asking U.S. District Judge Amir Ali to throw out the case before trial.
Justice Department prosecutors didn’t immediately respond in writing to the defense’s request. In a previous court filing, prosecutors said Cole, under questioning by FBI agents, denied that his actions were related to the Jan. 6 proceedings at the Capitol.
On his first day back in the White House last year, Trump pardoned, commuted prison sentences and ordered the dismissal of all 1,500-plus people charged in the attack by a mob of his supporters.
Nearly a year later, Cole was arrested on charges that he placed two pipe bombs outside both the Republican and the Democratic national committees’ headquarters in Washington the night before the riot. The devices didn’t detonate before law enforcement officers discovered them Jan. 6.
Cole’s attorneys said the Justice Department’s framing of the case has explicitly linked Cole’s alleged conduct on Jan. 5 to the events of Jan. 6, when rioters disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying Joe Biden’s electoral victory over Trump.
“That is not happenstance sequencing in time. It is the government’s theory of Mr. Cole’s alleged motive and context,” defense lawyers wrote. “According to the government, the timing was chosen because of what was scheduled to occur at the Capitol on January 6.”
They also argued that prosecutors’ theory of a possible motive places Cole’s alleged conduct “in the same political controversy that animated the January 6 crowd.”
In court filings, prosecutors have said that Cole confessed to investigators after his Dec. 4 arrest. He told FBI agents that he felt “bewildered” by conspiracy theories related to the 2020 presidential election and “something just snapped” after “watching everything, just everything getting worse,” prosecutors said.
Cole has remained jailed since his arrest. His attorneys have appealed Ali’s refusal to order Cole’s pretrial release from custody. The judge hasn’t set a trial date yet.
Cole, 30, of Woodbridge, Virginia, has been diagnosed with autism and obsessive-compulsive disorder. His attorneys say he has no criminal record.
Authorities said they used phone records and other evidence to identify him as a suspect in a crime that confounded the FBI for more than four years.
A man was rescued from under the rubble of a destroyed building following an Israeli strike in the Iranian city of Hamedan, as the US and Israel continue to bombard the country.
LA28 revealed the schedule Monday for an extended Olympic soccer tournament that will begin four days before the opening ceremony.
The soccer competition begins July 10 with four men’s group stage games across New York, Columbus, Nashville and St. Louis. The women’s tournament begins July 11 with games in all six of the preliminary round sites, including San José and San Diego.
The soccer competition, which will feature 12 women’s teams and eight men’s teams for the first time, has the longest competition window of any sport in Olympic history because the International Olympic Committee Executive Board wanted to give each team two extra rest days throughout the tournament.
Each team will have two days of rest between group stage games and three days between the final group game and the quaterfinal rounds. The men will begin their knockout round games on July 20 while the women start quarterfinal play on July 21, including one women’s quarterfinal match at the Rose Bowl.
The iconic stadium in Pasadena will host only five matches for the Olympics, including a men’s and women’s semifinal July 24 and the men’s gold medal match on July 28 and the women’s on July 29.
San Diego’s SnapDragon Stadium will have the most matches of any site with 11. In addition to three days of women’s group stage games, the home of San Diego State football, San Diego FC and San Diego Wave FC will host a women’s quarterfinal July 21, men’s and women’s semifinals July 24 and both bronze medal matches.
With the coast-to-coast soccer tournament shaping up, LA28 announced additional ticket opportunities for the competition, allowing fans interested in attending soccer matches to buy up to 12 soccer tickets in addition to the current 12-ticket maximum for all other Olympic events. The 12-ticket maximum for Olympic events includes the opening and closing ceremonies on July 14 and 30, respectively, which each have a four-ticket limit.
Ticket registration for the first ticket drop ends Wednesday at 11:59 p.m. PDT with the first tickets going on sale to locals in Southern California and Oklahoma beginning April 2. The first general ticket drop begins April 9. Fans who are randomly selected to participate in the first ticket drop will be notified via email between March 31 and April 7 with information and their assigned timeslot to purchase tickets.
More than 5 million fans have already registered for Olympic tickets, LA28 said, with Paralympic tickets going on sale in 2027. The organizing committee expects 14 million tickets to be available for the Games, which could eclipse the total ticket sales record set by Paris in 2024.
Kylian Mbappe and Jude Bellingham have returned to Real Madrid’s squad for their Champions League last-16 second leg at Manchester City on Tuesday.
France striker Mbappe, 27, was diagnosed with a left knee sprain at the beginning of March and has been missing from Real’s line-up since their La Liga game against Osasuna on 21 February.
Bellingham sustained a hamstring injury less than 10 minutes into a league game against Rayo Vallecano on 1 February and left the field in tears.
The 22-year-old midfielder had initially been expected to miss about four weeks, but the injury was found to be more significant than first thought.
The stand-off between Ten Hag and Sancho lasted four months, before Sancho joined Dortmund on loan for the remainder of the season and helped them reach the Champions League final.
But they could not afford to keep him and, although United sporting director Dan Ashworth was credited with brokering the truce that allowed Sancho to join up with United in the pre-season of 2024, it was a temporary situation, which Chelsea seemed to solve by agreeing a loan that committed them to a permanent transfer at the end of the season.
Yet, after five goals in 41 appearances, Chelsea preferred to pay a £5m penalty to send Sancho back to Old Trafford.
This time, there was no olive branch. Sancho was placed in Ruben Amorim’s ‘bomb squad’ and had to train away from the first team until he joined Villa on 1 September.
United have an option to trigger an additional year on Sancho’s contract, which otherwise expires in the summer. In public, they are reserving their position on that. No-one expects it to happen.
At 25, Sancho still has a lot to offer. There have been glimpses of quality during his time at Villa, but it is by no means certain he will stay there beyond the end of the season.
“Seeing Jadon close up, technically, he’s got an awful lot of ability,” said current United interim head coach Michael Carrick, who worked with Sancho as part of Solskjaer’s backroom team and managed him for three games during his short stint in charge after the Norwegian’s dismissal.
“In and around the box; his ball carrying; his little plays; the connections; his creativity; the way he handles the ball – he’s got natural ability.
“He’s always had it all the way coming through. That’s one part of football.
“But – and I’m not talking about Jadon individually on this – it is just how it is and how it should be.
“You can’t just assume it’s all going to be smooth. It’s proven that it’s not always like that.
“You’ve got to find a way through it. If you are playing in a good team with good players and a good squad and depth, that’s part of the challenge to stay at the top.”
March 13 (UPI) — An Australian businessman was found guilty Friday of selling information to two people believed to be Chinese spies.
Alexander Csergo, 59, was convicted of reckless foreign interference in a Sydney court after compiling reports for two people he knew as Ken and Evelyn in Shanghai between 2021 and 2023. He faces up to 15 years in prison.
The prosecution alleged that Csergo believed they worked for Chinese intelligence agency the Ministry of State Security and acted recklessly about knowing if it would support Chinese intelligence.
His defense team argued he had only given them information that was publicly available and he included made-up quotes from people he pretended to have interviewed, including former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.
Csergo ran a business in Shanghai and was first approached by a woman on LinkedIn who said she was working for a think tank. She introduced him to Ken and Evelyn and said they had businesses in Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
Their meetings, in which he exchanged reports for cash, happened in empty cafes and restaurants, prosecutors said.
Ken and Evelyn gave Csergo a “shopping list” of subjects they wanted reports on. After he returned to Australia in 2023, officials searched his Bondi home and found the list, but Csergo said he never used that list.
Ken and Evelyn asked for reports about lithium mining, the German government, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue and AUKUS, a trilateral security partnership between Australia, Britain and the United States. The Quad alliance is a non-military partnership between the United States, India, Japan and Australia.
Csergo’s defense attorney, Iain Todd, argued that there is no evidence he provided anyone with any national secrets.
The prosecution said the biggest value to Ken and Evelyn were Csergo’s contacts, but Todd said Csergo had no real contacts.
“He never spoke to interviewees. He lied about that,” Todd said. “He never gave access to anyone because there was no one to give access to.”
Some of the information in the report on lithium mining was labeled “gibberish” by experts.
Prosecutors said he exchanged about 2,800 WeChat messages with Ken and developed a collegial relationship with him.
Chelsea’s dominant record over United extends to the WSL, where they have never lost in 12 meetings, winning 10 of them.
But the gap has been closing.
This season, Chelsea needed an extra-time winner to knock United out of the FA Cup in their fifth-round tie and were held to a 1-1 draw in their WSL meeting in October.
It has been a turbulent time for the Londoners as they have fallen nine points behind WSL leaders Manchester City. Manager Sonia Bompastor has come under pressure and off-field issues – including the departure of much-loved head of women’s football Paul Green – have sparked debate and concern.
Suddenly, the ‘mentality monsters’ appear vulnerable – but can United take advantage?
“I don’t want to use this moment of vulnerability to do anything other than pretend we’re playing them at their best. Prepare for their best, and you can beat Chelsea,” Skinner said.
“We all know they’re an incredible team. Nobody’s denying that. But if we can get to our best levels in any game, I genuinely believe we can beat any team.
“Whatever form Chelsea are in, I’m going to challenge my team to be ready and focused on winning that game of football.
“Chelsea will do that. They’re not bothered about Manchester United, so we won’t be worried about them.”
Despite United’s strong campaign so far, some fans remain unconvinced.
This is the fourth successive season in which they have reached a domestic cup final, but they are yet to mount a genuine WSL title challenge and have lifted just one major trophy, the 2024 FA Cup, in their eight-year professional existence.
So can the club achieve more? Is Skinner getting the best out of his squad? Should United’s ambitions be more than just reaching finals?
“When you reach a certain level of experience in finals, you don’t want to not be experiencing them year-in, year-out. We also know that [in] the league, the teams behind the top four are investing more than enough to make it an open league,” said Skinner.
“The top-tier teams still spend the most and London City Lionesses are not far behind. We have to set our own markers at Manchester United. Whether you love it, or hate it – we’ve just got to compete. Sometimes we have to find different ways to do it.
“I’m not going to say my job isn’t to get us into cup finals and try to win them every year. All I’d ask is that if there’s a season where that doesn’t happen, you look at the context.
“If you’re not doing a good job [as a manager], then we all know what happens. You don’t have it any more and we move on.”
From “sticking a pen in a couple” while having a youthful flutter to owning a King George VI Chase winner and potential Cheltenham Gold Cup victor, Harry Redknapp has come a long way in horse racing.
The FA Cup-winning football manager’s love of the sport can be traced back to his grandmother Maggie Brown, who was a bookmaker’s runner in London’s East End, at a time when betting shops and off-course betting were illegal.
On Friday, his horse Jukebox Man will attempt to add the Cheltenham showpiece to his King George win in December.
The King George VI Chase is considered the biggest jumps race of the season before the Cheltenham Festival, while the Gold Cup is described by the Jockey Club as the most prestigious steeplechase in the world.
After claiming a photo-finish victory at Kempton Park on Boxing Day to topple 2024 King George winner Banbridge and 9-4 joint-favourite Gaelic Warrior, Redknapp said: “We’ve come into the Champions League today.”
But can he win jump racing’s equivalent of the Champions League?
“We have a chance, but it is a tough race,” Redknapp told BBC Radio 5 Live:
Among those standing in his way are Gaelic Warrior, Jango Baie, Haiti Couleur and last year’s winner Inothewayurthinkin.
Redknapp said: “Just to have a runner in the Gold Cup is a dream come true.
“We have had so much fun with Jukebox Man, which won the King George on Boxing Day, which is one of the most iconic races in the racing calendar.
“To go to the Gold Cup and to have a runner with a bit of a chance is great.”
Victory would be the crowning moment of a 70-year love affair with the sport that began during childhood.
“My nan would take the bets,” he said. “I’d come out for my school dinner when I’m eight or nine and she was getting put in the back of a police van and taken to Poplar police station.”
Redknapp’s nan would tell him to “stick a pen in a couple“ that would be her bets for the day.
Despite his love of the sport, he has never been tempted to ride – “not for all the money in the world”.
”They get injured, these jump jockeys, and then they come back about three weeks later, he said.
“They’re not like footballers, are they?”
Redknapp owns shares in 26 horses.
“You’re not always successful,” he said.
“For every Shakem Up’arry and Jukebox Man and Taurus Bay, there’s lots of others that never really did anything.”
Adicoff, from Sun Valley, Idaho, has been skiing since childhood – dabbling in both alpine and Nordic skiing before alpine was deemed too dangerous.
He competed against sighted rivals at junior level. After being selected for the US Para-Nordic team in 2013, he went to the 2014 Games in Sochi while still a high school student.
A first Paralympic medal came four years later in Pyeongchang when he finished second behind Canadian Paralympic legend Brian McKeever in the 10km classic event, but he retired after the Games before returning for the 2022 Beijing Games.
Despite high hopes of gold, Adicoff achieved two more individual silvers behind McKeever before anchoring the US team to relay gold for his first Paralympic title.
But it left Adicoff wanting more and with the retirement of 16-time Paralympic champion McKeever the division was wide open.
The American seized his chance to dominate, with World Cup and World Championship success ahead of the Games.
Unlike at Beijing, where supporters did not travel because of the pandemic, athletes at these Games have benefited from being able to be watched by friends and family and Adicoff’s entourage have been enjoying the experience.
Whether they are waving giant faces of Adicoff and his guides Reid Goble and Peter Wolter or wearing hats with his name on it, their presence has been felt at the Tesero Cross-Country Centre
Adicoff, who has another medal chance in Sunday’s 20km event and is also set to go in Saturday’s 4×2.5km mixed relay, may not be able to fully see them while he competes, but he has taken it all in and joined in the post-race celebrations.
“To have so many people that came out and supported us and are going to continue to support us throughout the week. It’s so nice having friends and family here,” he said.
“You see all those white hats up there? It’s so fun to have.
“I love skiing, love ski racing, so it makes finding the motivation kind of easy.”
