USA’s downhill threat Breezy Johnson has learned to live with doubt and fear

In December 2024, Breezy Johnson glided into the starting gate on the Stifel Birds of Prey downhill course atop Colorado’s Beaver Creek, a sight for sore eyes and a bundle of nerves. “The anxiety will always be there until I’m in the downhill gate,” the 30-year-old said at Team USA’s pre-Olympics media summit in October. “Like, at no point can [I tell myself], I’ve got this thing.”Out of World Cup action for 14 months after whereabouts failures, she dropped on to Birds of Prey as bib No 32 in the 45-racer field – all women for the first time in the history of the legendary venue. With a few bends of her reconstructed knees, she snapped through the timing wand, charged through the Abyss (one of Birds of Prey’s steepest pitches) and kept carving her way through the 1

‘An experience you can’t buy’: Louis Rees-Zammit on his NFL adventure and fresh hope for Wales

Lightning-fast attacker lines up at full-back against England insisting that his gridiron tilt will only help his rugbyThe late, great Tom Petty wrote the song that, ultimately, defined Louis Rees-Zammit’s American football adventure. “Runnin’ down a dream, that never would come to me …” Twelve months ago Rees-Zammit was in New Orleans watching the Superbowl and still hoping to carve out a multimillion dollar NFL career. Now here he is, back in a Welsh rugby shirt and eager to make up for lost time.Sliding doors and all that. This weekend in America all roads lead to this year’s Superbowl in California: the Seattle Seahawks v the New England Patriots

Winter Olympic wonders, Premier League thrills and Super Bowl LX – follow with us

David Tindall kickstarts the weekend’s football programme with our unmissable rolling blog that rises early to provide all the breaking news from around the grounds. There’ll be wash-up from Friday night’s Premier League meeting of Leeds and Nottingham Forest, buildup to Saturday’s bumper seven Premier League matches, a full Championship and lower-division programme, plus plenty of swirl around Serie A and La Liga, with Napoli and Barcelona in action. In Germany, Borussia Dortmund have cut Bayern Munich’s Bundesliga lead by five points, drawing six behind the leaders and reviving a title race long considered dead. Bayern’s shock home loss to Augsburg – their first league defeat in 10 months – along with a hard-fought draw in Hamburg last Saturday have allowed Niko Kovac’s Dortmund to edge closer. Dortmund play at wobbling Wolfsburg, a day before Bayern’s home clash with Hoffenheim

England run risk by missing final T20 World Cup training to stay cool by the pool

Sitting in the Board of Control for Cricket in India’s Mumbai headquarters, adjacent to the Wankhede Stadium, three days before the start of England’s World Cup campaign, Harry Brook was asked about captaining a T20 side in its latest, even-more-wild-scoring iteration, against opponents looking to flay sixes with ungodly regularity. “Yeah, you’ve got to stay with a cool head as much as you possibly can,” he said. “You’ve just got to try to be as calm as possible.”In England’s last World Cup fixture at the Wankhede, in 2023’s 50-over tournament, calm and cool heads were exactly what they were missing. After mystifyingly electing to field against South Africa on a searing hot afternoon, they effectively melted; Heinrich Klaasen scored a century, England chased 400 and were rolled out for 170

Jumps guru to help Constitution Hill but becoming a Flat track bully is first concern

Nicky Henderson, the trainer of Constitution Hill, said on Friday that he is focusing “on Southwell at the moment and only on Southwell” before the former Champion Hurdler’s Flat racing debut on 20 February, despite having booked the legendary jumping specialist, Yogi Breisner, to work with the nine-year-old earlier this week.Constitution Hill had already secured a place among the hurdling greats when he set off for last year’s Champion Hurdle as the 1-2 favourite, but a crashing fall four out seemed to shatter his confidence and he has fallen twice in three starts since.After Constitution Hill’s most recent fall, at the second flight in the Fighting Fifth Hurdle at Newcastle, Henderson suggested that his hurdling career would be put on hold, and a race at Southwell’s evening meeting later this month was inked in to be his first start on the Flat.“He’s had a confusing week,” Henderson said on Friday. “He had schooling with Yogi on Monday, starting stalls and a gallop with Oisin [Murphy, who is booked to ride at Southwell] on Wednesday and Yogi is back again before the end of the week, so it’s jump, Flat, jump for him this week

Chock and Bates power US team to open Olympic figure skating

The United States seized early control of the Olympic figure skating team event after Friday’s opening day on the southern outskirts of Milan, powered by a world’s best score this season from Madison Chock and Evan Bates.The three-time world champions, together on skates since 2011 and married since 2024, set the marker with 91.06 points for their program to music by The Guess Who and Lenny Kravitz, earning the maximum 10 points for an American team entering the Winter Games on a tailwind of hype. Chock and Bates, nearly unbeatable since finishing fourth in the individual ice dance event at the Beijing Games four years ago, skated with the precision and polish that have defined their rise to the top of the sport.“We definitely skated great,” Bates said