A Piece Of Heaven returns Chester to even keel after ground chaos

A Piece Of Heaven’s 7-1 success in the Chester Cup, the most popular and historic race of the year at the world’s oldest racecourse, was a fine way to round off the track’s May festival meeting on Friday, not least after a day when, for around an hour or so in early afternoon, the event had teetered on the edge of an expensive, embarrassing disaster.The odds that the middle day of Chester’s showpiece event would be abandoned, with around 15,000 spectators at the track for Ladies’ Day, seemed to be shortening at 2.30pm on Thursday, as a delegation of jockeys and trainers inspected the turf on the home turn.Several riders had reported slipping in the opening race, prompting emergency remedial work by Chester’s ground staff. A few minutes earlier, Maureen Haggas, assistant to her husband, William, at one of Newmarket’s biggest stables, had scratched Morshdi, the second-favourite, from the Dee Stakes, the day’s big Derby trial

Formula One agrees to engine changes from next season after widespread criticism

Formula One has agreed to make engine design changes for the 2027 season in response to the unhappiness of many leading drivers at the way this year’s new-generation engines have affected how they race.At a meeting on Friday, the FIA, F1, teams and engine manufacturers reached an agreement, subject to formal approval, to fast-track changes to the regulations to allow fresh engines to be used next season.The intention is to address the level of energy management drivers undertake on each lap, with the current engines at almost a 50-50 split between the internal combustion engine (ICE) and electrical energy. This has led at times to counterintuitive driving and the yo-yoing of positions that has left many drivers frustrated – as well as safety concerns because of closing speeds.From 2027 the split will be closer to 60-40 in favour of the ICE, through an increased fuel flow to the combustion engine, and reducing the power output of the hybrid unit from 350kW to 300kW

Premier League crunch time, the clásico and international cricket – follow with us

Welcome to another weekend and two days of enthralling action. There’s no better place to get things underway as the season reaches its climax than our rolling football blog. Coming up are five Premier League fixtures, both the Championship and League One play-off semi-finals, a Scottish Premiership title-cruncher, plus the best of Europe’s top games to monitor. Co-hosts Emillia Hawkins and Barry Glendenning will offer breaking news and updates from around the grounds, plus readers’ thoughts and queries. Why not join the conversation? Email matchday

British sprinter CJ Ujah among 10 suspects charged over alleged cryptocurrency fraud

The British sprinter CJ Ujah, who won 4x100m relay gold at the 2017 world championships, is one of 10 suspects charged with conspiracy to defraud as part of a police investigation into cryptocurrency fraud.It is alleged that the suspects were part of an organised crime group linked to a scam involving phone calls to multiple victims, from people purporting to be police officers and cryptocurrency companies.Police said victims were tricked into sharing important security details, including seed phrases, before discovering funds in their crypto wallets had been stolen. One of the victims is said to have lost more than £300,000.The arrests and charges were made after an investigation by the Eastern Region Special Operations Unit across Kent, Essex and London

How reading the Guardian led to a million-pound move for Cornish Pirates

“I think my family already thought I was crazy so this is nothing new,” says Kenn Moritz from his home office in faraway Pittsburgh. The Moritz family may have a point. Given all those baseball, football, ice hockey and basketball franchises in the United States, why opt instead to invest in a second-tier English rugby club in Cornwall that almost folded less than two years ago?The catalyst turns out, ahem, to have been your correspondent’s article about the Cornish Pirates in the Guardian last December. Moritz was sitting where he is now, trawling through his trusted worldwide news sources when he stumbled across the Pirates’ quest for fresh investment. Somewhere inside him a light flicked on

Wardley v Dubois is bout of uncertainty far more interesting than Fury v Joshua

Saturday’s WBO world heavyweight fight pits fascinating pair armed with knockout power against one another Daniel Dubois and Fabio Wardley are very different characters but, in the ring, they share a knockout ratio of 95% in the combined 42 fights they have won. The unbeaten Wardley has knocked out 19 opponents in his 20 victories while Dubois has stopped 21 of 22 vanquished rivals. It’s an impressive statistic which belies the vulnerability at the heart of each man.Wardley, the WBO world heavyweight champion, comes from a white-collar boxing background with minimal experience as an amateur. The only blemish on his record is a draw in March 2024 with the Olympic medallist Frazer Clarke – whom he then knocked out with shocking brutality in the first round seven months later