A round-up of today's other stories in brief
Pedrosa closes on Lorenzo
MOTOR SPORT:Dani Pedrosa closed the gap on MotoGP championship leader Jorge Lorenzo with a commanding victory in today's Aragon Grand Prix in Spain. The Repsol Honda rider shadowed his fellow Spaniard off the line before making a pass on lap seven and holding the lead to the chequered flag, which he took nearly six-and-a-half seconds ahead of his rival.
Pedrosa’s third win in four races sees him close to within 33 points of Yamaha rider Lorenzo with four races remaining, but the Honda man will still be rueing his costly retirement at Misano a fortnight ago. “With the cold conditions and the rain yesterday, all the things in my head from the last race, it was hard to keep calm this weekend, but today it was good,” Pedrosa said.
Ireland share top spot in Group B after weekend
IRELAND 1 - SCOTLAND 1
HOCKEY:KATIE MULLAN'S cracking reverse-stick goal 11 minutes from time ensured Ireland share top-spot in Pool B after two rounds of the Champions Challenge I with Scotland as the pair played out a feisty 1-1 draw.
The tie ended in bedlam, Alex Speers shown a rare red card having previously been sin-binned twice while a last second Scottish penalty corner award left Irish coach Denis Pritchard incensed.
Irish keeper Emma Gray got down brilliantly to save from Nikki Kidd – on her 100th cap – from the ensuing shot to close out the tie with honours even.
Scotland earned eight penalty corners by the time the half-time hooter sounded and Catriona Ralph eventually finished off from the last of these. It was not the cleanest of strikes but had enough spin to elude the dive of Gray.
But Ireland looked the more threatening side in the second period, themselves running up a double figure tally of penalty corners.
Their profligacy from the set-piece, though, left them in arrears until Nikki Symmons worked a left-wing cross to the teenage Mullan who rounded onto her reverse and planted home powerfully.
On Saturday, Ireland picked off one of their biggest wins in a world-ranking event as they got the better of world number 10 side South Africa 1-0. Chloe Watkins clipped the only goal of the game in the 52nd minute, twisting onto her reverse-stick and firing a rising shot past Sanani Mangisa.
IRELAND: E Gray, M Harvey, A Speers, L Jacob, S McCarthy, A Connery, N Symmons, A O’Flynn, C Watkins, N Atcheler, A O’Flanagan. Subs: P Smithwick, M Crowley, E Smyth, N Small, B Flannery, K Mullan, N Gray.
Mutai wins but fails to take the world record
ATHLETICS:Favourite Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya won the Berlin marathon on Sunday, surviving a brave challenge by compatriot Dennis Kimetto but failing in his quest to set a new world record.
Mutai’s time was more than half a minute off Patrick Makau’s world record of two hours three minutes 38 seconds set in the German capital last year.
The Kenyan pulled away with a group of five runners from the start.
Kimetto, running his first competitive marathon, refused to budge as the others slowly peeled off but had no more energy left to challenge for first place in the final 100 metres, finishing a few steps behind Mutai.
Ireland defeats Wales in Mayo
BOXING:IRELAND'S young boxers recorded a convincing 10-3 win over Wales in Saturday's Schoolboy/Youth international meeting at the Downhill House Hotel in Ballina, Co Mayo.
Brothers Jordan and Cathal Myres, Gary Bittles, Thomas McCarthy, Dominic Bradley, Calvin Turner, Jamie Conroy, Andrew Harkin, Lewis Crocker and Conor Vint had their hands raised in victory.
Saturday’s international was hosted by the IABA in association with the Ballina Boxing Club.
