Asal out to keep trophy as El Hammamy bids for a first win
By HOWARD HARDING – Squash Mad International Correspondent

Almost 200 players representing 30 nations have confirmed entry to the 2019 WSF Men’s and Women’s World Junior Individual Squash Championships which will be held in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur from July 30 to August 4.

Hosted by the Squash Rackets Association of Malaysia (SRAM), the World Squash Federation championships will take place at the National Squash Centre, followed by the biennial WSF Women’s World Junior Team Championship, which will feature 18 nations, including debutants Chinese Taipei, from August 5-9.

Both individual titles are likely to stay in Egypt, with world No.15 Hania El Hammamy expected to be top seed in the women’s event and world No.29 Mostafa Asal the predicted favourite in the men’s championship.

After finishing as runner-up in 2017 and 2018, El Hammamy will be hoping for ‘third time lucky’, while 2018 champion Asal (pictured above) will be looking to become the fourth Egyptian since 2006 to win the men’s title twice in a row.

The full seedings and draws will be announced by the WSF next month. 

Pictures courtesy of WSF, PSA and Indian Squash Circuit

Netball star Maria Folau has given her first public show of support for sacked rugby player husband Israel Folau.

Australian rugby union authorities terminated the devout Christian's contract over a social media post in which he said "hell awaits" gay people.

The 30-year-old is taking legal action against Rugby Australia.

On Friday, New Zealand international Folau, 32, shared a post from her husband on social media calling for people to support his legal fight.

Capped 73 times by Australia, the full-back has launched a crowdfunding campaign to raise AU $3m (£1.6m) for his legal case.

More than 7,000 people had contributed some AU $565,000 (£307,000) to the appeal by Saturday morning UK time.

Rugby Australia says Folau - who has also represented his country in rugby league and Australian rules football - was sacked "because of a serious breach of the Professional Players' Code of Conduct".

He has taken the matter to the Fair Work Commission, Australia's workplace relations tribunal, claiming his contract was unlawfully terminated.

Last weekend, Folau was recorded delivering a sermon at his church in Sydney. He said "the devil" is trying to influence the debate over transgender rights.

His wife has been questioned about his comments since his original social media post in April, but refused to comment. Netball chiefs in Australia spoke of the sport's inclusivity when asked about the issue in April.

Neither her club side Adelaide Thunderbirds, nor the national set-up commented when contacted by BBC Sport.

However, Australia netball international Ashleigh Brazill recently said she received the New Zealander's support when she married her female partner.

Folau has 138 Test caps for the Silver Ferns and is expected to feature for her country at this summer's Netball World Cup in Liverpool, which starts on 12 July.

Mike Catt is expected to join Ireland as attack coach after this year's Rugby World Cup in Japan.

It is understood the former England coach will leave his current role in the Italy set-up for Ireland.

The move will see Catt, 47, link up once again with former England coaching colleague Andy Farrell, who will take over from Joe Schmidt as Ireland head coach after this autumn's World Cup.

John Fogarty is leaving Leinster to become Ireland's scrum coach.

Simon Easterby will continue in his role as forwards specialist, with Richie Murphy staying on as kicking and skills coach.

Catt has formed part of Conor O'Shea's Italy staff, with the Azzurri working through a laborious task of building infrastructure for future success.

As a player he helped England win the 2003 World Cup, winning 76 caps between 1994 and 2007, while he also won one Lions cap on the victorious South Africa tour in 1997.

Outgoing Ireland boss Schmidt will hope to steer Ireland past the World Cup quarter-finals for the first time in Japan, before returning to his native New Zealand.

Former schoolteacher Schmidt has said he will take a break to spend time with family following the World Cup.

Catt's impending arrival will mean all of England's World Cup 2015 coaches will be working in Ireland, with Stuart Lancaster excelling at Leinster and Graham Rowntree joining Munster.

England became the first hosts in World Cup history not to progress past the group stages in 2015, a record that cost Lancaster and his coaching staff their jobs.

Since then Farrell has forged a pivotal part of Schmidt's Ireland set-up as the national side swept to the 2018 Six Nations Grand Slam, before claiming a first win over New Zealand on home soil last November.

SARVER, Pa. — For the second consecutive year, Michael Norris outdueled the World of Outlaws Morton Buildings Late Model Series stars on his home dirt in the Friday night feature during Firecracker 100 weekend at Lernerville Speedway.

This time it was a different car, but the same winning ambition and driving skill his Western Pennsylvania fans are so accustomed to seeing, and those family, fans and friends were there again Friday to see him pick up the $6,000 win.

Norris held off a hounding Mason Zeigler and a hard-charging Brandon Sheppard over 30 laps to pick up his second series victory.

“There were a lot of heroes, in my book, behind me, and that’ll get you rattled pretty quick,” a smiling Norris, 27, said. “I just tried to pretend like it was another Friday night, another 25 or 30 laps here, hit my marks and drive as fast as I can.”

In what was almost a mirror result of his big Firecracker victory last year, Norris again set the second-fast time overall in Qualifying, won his Drydene heat race, redrew inside row two and led 26 laps en route to the checkers. But just as it was for him last year, the win did not come easily.

Norris had to survive several restarts after cautions and even one red flag, but he held his ground on the top side of the track, narrowly skating the cushion for most of the green-flag action while defusing the pressure bombs behind him on each restart.

“Restarts were tricky because I didn’t really know where to go,” said Norris. “Once we got rolling, I felt like I got a good enough rhythm that they were really going to have to work to get by me, but I wasn’t sure to go high or low or anything like that. At the end of the day, we’re standing here and super blessed to be here.”

Norris is now two-for-two in the Todd Cerenzia-owned No. 02. Last Friday night, he made his debut behind the wheel of the blue-and-green Rocket XR1 at Lernerville and ran away with the show, picking up his second win of the season.

He’s normally seen behind the wheel of his family-owned No. 72, but that operation went sour after his engine expired in night one of Dirt Late Model Dream competition at Eldora two weeks ago.

Norris said he got in touch with Cerenzia through Brian Daugherty of Integra Shocks, who he spoke with after his Dream weekend came to an early end. Daugherty mentioned Cerenzia’s name and, after some deep thought and conversation, the new team materialized just one week ago.

“At the time, I didn’t think anything of [the partnership], and on the ride home from the Dream I was thinking more about it,” Norris said. “It sounded like it was going to be more of a possibility, and the next thing I know, I was driving up on Tuesday to put my seat in it.”

Zeigler served as the thorn in Norris’s side for much of the race, planting himself on the No. 02’s bumper for almost every restart. He grabbed the early lead but quickly gave it up to Norris after trading slide jobs out front.

“It was all about just slinging it in there, getting the nose pointed straight and trying to keep from pushing,” Zeigler said. “Norris did a really great job of keeping it out front and not making any mistakes.”

Tacking on his 12th top-three finish in 15 World of Outlaws races this year, Brandon Sheppard drove the wheels off of his Rocket1 Racing ride Friday night, coming from the 12th starting spot to finish third.

“All in all, we came from 12th, so we were passing a little bit,” said Sheppard. “A few guys fell out, we passed a few cars and it just worked out for us tonight.”

The finish:

Feature (30 Laps) – 1. O2-Mike Norris [3][$6,000]; 2. 25z-Mason Zeigler [1][$3,000]; 3. 1-Brandon Sheppard [12][$2,000]; 4. 14-Josh Richards [16][$1,750]; 5. 29-Darrell Lanigan [4][$1,500]; 6. 2-Brandon Overton [8][$1,400]; 7. 22-Chris Ferguson [7][$1,300]; 8. 7-Ricky Weiss [5][$1,200]; 9. 28-Dennis Erb [23][$1,100]; 10. 6m-Tim McCreadie [11][$1,000]; 11. 18-Chase Junghans [15][$900]; 12. 29s-Ken Schaltenbrand [19][$850]; 13. 1T-Tyler Erb [6][$800]; 14. 17M-Dale McDowell [18][$775]; 15. 49-Jonathan Davenport [10][$750]; 16. 25-Shane Clanton [17][$700]; 17. B1-Brent Larson [24][$660]; 18. 97-Cade Dillard [20][$640]; 19. 99B-Boom Briggs [2][$620]; 20. 157-Mike Marlar [14][$600]; 21. 22s-Gregg Satterlee [9][$600]; 22. 111-Max Blair [22][$600]; 23. O-Rick Eckert [13][$600]; 24. 1x-Chub Frank [21][$600]; 25. 6-Blake Spencer [25][$110]; Hard Charger: 28-Dennis Erb[+14]

WAVERLY, Ohio – Mother Nature has had her way with the 37th annual Ohio Sprint Speedweek for the Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions.

As a result, tracks have developed a unique and different way to promote and get races in that otherwise would be canceled.

By the time Tuesday rolled around for the fifth race day of Ohio Sprint Speedweek, there had only been two shows completed, at Attica Raceway Park and Muskingum County Speedway.

With a less than good looking forecast, the suggestion was made that if Tuesday’s event at Sharon Speedway rained out, the race would move west down the road to Wayne County Speedway, where the series was rained out on Monday.

“Just from a series standpoint, we know people take vacations for speedweek, and my boss came to me and asked my thoughts on asking other tracks to act on replacements outside of the normal speedweek if we lose a race,” said Ollie’s Bargain Outlet All Star Circuit of Champions Director Eric Walls. “So I got on the phone and started making phone calls. Jason and Kristen at Wayne County stepped up to the plate first. They want to race as bad as we do, it’s been a bad year, not just here, but all across the country. We know they want to race, and that’s what our racers do, they race.”

Series and track officials didn’t get the chance to test the idea Tuesday as both tracks canceled because of bad weather.

Sticking to their guns, the All Stars and Wayne County announced again that if Wednesday’s race at Atomic Speedway were rained out, the series would shift to Wayne County instead.

This time the rain stayed south of Wayne County while storms struck Atomic, forcing that track to cancel. With 12 hours of notice and promotion through social media, with support and help from surrounding dirt tracks, Wayne County and the All Star Circuit of Champions were able to pull the event off. Fans filled the grandstands while 37 cars showed up to race.

“I am an old school guy, I use some, active, social media, but after seeing what happened at Wayne County it really opened my eyes and I hope it opened other promoter’s eyes for that matter,” Walls said. “It just goes to show you the power of social media to promote an event within 12 hours and see the crowd Wayne County had. The promotions from the race teams and other tracks, it’s a new day in step up promotion. Hats off to social media and the people that use it.

“I think, without the cooperation of the race tracks, the cooperation of the race teams, I don’t think we could do this,” Walls continued. “A sanctioning body cannot just say we want a race, a lot of stuff has to happen. It takes a lot of people to make that happen. I think this is something like an event like speedweek it works. I certainly hope someone takes something out of this, it’s a lot of work, but it speaks volumes for tracks like Wayne County and Atomic. Attica, Mansfield, those places for instances, sometimes Mother Nature just whont let up. All these tracks have great staff and they want to race. Everybody in this industry is here for a reason, they want to race.

“We have a lot of full time racers, and also guys who work 40 hours a week and race as a hobby. I don’t like to call it a hobby, because racing is a full-time job in itself. Those guys have to maintain, do things themselves, they do not have paid crew members, those guys take vacations for this week to race as well. In the grand scheme of things we were looking at those guys as well. Rain outs does not pay the bills. To travel up and down the road in Ohio to watch it rain does not pay the bills, we want them to keep coming back. The idea was they only get paid if they race, and we are the same way, to get paid we have to race, so we had to figure out a way to get to race.”

MISANO ADRIATICO, Italy – Jonathan Rea romped to a dominant victory in wet conditions during Saturday’s World Superbike race at Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli.

Rain forced a nearly 25-minute delay in the start of the event, but the race finally got underway with Alex Lowes leading Rea, Tom Sykes and Alvaro Bautista leading the field.

The riders only got two laps in before the rain intensified, forcing another red flag period. The race resumed with a shortened 18-lap distance, with Rea getting a great start to take the lead from Lowes, followed by Sykes, Chaz Davies and Bautista.

Conditions began to deteriorate and soon, riders began to drop back, with some eventually dropping out. Lowes began to close on Rea and at turn eight with 12 laps left he took the top spot.

With 10 laps left Lowes crashed while leading in turn 12, handing the top spot to Kawasaki’s Rea. Behind Rea, Michele Pirro crashed at the same corner. Sykes was now second, Leon Haslam was third, with Davies and Bautista behind.

The crashes kept coming, with Michael Ruben Rinaldi crashing at turn 13 and Leon Haslam going down in turn eight.

By then Davies was up to third, but a small error allowed Bautista through, whilst Loris Baz was now fifth and Alessandro Delbianco was up to sixth.

A small error from Davies allowed Bautista through into third, whilst Baz eventually closed down on Davies to get fourth. Baz soon hunted down Bautista, though he was not close enough to make the pass.

Out front, it was Rea who took the win, his 74th win and 10 years and one day after his first at the same track. Sykes gave BMW their first podium since 2013 at Jerez and Bautista salvaged a podium after an eventful race.

BLOOMINGTON, Minn. — Formula One is returning to the Netherlands next year as the Dutch Grand Prix makes its first appearance since 1985. That is a fact.

Formula One is returning to Rio de Janeiro, which will host the Brazilian Grand Prix for the first time since 1989. That is pure fantasy.

Starting with the good news — given the legions of Dutch fans that now follow their idol Max Verstappen around the world, it was inevitable that the Dutch Grand Prix had a good chance of getting back on the calendar. And now the event has a confirmed three-year contract at the Zandvoort circuit.

“It’s just an iconic, historic track” Verstappen said. “I have raced there before with F-3 and it was a lot of fun. I compare the track a little bit with Suzuka because it’s designed by the same person (Dutchman John “Hans” Hugenholtz), so I can understand that the characteristics are a bit similar. It’s a pretty quick track and it’s always good and exciting to have new ones on the calendar. I’ve done a few laps and doughnuts in an F-1 car there too and the track was actually pretty challenging because you have a few banked corners, some places are very narrow and there’s no runoff. It’s very cool, and with no runoff, it’s quite hard to find the limit. On some other tracks it’s a bit easier but that also makes it more exciting.”

The 13-turn 2.676-mile Zandvoort circuit is definitely old school – fast, narrow and dangerous. It is also a track that is very difficult on which to overtake on. If there was no passing in the Formula 3 race there, what hope is there for the wider F-1 cars?

But while the actual racing might not be good, the race weekend will be fun and have a great atmosphere with all the Dutch fans there wearing “Dutch orange.”

I went to the Dutch Grand Prix in 1984 and ’85, in my early days of covering F-1 for SPEED SPORT, and really enjoyed it. And I am looking forward to going back next year.

I also covered the Brazilian Grand Prix from 1984 through ’89 when the race was held outside of Rio de Janeiro at the Autodromo Internacional Nelson Piquet, better known by the marvelous name Jacarepaguá, which is the local neighborhood. Since then the race has been staged at the Interlagos track in Sao Paulo.

But in May, with much fanfare, Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro signed an agreement with Rio de Janeiro’s mayor and governor for a F-1 track to be built on the outskirts of the city. They announced this new track would host the Brazilian Grand Prix from 2020 onward. It was also stated that no government money would fund the project. The entire track and facility will be funded by private investors.

The cost of building the facility from scratch is said to be $235 million. The fees that the Formula One Group/Liberty charges a country to host a grand prix vary, but the group of private investors headed by J.R. Pereira that will fund the entire Rio project would have to find about $25 million annually.

The general idea about investing is to make money, and F-1 races to not make a lot of money, if any at all, for the local promoter. So how will investors recoup the original $235 million, plus the annual $25 million? And then make a profit on top of that? This is why most F-1 races these days require government funding. Pereira says the track will make money by selling 100,000 to 130,000 grandstand seats annually.

But the Sao Paulo/Interlagos race organizers have a firm contract for the grand prix for 2020. Plus they have stated they want to renew that contract. It is true the Interlagos organizers have had some difficulties paying the fee for the grand prix, but then they also already have a track that is paid for and does not have to be built like the one in Rio.

Sean Bratches, the managing director of commercial operations of the Formula 1 Group, has stated that Sao Paulo has a contract for the Brazilian Grand Prix for 2020. But he also said there are talks with the Rio de Janeiro organizers.

A grand prix in Rio? I’ll believe it when I see it.

VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- Seven U.S.-born players were selected within the first 15 picks of the 2019 NHL draft on Friday, an all-time high for Americans in the modern draft (since 1963). Led by Jack Hughes, who went first overall to the New Jersey Devils, the 2019 crop surpassed the 2016 draft in which six Americans were taken in the top 15.

Also selected in the top 15 were No. 5 Alex Turcotte to the Los Angeles Kings, No. 9 Trevor Zegras to the Anaheim Ducks, No. 12 Matthew Boldy to the Minnesota Wild, No. 13 Spencer Knight to the Florida Panthers, No. 14 Cam York to the Philadelphia Flyers and No. 15 Cole Caufield to the Montreal Canadiens.

Also of note, all seven of those players came from the same team -- the U.S. National Team Development Program's Under-18 squad. Add in John Beecher, who was selected 30th overall by the Boston Bruins, and that team had eight players selected in the first round. That is also a record for most teammates selected from a single amateur team in the first round of the modern NHL draft. The previous record was set in 2000 when four players from Yaroslavl 2 were taken in the first round.

In all, 10 American-born players were selected in the first round, falling shy of the record 12 selected in 2016. Nolan Foote, who was born in Colorado but represents Canada internationally, was selected 27th overall by the Tampa Bay Lightning, and California native Ryan Johnson closed out the first round when selected 31st overall by the Buffalo Sabres.

Hughes became the eighth American-born player selected with the No. 1 selection and first since Auston Matthews went first overall in the 2016 NHL draft. Each of the past five American first overall selections have come from the NTDP.

Hughes also joins brother Quinn, who was selected No. 7 in the 2018 draft by the Vancouver Canucks, as the highest-drafted American brothers in back-to-back drafts. They also join Brady and Matthew Tkachuk as the only American brothers to be selected in the top 10.

Friday's first round included four players from Sweden, three from Finland and the host Canucks choosing Russian forward Vasily Podkolzin at No. 10.

"There's good players all over the world now. It's the evolution of our game,'' said Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill, who selected U.S. defenseman Thomas Harley with the 18th pick. "It's good for hockey.''

With Hughes going first, it marked the fourth consecutive draft since a Canadian has been selected No. 1.

Doug Armstrong, general manager of the Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues, doesn't see a decline in Canada's dominance in the sport.

"We have a lot of Canadians, and we're Stanley Cup champions,'' Armstrong said. "That's not disrespecting the Russians or the Swedes or the Americans. I think what the game is is global. It think it's great for the game to be global.''

The Associated Press contributed to this report.