分类： sports

At Newlands Cricket Ground in Cape Town, day four of the high-stakes five-match third Test between South Africa and Australia unfolded into a masterclass of gritty batting that flipped the contest on its head, setting up a nail-biting series finale for the final day. Entering the penultimate day of play effectively at 40 for 4, the Proteas looked destined for a crushing defeat, but two stellar centuries from batters Ryan Rickelton and Wiaan Mulder dragged the hosts back into contention, before a late-order flurry and dramatic final-wicket stand pushed their second innings total to 387 all out. The innings closed in the very last over of day four, leaving Australia with a 288-run target to seal victory and claim the top spot in the ICC men’s Test rankings. Rickelton crafted his third Test century with a composed 101, while Mulder notched his career-best 115, falling as the final wicket after a blistering 36-run unbroken last-wicket partnership with number 11 batter Kagiso Rabada. The late surge came after a chaotic mid-innings collapse that saw South Africa lose four wickets for just 61 runs, including run-out dismissals for Rickelton, Marco Jansen, and Gerald Coetzee that left the hosts reeling at nine wickets down with a 251-run lead. Analytics firm CricViz’s WinViz model currently gives South Africa a narrow 54% chance of securing a home win, though history and recent form paint a far more nuanced picture of the chase ahead. A successful 288-run fourth innings run chase would mark only the second highest ever at Newlands, where the ground record remains Australia’s iconic 331-run chase for a four-wicket victory over South Africa back in 2002, anchored by an unbeaten Ricky Ponting century. All five previous fourth-innings totals over 288 at the venue ended in either defeat for the batting side or a last-ditch draw, adding layers of uncertainty to day five’s play. The pitch, which played relatively flat through the afternoon and evening as Australia’s fast bowlers tired, has shown clear signs of escalating difficulty as the Test wears on. CricViz’s PitchViz surface difficulty rating spiked to 6.6 in the final session of day four, the highest and most challenging mark recorded across the entire match, with sharp turn for spin bowlers becoming far more pronounced than on any preceding day. One delivery to Simon Harmer, who was bowled by Nathan Lyon after shouldering arms, demonstrated the unpredictable spin now on offer, while a low, skidding delivery to Rickelton shortly after tea hinted at emerging uneven bounce that could further complicate batting conditions. Veteran spinner Simon Harmer, the 37-year-old Essex stalwart who once entertained a switch to represent England, has already claimed four top-order Australian wickets in the tourists’ first innings, dismissing Travis Head, Marnus Labuschagne, Josh Inglis, and Alex Carey for figures of 4 for 104, and is poised to be the hosts’ most decisive weapon on a turning surface on day five. Australia’s recent track record in high-pressure run chases makes them more than capable of overcoming the steep target: after a dismal 2008-2019 stretch where they failed 14 out of 17 times chasing fourth-innings totals between 200 and 350, Pat Cummins’ side has pulled off three successful chases over 270 since 2023, including Travis Head’s legendary 83-ball 123 that blew apart a 205-run chase against England in the opening 2023 Ashes Test. With the number one spot in the ICC Test rankings on the line for whichever side takes the Cape Town Test, the final day of play is primed to deliver one of the most memorable cricket showdowns of the year.

What began as a barefoot run for survival and self-reinvention in a Kenyan refugee camp has evolved into two ground-breaking Olympic milestones for South Sudanese athlete Yiech Pur Biel. For Biel, who was displaced as a child when armed attackers raided his South Sudan village, fleeing alone to the sprawling Kakuma refugee settlement near the Kenya-South Sudan border, running was far more than a physical activity: it was a deliberate choice to seize agency over his fractured future. “That’s when I decided now it is time to depend on myself and also to start a new life with determination,” he shared in an interview with BBC Newsbeat. After discovering competitive running through International Olympic Committee (IOC) trials at Kakuma, Biel made global history in 2016 as one of the members of the very first official Refugee Olympic Team, competing in the men’s 800-metre event at the Rio de Janeiro Summer Games. A full decade later, he is stepping into another trailblazing role: Chef de Mission for the first ever dedicated refugee contingent to compete in the Youth Olympic Games, set to make its debut at the 2026 Dakar edition in Senegal. This iteration of the Youth Olympics carries additional historic weight, as it marks the first time any Olympic event has ever been hosted on African soil. The six-athlete refugee delegation will join nearly 3,000 young competitors from across the globe for the Games, whose opening ceremony is scheduled for Saturday. Beyond chasing athletic victories, Biel notes the team carries a dual mission: to showcase the talent and resilience of displaced young people, and to draw global attention to the unmet needs of the world’s refugee populations. The African continent is currently home to roughly 45 million of the 120 million total displaced people worldwide, representing the largest regional displacement crisis on the planet. For Biel, this Youth Olympics platform is a rare opportunity to amplify the voices of a demographic often overlooked by mainstream global media. “It’s a chance for them to tell the world and also to represent the population, especially the refugee population, in Africa,” he explained. “It’s about representing the hope of young people who are living in a refugee camp, who have lost their motivation or their talent.” The journey for many of the team’s athletes mirrors Biel’s own path. One of the delegation’s rising stars is 15-year-old judoka Arno Yafunga Botay, who fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo with his family at age 6 and also found refuge in Kakuma. Botay has set an ambitious, community-focused goal for his Games debut: to claim a gold medal, then bring the award back to the camp to teach his fellow young residents the core values of judo and show them that displacement does not have to erase their potential. Biel, who credits the Kakuma camp’s school system and connections with other displaced youth for helping him process the trauma of his early displacement, describes his new leadership role as an immense honour. Drawing on his own lived experience as both a refugee and a former Olympic competitor, he aims to guide the young delegation to make the most of this unprecedented global stage. Full competitive action at Dakar 2026 will kick off immediately following Saturday’s opening ceremony.

The Confederation of African Football (CAF) has officially reversed a policy shift announced last December that would have moved the flagship Africa Cup of Nations (AFCON) to a quadrennial schedule, restoring the tournament’s longstanding two-year hosting cycle following a formal executive committee review. The scrapped four-year framework had included plans to launch a new biennial African Nations League that would have replaced AFCON as CAF’s core continental national team competition, but governing body administrators confirmed the proposed new league would require multiple years of development to build sufficient independent revenue streams to operate as a financially self-sustaining flagship event.
CAF president Patrice Motsepe outlined that the executive committee’s unanimous decision to bring back the biennial AFCON calendar was drafted to prioritize the collective interests of all 54 CAF member national associations, domestic football ecosystems across the continent, and the thousands of African professional players currently contracted to clubs in European and other global leagues. The long-running biennial AFCON format has historically created persistent scheduling frictions, as recent tournament editions have almost exclusively been staged mid-way through the tightly packed European club football season, a conflict that was exacerbated last year when FIFA’s expanded 32-team Club World Cup, held across June and July 2025, forced CAF to select mid-season dates for its 2025 competition.
The updated confirmed AFCON calendar will see the next tournament co-hosted by the joint bid of Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda in 2027, with subsequent editions lined up for 2028, 2031 and 2033. No AFCON will be staged in 2030 to avoid a scheduling clash with that year’s FIFA World Cup. The 2025 AFCON made global headlines for a historic post-tournament ruling that saw initial title winner Senegal stripped of its championship three months after the final, with the trophy subsequently awarded to Morocco.

In a high-stakes third Test at Cape Town that will determine which nation claims the top spot in the International Cricket Council’s men’s Test rankings, day three unfolded as a tense battle defined by avoidable batting blunders from the home side that handed the visiting Australian team a clear upper hand heading into the final two days of play.
The morning session opened with South Africa’s bowling unit staging an impressive fightback after Australian wicketkeeper Josh Inglis notched his second career Test century. The Proteas ripped through Australia’s lower order, capturing the final six wickets for just 99 runs to wrap the tourists’ total at 429, leaving South Africa facing a 100-run deficit as they stepped into their second innings. What followed was a string of reckless shot selections that undermined their momentum entirely.
First, star opener Aiden Markram threw his wicket away for a mere single, driving a full but not fully hittable delivery from Mitchell Starc straight into the stationary hands of mid-off fielder Travis Head. The error was widely panned as one of the most careless dismissals of the match, made all the more frustrating by Markram’s failure to resist playing his trademark aggressive drive on a ball that did not warrant the stroke.
Even more damning was the repeat mistake from number-three batter David Bedingham, who fell for the exact same pull-shot trap that had dismissed him in the first innings. After being targeted with short-pitched deliveries in the previous innings, Bedingham again top-edged a pull shot off Starc to wicketkeeper Josh Hazlewood, departing for just 11. The dismissal drew sharp criticism from former South Africa pace bowler Vernon Philander, who labelled the shot “absolutely soft” and noted Bedingham was fully aware Australia planned to target his weak spot with that line of bowling. Bedingham’s longstanding flaw with the pull shot is well-documented: across his 18 Test appearances, he has been dismissed playing that exact stroke five times, on average once every 13 deliveries he faces. Former South Africa captain Graeme Smith pointed out Bedingham’s poor balance and lack of a stable base for the pull shot, urging him to follow the example of legendary batter Hashim Amla, who temporarily abandoned the stroke entirely to fix a similar technical gap earlier in his career.
South Africa captain Temba Bavuma briefly steadied the ship, digging in for a gritty 115-ball 35 that mirrored his match-defining 179 in the second Test victory in Gqeberha. He built a 17.3-over partnership with Matthew Breetzke after opener Marques Ackerman struck a rapid 62 before being dismissed by a Starc bouncer. But with just four minutes remaining before stumps, Australian skipper Pat Cummins adjusted his field to place a silly point for spinner Nathan Lyon, tempting Bavuma into a wild swipe across the line that resulted in his wicket, sparking wild celebrations from the Australian camp that recognised the dismissal as a pivotal turning point.
At the close of day three, South Africa sits at 140-4, holding a precarious 40-run lead. Earlier in the day, Proteas spinner Simon Harmer delivered a standout performance, finishing with figures of 4-104 including the key wickets of Inglis and Alex Carey, to keep South Africa’s faint hopes alive. The home side still has Breetzke and Ryan Rickelton at the crease, plus Test triple-centurion Wiaan Mulder, in-form all-rounder Marco Jansen, and the tailenders yet to bat. Even so, the steep turn Lyon has extracted from the Cape Town surface means any total over 200 would present a significant chase for Australia, but South Africa’s history of gifting wickets through careless strokes – a familiar flaw that England also demonstrated in recent matches, and which the English side will no doubt analyse ahead of their winter tour of South Africa – leaves the result of the series decider hanging very much in the balance.

Fifteen-year-old judo prodigy Arno Yafunga Botay’s journey to the 2026 Dakar Youth Olympic Games is rooted in unthinkable loss, relentless resilience, and the transformative power of sport. When he was just six years old, his family fled violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2017, after targeted threats against his father Arnold culminated in a home attack that killed the family’s seven-month-old infant child. The displaced household first sought shelter in Kenya’s remote Kakuma refugee camp before eventually resettling in Nairobi, where Arno first fell in love with judo while watching his father practice the martial art during rare free moments between long shifts as a casual laborer.

Starting formal training at age seven, Arno faced seemingly insurmountable barriers in his pursuit of competitive sport: he lacked a proper judogi uniform, could not afford transportation fees to local tournaments, and his family regularly struggled to cover school tuition costs, compounded by the bureaucratic hurdles of securing official residency documentation as refugees in Kenya. His fortunes shifted after he passed rigorous East African regional selection trials, earning a coveted spot on the six-member Refugee Olympic Team that will make history as the first refugee contingent ever to compete at a Youth Olympic Games. The 2026 Dakar edition itself marks another landmark milestone as the very first Olympic event hosted on the African continent.

“I never expected to get selected. I was so overwhelmed with joy that I cried happy tears,” Arno shared in an exclusive interview with BBC Sport Africa’s Nairobi bureau. “Representing the Refugee Olympic Team means everything to me, because I get to stand for every other displaced person and our entire community.”

The Refugee Olympic Team programme was first launched at the 2016 Rio Summer Olympics, and made global headlines at the 2024 Paris Games when Cameroonian-born boxer Cindy Ngamba claimed the team’s first ever Olympic medal, a bronze in the women’s 75kg weight class. For the 2026 Dakar Youth Games, the six young refugee athletes are receiving mentorship from Eliud Kipchoge, the legendary two-time Olympic marathon gold medalist and global icon of endurance sport. Arno says Kipchoge’s guidance, focused on respect for coaching staff and unwavering singular focus, has pushed him to set an ambitious goal: he has promised the marathon champion he will return from Dakar with a gold medal in the men’s under 55kg judo division.

Judo has become a unifying pillar for the Yafunga Botay family, with Arnold still serving as Arno’s primary coach, and 17-year-old older brother Christian regularly stepping in as his sparring partner. Arnold’s strict, discipline-focused training regimen emphasizes that every fall on the judo mat builds the strength to keep pushing forward through life’s hardships. Local Nairobi dojo owner Lawrence Karisa Nyundo, who has hosted Arno for training sessions since 2020, notes that the teen’s historic selection has shifted widespread community misconceptions that judo is merely a violent fighting sport: local parents have flooded the club with new enrollment inquiries, recognizing the martial art’s capacity to build character, resilience and community connection.

Arnold, who survived targeted political violence in their home country, says his son’s journey sends a universal message of hope to all 100 million plus forcibly displaced people across the globe. “Being a refugee does not mean your life is over. Displaced people can still achieve extraordinary things that surprise the whole world,” he said. “My message to every fellow refugee is simple: never give up, keep pushing until you reach your goal.”

Looking ahead to the competition, which kicks off with the opening ceremony in Dakar on 31 October 2026, with judo events scheduled to run from 1 to 3 November, Arno has already laid out plans to pay his success forward. He hopes to travel back to the Kakuma refugee camp after the Games to train and mentor the dozens of talented young judokas living in the camp, passing on the life-changing lessons he learned through the support of the International Olympic Committee’s refugee athlete programme.