分类： sports

The old adage that a week can turn fortunes upside down in Australian Rules football has never rung more true for Melbourne Demons veteran Jack Viney. Just seven days ago, Demons acting coach Steven King publicly confirmed the club was on the verge of writing off the midfielder’s 2026 season entirely, as a persistent, debilitating back injury had derailed his training and match availability for months.

But in a sudden, encouraging turnaround, Viney took part in the full team training session at Melbourne’s Casey Fields base on Wednesday morning, marking a clear step forward in his rehabilitation that has reopened the door for his return to the pitch this year. King told reporters post-session that the 29-year-old hard-nosed onballer had responded far better to an increased training load than medical and coaching staff had anticipated.

“Sometimes when you ramp up a player’s load after an extended injury break, their body either can’t handle the stress or it adapts positively – and right now, Jack is moving in the right direction,” King explained. “We might have finally gotten past that stubborn barrier that was stopping him from stringing multiple sessions together. I’m not going to put a hard timeline on his return, though – he could get three-quarters of the way through a session tomorrow and feel sore again. That’s just how back injuries go.”

The coach emphasized that the club never fully closes the door on any injured player’s comeback, adding that Viney’s progress is a welcome boost as the Demons begin to get multiple long-term injured players back in the fold. “We focus on the guys we have available week to week, so when you get some much-needed depth back on the list, it’s a nice little bonus,” King said. “Right now, we’ve got a few players who’ve been out for a long time starting to push for selection, and that gives us a lot more flexibility with our team structure.”

While Viney won’t be suiting up for Melbourne’s high-stakes Friday night clash against league contenders Geelong, he will be joined in the stands by another returning injured star: improved key defender Daniel Turner. Turner was forced out of last round’s win over North Melbourne with a rib injury that required hospital assessment, and was initially ruled out for four weeks of game time.

King called Turner’s absence for the Geelong game a significant loss, noting that “he’s emerged as one of the best key defenders in the competition this season, and he’s really hard to replace.” Even so, the coach expressed confidence the Demons have enough cover to step up, with several options already in the selection frame.

“Tom McDonald is a veteran option who can swing down back, Lucas Cook is back fit after his own injury layoff, Xavier Taylor has been in great form at the VFL level, and Harrison Petty is available for selection this week and can easily slot into the defensive line,” King outlined. “We’ll get through Thursday’s final training session, then the match committee will sit down and work out the best match-up for Geelong’s forward group.”

In further positive injury news for the Demons, Christian Salem is also nearing a comeback, while Changkuoth Jiath is considered a potential inclusion for Friday night despite being forced off the ground with a minor injury in last week’s win.

For millions of cycling fans around the world, the Tour de France is as much a celebration of sweeping French landscapes and cultural heritage as it is a test of elite athletic endurance. What many viewers do not see, however, is the years of meticulous work that go into building every edition’s iconic route, a labor of love that begins three full years before the first rider crosses the starting line. The process kicks off when Tour director Christian Prudhomme selects the host city for the opening Grand Depart, then locks in the overall direction of the 21-stage race. From a pool of 300 candidate towns—including 50 located outside France—Prudhomme curates the start and finish locations for every stage, balancing a wide range of competing priorities to create a route that satisfies both riders and fans.

Prudhomme explains that if the course was designed purely around sporting challenges, every edition would center on southern France, a region that can accommodate every type of terrain from flat sprint stages to grueling high-altitude mountain climbs. But the Tour has a long-standing commitment to showcasing all corners of the country, so over a four to five-year rotation, the route visits fan-favorite regions including cycling-rich Brittany, the passionately supportive north, and crowd-packed Normandy. Beautiful natural scenery is a non-negotiable core requirement, Prudhomme notes, as millions of casual viewers tune in as much to see France’s diverse landscapes as they do to follow the race competition. Extra care is also given to stages scheduled on weekends and Bastille Day, France’s national holiday, which draw the largest global television audiences. Certain iconic climbs are also mandatory: even if a route includes dozens of mountain passes, fans will always consider the course incomplete without legendary ascents like Col du Tourmalet, Col du Galibier, Mont Ventoux, or Alpe d’Huez.

Beyond athletic and viewership priorities, the team weaves historical and cultural storytelling into the route whenever possible. In 2023, for example, the race passed through Castelnau-Magnoac, the hometown of French national rugby captain Antoine Dupont, ahead of the Rugby World Cup hosted in France. In 2014, to mark the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, seven full stages traced the path of the original Western Front, turning the race into a moving centennial tribute. “I love it when a stage can be viewed in different ways,” Prudhomme says of these layered design choices.

Once Prudhomme finalizes the list of 21 start and finish towns, the work shifts to Thierry Gouvenou, the Tour’s route director, who maps the exact 3,500-kilometer path the peloton will follow. The process for the next edition gets underway immediately after the current Tour finishes on the Champs-Élysées each July. “At the end of August, Christian gives me the list of stage towns,” Gouvenou explained. “From that point, it takes up my whole time. Generally, I design the course in one month because it has to be finished by September 25.”

Gouvenou starts by using digital mapping and cycling apps to draft the route, while also sorting through hundreds of unsolicited suggestions from passionate cycling fans across the country. Next, he drives the candidate route to inspect potential trouble spots, particularly in dense town centers, where unexpected hazards—such as traffic calming speed bumps or narrow streets—can create major safety risks for a peloton of more than 180 riders racing at high speed. Once the route is finalized, Gouvenou and his team drive every single kilometer of every stage to document hazards, map the route layout, and mark locations for intermediate sprints and climb summit finish lines. The full route is then officially unveiled in Paris each October, nine months before the first stage kicks off.

Even after the official reveal, last-minute crises can force changes, as seen in the 2024 edition, when the second stage had to be rerouted at the last minute to avoid an area hit by an outbreak of swine flu. Gouvenou, a former professional cyclist, says regional partners work tirelessly to resolve last-minute issues, often pulling off what he calls “10 miracles” to keep the route on track despite unforeseen challenges.

In a landmark move that has shaken up the English Premier League summer transfer window, Chelsea have confirmed the signing of 23-year-old England attacking midfielder Morgan Rogers from Aston Villa, with the deal valuing at a new British transfer record of £117 million ($157 million).

The London-based club announced on its official website Tuesday that Rogers, who just returned from the FIFA World Cup held in North America, has put pen to paper on a 10-year contract that will keep him at Stamford Bridge until 2033, after successfully completing his mandatory medical examination on Monday.

Speaking following the completion of his transfer, Rogers expressed his long-held admiration for one of London’s most iconic football institutions. “I’m so excited,” he told Chelsea’s media team. “For me, Chelsea are the biggest club in London and a club I’ve always admired since I was a kid. I’m really excited about the project with the new manager, the players we’ve got and where the club is heading. That’s why I’m here and I can’t wait to get started.”

This historic transfer breaks two major records in English football. It surpasses the previous record for the highest fee paid for a British player, which was set just weeks earlier when Manchester City purchased Elliot Anderson from Nottingham Forest for £116 million earlier this July. It also becomes the most expensive signing in Chelsea’s 119-year club history, outstripping the £107 million the club paid to acquire Enzo Fernandez from Benfica back in 2023.

The high-profile capture of Rogers represents a clear statement of ambition from Chelsea, who pulled off the signing despite the club failing to qualify for next season’s UEFA Champions League – a competition that Aston Villa will compete in after their strong top-five finish last campaign. The west London side had been tracking Rogers for more than two years, and eventually won the race for his signature by meeting Aston Villa’s steep asking price, beating out fellow Premier League giants Arsenal, who declined to match the valuation.

For Villa, Rogers’ exit marks the third high-profile departure of this transfer window for manager Unai Emery, following Youri Tielemans’ recent move to Manchester United and an expected outgoing of left-back Lucas Digne to Paris Saint-Germain. The Midlands club issued a warm farewell to their former star, saying in an official statement: “A player with impeccable behaviour and commitment, Morgan leaves Aston Villa with the best wishes of everyone at the football club for both his service to the club and for for his future career. He will always remain a core part of our recent great moments and memories.”

Championship club Middlesbrough, who sold Rogers to Aston Villa back in 2024, will net a 20 percent cut of the transfer fee thanks to a sell-on clause inserted into the original deal, a windfall that will reportedly go towards their new stadium project.

Rogers enjoyed a breakout 2023/24 season with Villa, scoring 14 goals and providing 11 assists across all competitions, and notching up a total of 21 goals in 85 league appearances for the club. He was also a key part of Villa’s successful Europa Conference League run, scoring in the club’s May final victory over SC Freiburg.

Now, new Chelsea manager Xabi Alonso faces the exciting challenge of integrating Rogers into a revamped attacking line that already includes Cole Palmer, Pedro Neto, Estevao Willian, and fellow recent signing Geovany Quarda. To free up space in the squad and the wage bill, Chelsea are expected to offload Argentine winger Alejandro Garnacho before the summer transfer window closes.

Off the pitch, Rogers shares a long-standing personal connection with Palmer, having come through the youth academy at Manchester City together. It was Rogers, in fact, who inspired Palmer’s famous ‘cold’ celebration – the pose was first popularized by Rogers during his time as a Middlesbrough player.

The signing is widely viewed as proof that Chelsea remain a huge draw for top-tier talent even after a disappointing 2023/24 campaign that saw the club finish 10th in the Premier League and miss out on all European competition. Rogers will join up with his new Chelsea teammates after taking a planned post-World Cup break, having helped England reach the semi-finals of the 2024 tournament in North America.

The 2024 Tour de France delivered a dramatic day of racing on Tuesday, as Belgian cycling star Remco Evenepoel claimed a memorable individual time-trial victory on Belgium’s national holiday, capping off a second consecutive stage win while the peloton was left reeling from a hard crash that eliminated one of the general classification’s top contenders.

Staged over a 26.1-kilometer route tracing the stunning shoreline of Lake Geneva, the 16th stage of the Tour saw Evenepoel – the reigning Olympic and world time-trial champion – deliver a masterclass in controlled power. The 24-year-old crossed the finish line a full 28 seconds faster than four-time Tour champion Tadej Pogacar, who retained his overall general classification lead but saw his advantage cut to 4 minutes 32 seconds after Evenepoel’s dominant performance. No other rider came close to challenging the top two: Denmark’s Mattias Skjelmose finished third, more than a full minute behind Evenepoel, at 1 minute 4 seconds.

For Evenepoel, the win carried extra personal and national significance. The victory marked his fourth career Tour de France stage win and his third time-trial triumph at the race, coming just two days after he claimed the mountainous 15th stage to secure his first back-to-back stage wins at the event. Compounding the moment was its timing: the race fell on Belgium’s annual national holiday, a detail Evenepoel said made the victory even sweeter.

“It’s amazing, it was a very nice TT, a lot of people on the side of the road,” Evenepoel told reporters after the finish. “My whole family from both sides being here, my parents came just today. My wife is here with her parents and the siblings as well. And also on the Belgian national day is pretty special — I read this morning it’s been a while since Belgium won on National Day, so I’m proud to be the one.”

Beyond cutting into Pogacar’s lead, Evenepoel also extended his advantage over third-place overall rider Isaac del Toro, pushing the gap to more than two minutes.

But the day’s celebrations were tempered by a devastating crash that forced Evenepoel’s Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe teammate Florian Lipowitz to abandon the race. Lipowitz, who sat fifth overall heading into the stage and had posted the fourth-fastest time through the route’s three intermediate checkpoints, crashed heavily on a sharp mid-route bend. Just 48 hours after former two-time champion Jonas Vingegaard was forced to withdraw from the Tour following a crash while sitting second overall, the German rider was helped into a medical vehicle clutching his injured left arm.

Pogacar and del Toro both navigated the same bend moments after Lipowitz’s crash, escaping the incident without incident after a close call.

From the opening kilometers of the time-trial, it was clear Evenepoel was riding at a level unmatched by the rest of the field. When the top 10 general classification contenders started their races, Skjolmose set an early blistering pace that put him well ahead of most competitors, with Lipowitz, del Toro and French teenage prospect Paul Seixas all within a handful of seconds through the first two checkpoints. But Evenepoel blew those times out of the water: by the first checkpoint, he was already seven seconds faster than Pogacar – the only rider who could stay within 30 seconds of his pace – and 22 seconds ahead of Skjelmose. That gap expanded to 14 seconds over Pogacar and 56 seconds over Skjelmose by the second checkpoint, with most of Evenepoel’s advantage built on the route’s uphill section, where his sustained power proved unbeatable. He held his lead through the final descent and flat finish to claim the win.

Evenepoel acknowledged that the victory was mixed with worry for his injured teammate, calling the moment “bittersweet” and telling reporters he hoped Lipowitz’s injury was not serious. Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe sporting director Klaas Lodewyck echoed that sentiment, noting the team’s joy over Evenepoel’s performance was overshadowed by the loss of one of their top general classification contenders.

“It’s mixed emotions, let’s say. We’re over the moon with the win from Remco, but the loss of Lipo was a big blow for the team,” Lodewyck said.

In a high-profile summer transfer move that has caught the attention of women’s football across the globe, Everton Women have secured the signing of prolific Australian striker Holly McNamara on a free transfer. The 23-year-old forward joins the Women’s Super League side after her contract with hometown club Melbourne City reached its expiration.

McNamara brings an impressive goal-scoring track record to Merseyside, having claimed the A-League Women Golden Boot award twice in her young domestic career. The young forward first rose to prominence in 2022 when she was named the A-League Women Young Player of the Year, and most recently she played a key role in helping the Australian national team reach the final of the 2026 Women’s Asian Cup. To date, she has earned 20 senior caps for her country.

Everton confirmed that the club fended off stiff competition to complete the signing, beating interest from what the club described as “a wide range of top clubs across Europe and the United States” to land the in-demand striker. McNamara is the fourth new addition to Everton’s senior squad this summer transfer window, following the earlier arrivals of Noemie Mouchon, Hannah Cain and Zara Kramzar, marking a clear statement of the club’s ambitions for the upcoming WSL campaign.

Speaking after completing her move to Goodison Park, the Australian expressed her excitement at the new chapter of her career. “It is unreal to be here. Goodison Park is such a special stadium. I am very lucky to be here,” McNamara said.

She went on to explain what drew her to the historic English club, saying: “Everton have such a rich history and that drew me to the club. It is a good club that has great ambitions and a great project for the next few years. A big thing was also the chance to play in the best league in the world. It is so competitive and any team can beat anyone. I can’t wait to try to do everything for this club in order to win and to do as well as we can.”

The new signing will take on the iconic number nine shirt for Everton as she prepares to make her debut in the Women’s Super League, one of the most competitive top-flight women’s football competitions on the planet.