I covered the boxing match when Muhammad Ali beat Sonny Liston for his first world championship. My white shirt was speckled with Liston’s blood. Cassius Clay, later named Muhammad Ali, hits Sonny Liston in their championship fight in Miami Beach, 25 February...
It’s quintessentially English. But Americans are about to see a jazzed-up version of cricket, and TV companies are rubbing their hands. Carlos Braithwaite of the West Indies hits a “six” — cricket’s equivalent to a home run in baseball — and helps his team...
By John Mehaffey Evidence that the 2012 London Olympics were tainted by Russian doping and a French police investigation into the former president of the world athletics governing body on charges of accepting money to cover up positive drugs tests represent another...
Recently we published an article on the Rugby World Cup, and a hungry reader asked for more information. We listen to our readers — here’s chapter and verse on one of the world’s major sporting events. For more “decoders” explaining big...
By John Mehaffey An Olympic quiz question, which usually surprises sports followers, is to name the current rugby union gold medalists. The answer is the United States, victors over France at the 1924 Paris Games. Rugby was dropped from the Olympics after the Paris...
By John Mehaffey Sebastian Coe, the only man to win the Olympic 1,500 meters twice and the driving force behind the highly successful 2012 London Games, faces what may well be the biggest challenge of his life after winning the race to run the International...
By Paul Radford For a number of years in the 1990s, I covered the activities of FIFA for Reuters and interviewed the then general secretary Sepp Blatter on a number of occasions. From a journalist’s point of view, he was an excellent interviewee, always affable and...
I can vividly remember the day, more than a quarter of a century ago now, when I felt my job as sports reporter had transformed into fiction writer. U.S. agents carry boxes of evidence from the headquarters of the Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean...
By John Mehaffey Just when professional boxing is slipping into what many feel would be well-deserved oblivion, a prize fight combining elements that make the sport both compelling and repellent will be staged this week in Las Vegas. The gambling center of the world...
By John Mehaffey Guessing the identify of the athlete selected to light the stadium flame at the Olympic opening ceremony is an absorbing but mostly futile exercise serving mainly as a pleasant diversion in the buildup to the Games for those privileged to cover the...