London. The two scientists whose analysis of leaked anti-doping data from the IAAF’s database has thrown athletics into crisis, defended their findings on Wednesday after their claims were rubbished by the world governing body.

Australian blood experts Michael Ashenden and Robin Parisotto interpreted data from 12,000 blood tests, involving 5,000 athletes, from 2001-2012, which was obtained by British paper the Sunday Times and German broadcaster ARD.

The two media outlets claimed the data pointed to widespread blood doping in athletics and that the IAAF had failed to act on hundreds of suspicious blood samples  ̶  many given by Olympic and world championship medal winners.

In a strongly worded statement on Tuesday, the IAAF said the allegations were based on “guesswork.”

Responding to suggestions that they lacked sufficient knowledge of the IAAF program, a joint statement pointed out that Parisotto had worked with the Russian Anti-Doping Agency (Rusada) to review blood profiles and Ashenden was a member of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) Passport Committee that devised targeting strategies for sporting federations.

“Both advised anti-doping organizations on how to undertake target testing of athletes suspected of blood doping,” the statement said.

It also countered the IAAF’s claim that a large proportion of the blood samples were collected before the introduction of Athlete Biological Passports (ABP) in 2009 and therefore could not be used as proof of doping.

IAAF response

“The pre-2009 data is reliable, in fact by their own admission, the IAAF has relied on those data to extend sanctions against athletes,” it said.

“We followed the same procedure as IAAF expert panelists when reviewing ABP profiles, classifying results as ‘likely doping’ when we were able to confidently exclude all other potential causes or instead ‘suspicious’ when there was genuine evidence of blood manipulation however further investigation such as target testing would have been required.

“We stand by the evaluations we submitted to Sunday Times and ARD/WDR,” it added.

The IAAF labelled the reports “sensationalist and confusing” on Tuesday, insisting the data used had not been secret and had been used in a report published by WADA four years ago.

In response, the statement from the scientists said: “We note the IAAF’s confirmation that the database is ‘not a secret or hidden document in any way’ and that the IAAF welcomes the opportunity to present to the Independent Commission.

“We therefore call on the IAAF to give a public undertaking that it will immediately share the entire database with [former WADA chief] Dick Pound’s independent review.”

The sport of track and field has been plagued by spectacular doping cases over the past three decades, involving some of the biggest stars in the sport, including Ben Johnson and Marion Jones, who were both stripped of Olympic golds.

The latest storm comes just weeks before the world championships in Beijing and the vote for the IAAF’s new president  ̶  a race between Sebastian Coe and Sergei Bubka.

Briton Coe has described the claims against the IAAF as “a declaration of war” on the sport.

Reuters

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St. Andrews, Scotland. Jordan Spieth surged through a gridlocked British Open leaderboard as a third straight major title loomed large but he had to share the spotlight with Irish amateur Paul Dunne at St. Andrews after a remarkable day’s action on Sunday.

The 21-year-old American, bidding to become the first man to win the year’s first three majors since Ben Hogan in 1953, began the delayed third round in the chasing pack and lost ground early on but he stormed home with a seven-birdie, six-under 66 for an 11-under total, one off the lead.

Dunne, a year older but inhabiting a different golfing planet to Masters and US Open champion Spieth, ended a crazy day of low scoring in a three-way tie at the top on 12-under par 204 with Australian Jason Day and 2010 British Open champion Louis Oosthuizen.

Clearly on course for the amateur’s silver medal after a nerveless 66, Dunne remains in serious contention to become the first amateur to win the British Open since Bobby Jones 85 years ago.

At this most unusual of Opens, anything seems possible,

With flags hanging limp like damp tea towels  ̶  a huge contrast to Saturday’s gales that wiped out the third round and forced a first Monday finish since 1988  ̶  an eclectic mix of major winners, amateurs and nearly-men tucked into the Old Course birdie banquet with relish.

There were 37 sub-70 rounds, although the one notable exception was Spieth’s fellow American Dustin Johnson, the overnight leader, who collapsed to the day’s second worst round, a miserable three-over 75.

Spieth clinical

Spieth struggled to make much headway early on and was clearly getting frustrated when he dropped a shot at the ninth.

But the Texan regained his already legendary composure to respond with three consecutive birdies at the 10th, 11th and 12th and sunk another at the 15th before pocketing pars at the final three holes  ̶ smiling and joking his way round with Sergio Garcia who is nine under after a 68.

“I kind of just wanted to stay patient today, let them come to me, and once I figured out my putting, it did,” world number two Spieth, still on for an unprecedented calendar year grand slam, told a news conference.

Asked about the magnitude of what he is chasing, he added: “It hasn’t come up in my head while I’ve been playing yet.

“I can’t speak for tomorrow given it’s the last round, and if I have a chance coming down the stretch, if it creeps in, I’ll embrace it. I’ll embrace the opportunity.”

Dunne’s bogey-free six-under 66 means he smashed the previous lowest 54-hole total for an amateur at the Open.

Incredibly, however, he was not the only player yet to join the paid ranks remaining in the hunt for the Claret Jug as American Jordan Niebrugge’s 67 took him to nine-under.

“I saw that I was tied for first on the 10th green and I said to my caddie how cool is it to leave the Open on Sunday, even if it’s a different type of Sunday,” Dunne said.

“The golf ball still does what you ask it to do, it’s just there are more people watching and more cameras.”

Day, whose US Open bid was scuppered by vertigo, made up five strokes during the day in a round of 67, as did Oosthuizen.

At various stages of a head-spinning afternoon with puts disappearing left, right and center, five or six players shared the lead, including double Open champion Padraic Harrington who rolled in a 45-foot monster birdie at the 16th.

He carded a 65 to reach 10 under, although the day’s best round was that of Marc Leishman whose eight-birdie 64 was just one short of matching the major record. He ended nine under.

Major winners Justin Rose, Adam Scott and Retief Goosen also put themselves in the mix for what promises to be a classic conclusion to the 144th Open with the top 25 players separated by five shots.

“There are so many players who can still win this,” Oosthuizen said. “It’s going to be I think one of the tightest Opens.”

Reuters

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London. Mocking the aging process, Roger Federer will attempt to become the oldest Wimbledon champion in the professional era by beating Novak Djokovic on Sunday in a repeat of last year’s final.

When the Swiss walked off the hallowed Centre Court, beaten but proud, after being denied an eighth title by the Serb in a five-set thriller, many thought they had seen his last hurrah.

Few imagined he would return a year later, aged nearly 34, playing arguably the best tennis of his spectacular career.

He has not just reached his 10th Wimbledon final, though; he has arrived as if transported by a magic carpet, conceding only one set, one service game and on Friday producing a jaw-dropping demonstration of his sublime game when crushing Andy Murray.

Federer, who won the last of his 17 grand slam titles here against Murray in 2012, said he was applauded all the way to the locker room after beating Murray 7-5, 7-5, 6-4.

Should he beat world number one Djokovic on Sunday in their 40th career meeting and win a record-extending Wimbledon title – he currently shares the feat with Pete Sampras – they will probably hand him the keys to the All England Club.

“I need to keep it up for one more match to really make it the perfect couple of weeks,” said Federer, who would be three years older than Arthur Ashe when he won the title in 1975.

Whether the second seed can reach the same dizzy heights he achieved against Murray will be the key to the outcome – anything less will probably not be enough against a player eyeing a third Wimbledon title and ninth Grand Slam crown.

Irresistible combination

World number three Murray, who also played superbly on Friday, was simply powerless as 56 winners, including 20 aces, flew past him from all directions on Centre Court.

Remarkably, considering Federer’s full-bore attacking tennis in the semifinal, the Swiss made only 11 unforced errors.

It was a combination that no player, not even the elastic-limbed Djokovic, would have been able to resist.

“I’m just able to figure it out very quickly on the grass,” Federer said of a display so good it was almost surreal.

Djokovic, who would equal his coach Boris Becker’s three Wimbledon titles, trails Federer 19-20 in head-to-heads and knows playing him at Wimbledon is the ultimate challenge.

“This is where he loves to play. This is where he plays his best tennis. The Centre Court of Wimbledon, seven titles. It’s his court. He loves it,” said the Serb.

“He usually rises up to the occasion. He’s always playing his toughest when it matters the most. That’s why he’s a big champion. We all know how good he is. He’s the greatest ever. There are not enough compliments for what he does.”

Mutual respect will be put on hold, though, on Sunday when the Centre Court crowd, whose allegiance was split when Murray faced Federer, will be cheering loudest for the Swiss.

Reuters

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Chelsea footballers cheer as the team holds a victory parade in west London, Britain, on May 25. (EPA Photo/Sean Dempsey)

London. The English Premier League continues to pull away from its European rivals in terms of total revenue, if not quality on the pitch, and the bubble looks unlikely to burst any time soon.

English clubs were eclipsed by the likes of Barcelona, Bayern Munich and Paris St Germain in this season’s blue-riband Champions League, with none of them reaching the quarterfinals, yet they continue to be the envy of the continent when it comes to the size of their bank accounts.

According to Deloitte’s latest Annual Review of Football Finances, based on the 2013-14 season, the 20 Premier League clubs generated record revenue of 3.26 billion pounds ($4.99 billion), a rise of 29 percent on the season before.

That was 1.4 billion pounds higher than Germany’s Bundesliga, second on the list, and more than Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A combined.

Even the Bundealiga’s previous advantage in commercial revenues is eroding fast.

The Premier League’s current domestic television deal with Sky and BT Sport, the first season of which was 2013-14, accounts for 78 percent of the increase in total revenues.

And with an eye-watering new 5.136 billion pounds three-year deal starting in 2016-17, a 70 percent rise on the current one, the Premier League’s position at the top of the food chain looks assured for years to come.

“The impact of the Premier League’s broadcast deal is clear to see,” Dan Jones, partner in the Sports Business Group at Deloitte, said. “In 2013/14 even the club receiving the least from domestic league broadcast distributions earned more from this source than all but five other European clubs.”

“On a continental level, it is difficult to see any of the other ‘big five’ European leagues closing the gap in the near term, let alone catching up with them.”

Restraint in the rise of players’ wages and the effects of the UEFA’s Financial Fair Play (FFP) helped Premier League clubs make a combined operating profit of 614 million pounds in 2013-14, up from 82 million in 2012/13, and an aggregate pre-tax profit of 187 million — the first since 1998-99.

The Premier League’s wages to revenue ratio fell to 58 percent in 2013-14, down from 71 percent, with combined net debts showing a six percent fall.

“The current broadcast deal comes as cost control regulations, at both domestic and European level, have caused many clubs to rein in their spending relative to the revenue they are now capable of generating,” Jones said.

“The end result has been a remarkable turnaround in profitability.”

Beneath the Premier league, however, the picture is not so rosy as owners gamble on reaching the promised land.

The wages to revenue ratio in the second-tier Championship was 105 percent in 2013-14 with almost half the clubs having wage costs greater than revenue.

Reuters

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An almost deathly hush descended as Serbian Novak Djokovic administered the last rites on Rafa Nadal’s reign of dominance at the French Open on Wednesday.

On the same dusty rectangle of Parisian clay on which the marauding Mallorcan struck fear into opponents for a decade, Djokovic made him suffer, handing out a straight-sets quarter-final beating — 7-5 6-3 6-1 — that, by the end, was awkward to watch.

Nine-times champion Nadal had fitfully found some form after a horror opening four games against the rampant Djokovic, whose previous six encounters with the Spaniard at Roland Garros had all ended in despair, twice in the final.

For a while, something seemed to have stirred inside Nadal, the old timing sending the ball hurtling to within inches of the opposite baseline. For a while Djokovic doubted.

Yet once a hesitant Nadal plopped a volley into the tramlines to hand Djokovic the opener on his sixth set point, there was an inevitability about the outcome of the 44th meeting between the two players.

Commentating on the match for Eurosport, former world number one John McEnroe said Nadal seemed to be playing with “weights on his ankles” in the early stages.

The only thing holding Djokovic back was self-belief — not usually an ingredient missing from a player who has been virtually unbeatable this year.

There was panic in his eyes when he surrendered that 4-0 lead, old scars re-opening.

However with the opening set in his pocket, Djokovic turned up the heat to leave Nadal in uncharted territory, having never lost the opening two sets at Roland Garros since his debut in 2005.

Nadal’s seemingly bottomless tank of fighting spirit has fueled a career that has brought him 14 grand slam titles, but even that precious commodity ebbed away on Wednesday.

His 39-match winning streak at Roland Garros ended in feeble fashion, with a double-fault not one of the mind-boggling rallies the two gladiators have produced down the years.

“As I said every year when I won here, the only thing that makes me happy is have the trophy with me,” Nadal, who was ‘celebrating’ his 29th birthday told reporters.

It would be foolish to suggest the greatest claycourt player ever to slide on dirt cannot come back and reclaim his title next year, but his aura of invincibility is fading fast.

“I am happy the way that I recovered my level the last month, but probably not enough yet to play against and to win against Novak. I competed, but not to win,” he said.

“I’m gonna fight. I lost in 2009 and was not the end. I lost in 2015, and is not the end. I will do my best to be back to win. I will do my utmost to have more wins.”

Nadal’s record at Roland Garros now stands at 70-2.

But this defeat felt different to the one he suffered at the hands of Sweden’s Robin Soderling in 2009.

Then, as was proved weeks later when creaking knees forced him to surrender his Wimbledon crown without striking a ball in anger, he was clearly struggling with his physical condition.

Against Djokovic on Wednesday, he simply looked like a player whose almost superhuman powers are on the wane while Djokovic is at the pinnacle of his career.

Nadal’s forehand, the leitmotif for his stellar career, now lacked venom, his movement seemed a split second slower and his thinking became befuddled at pressure moments, like when he missed an easy smash at 30-15 ahead in the 12th game of the first set.

Djokovic on the other hand looked like a man bent on completing his career grand slam in a few days time, although Britain’s Andy Murray still provides a daunting semi-final barrier.

Murray, though, had better not look too closely at the stats.

Djokovic began the year by beating the Scot to claim a fifth Australian Open, completed a rare “double” at Indian Wells and Miami and is unbeaten in slams and Masters 1000 tournaments since last October. He looks invincible.

He knows, however, that no silverware is handed out for winning quarter-finals — even if this one felt like a final.

“Obviously an ideal scenario is today could have been finals and could have a different discussion,” he said. “Right now I’m aware that this is a big win, which I will enjoy tonight.

“But tomorrow is a new day and I have to move on. I want to fight for the title. That’s what I came here for.”

Reuters

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