Kothari enters last-16 despite defeat to Goodwill in World Billiards
Carlow (Ireland), April 26: Veteran Martin Goodwill of England scored a shock win over reigning champion Sourav Kothari in the final Group ‘A’ league match of the IBSF World Billiards Championship here on Sunday. Goodwill, 63, registered a nail-biting 276-275 victory to finish his league engagements with an all-win record. Despite the defeat, Kothari too made the knockout pre-quarterfinals with two wins from three matches. Elsewhere, Pankaj Advani, looking to regain the title, topped Group ‘B’ with three wins, all lopsided victories. In his final match, Advani outplayed South Korea’s Baek Minhu 785-161 with notable runs of 162, 88 and 389 in the 90-minute encounter. Other Indians to join Advani and Kothari in the knockout last-16 stage were: Dhruv Sitwala, Alok Kumar, Rupesh Shah, Shrikrishna S, Siddharth Parikh and Rafath Habib. (PTI)
Kenya’s Sawe becomes first person to run sub-2-hour marathon
London, April 26: Sabastian Sawe of Kenya has become the first person to break the fabled 2-hour barrier in an official marathon. In a huge, once-inconceivable moment in sports history, Sawe smashed the men’s world record by 65 seconds in winning the London Marathon in 1 hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds on Sunday. Remarkably, the second-place finisher, Yomif Kejelcha of Ethiopia, also dipped under 2 hours by crossing the line in 1:59:41 in his first-ever marathon, while Jacob Kiplimo of Uganda broke the previous world-record time – set by Kenya’s Kelvin Kiptum in Chicago in 2023 – by seven seconds, finishing in 2:00:28. The 29-year-old Sawe, who retained his title in London, said it was a “day to remember for me”. A record was also set in the women’s race, with Ethiopia’s Tigst Assefa pulling away with about 500 meters remaining to win in 2:15:41 to defend the title in the fastest-ever time in a women’s-only marathon. However, it was 16 seconds slower than the course record set by Paula Radcliffe in 2003 when it was a mixed race. (AP)
