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GM Gukesh Dommaraju will have the white pieces against GM Ding Liren for Monday's game one of the 2024 FIDE World Championship after the opening ceremony concluded in the Capitol Theatre in Singapore. At an earlier press conference Ding, who's again accompanied by GM Richard Rapport, said, "I feel peace and with a lot of energy," while Gukesh paid glowing tributes to "huge icon" GM Viswanathan Anand and his coach GM Grzegorz Gajewski, adding, "I’m confident I have all the chances in the world." The main business of Saturday's "media day" of the World Championship was to decide who would...

The best IPAs of the year were announced by The U.S. Open Beer Championship in mid-July. The competition was founded in 2009 in Ohio and is considered one of the three most prestigious beer competitions in the U.S. alongside the World Beer Cup and The Great American Beer Festival. Even though this year’s Grand National Champion, Third Eye Brewing, won based upon its dark beers, the IPA remained the most popular style of beer overall in this year’s competition, which divided IPAs into more than a dozen subcategories. “The hazy IPAs had the most entries [with] 176,” Dow Scoggins, the...

Half of the England ladies' angling team have quit in protest after a trans woman was selected to join the squad for a major competition, The Mail on Sunday can reveal. Three members of the six-strong squad stepped down after Becky Lee Birtwhistle Hodges, who was born male, was named for next month's physically challenging Home Nations shore fishing championship. There has been opposition to former rugby player Birtwhistle Hodges competing with England since 2018, when she was first selected, with suggestions that other nations snub the team over claims that her strength advantage is unfair.

First Lady Jill Biden will be cheering on her hometown Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday in the NFC Championship game against the San Francisco 49ers, according to the White House. Biden grew up in Willow Grove, Pennsylvania, a Philadelphia suburb, and the president often references her allegiance to teams from the city. Jill Biden made an appearance at an Eagles game against rival Dallas Cowboys earlier this season to raise cancer awareness along with the NFL’s and the American Cancer Society’s “Crucial Catch” initiative, aimed to promote early detection and risk reduction of cancer.

The 2021-22 college football season came to a close on Monday night when Georgia beat Alabama 33-18 in the College Football Playoff finale to win its first national title in more than 40 years. Now, the Bulldogs are facing another question as they revel in their glory: Can they do it again next season? Sportsbooks apparently like their chances, as Georgia (+200) opened as co-favorites to win a national title in 2022, per odds from FanDuel Sportsbook. The Bulldogs may need to rebuild their stellar defense a bit, as many of their starters will be heading to the 2022 NFL...

Great game.

<p>ATLANTA (AP) — Underdog is an unusual role for Alabama.</p><p>Turns out, it suits the Crimson Tide just fine.</p><p>Now, Nick Saban’s team is in a much more familiar position: getting ready to play for another national title.</p><p>Bryce Young carved up the nation’s top-rated defense, throwing for three touchdowns and running for another as the fourth-ranked Crimson Tide rolled over No. 1 Georgia 41-24 in the Southeastern Conference championship game Saturday.</p>

Gwen Inglis, a national cycling champion, was training on familiar roads when a driver hit and killed her after drifting into the bike lane, Lakewood (Colo.) Police said. Inglis was riding with her husband, Mike, in the Denver suburb around 10 a.m. on Sunday when the Nissan sedan driven by Ryan Montoya, 29, veered into the lane. He remained at the scene. Inglis, 47, was taken to the hospital, where she died of her injuries. Inglis is the reigning 2019 U.S. road race champion in the 45-49 age group and her husband won the national title in the 50-and-over category...

Hideki Matsuyama, 29, finished 10-under par to win his first Masters on Sunday at Augusta. The victory earns him his first major title and makes him the first Japanese player to earn the green jacket. Matsuyama also is the first player from Japan to win a men’s major championship.

Anyone craving sports will find the replay of today's first round of The Players Championship on Golf Channel. There were actual spectators on the course today, but the plan is no spectators tomorrow, Saturday, or Sunday. So if one of the guys hits a hole-in-one, he will hear not the roar of the crowd but his caddy, his playing partner, and his playing partner's caddy saying, "Good shot, dude." Still, props to the PGA for going on with the show. I can see postponing events at indoor arenas where people are in close quarters, but suspending outdoor events in the...

<p>SANTA CLARA, Calif. — With stunning ease — and a freshman quarterback — Clemson toppled college football’s greatest dynasty again to become the first perfect playoff champion.</p> <p>Trevor Lawrence passed for 347 yards and three touchdowns and the second-ranked Tigers beat No. 1 Alabama 44-16 on Monday night in the College Football Playoff national championship game.</p>

CLEMSON, S.C. -- The most significant plate of eggs and bacon in the recent history of Clemson football was eaten a day after the Tigers' route of Georgia Tech on Sept. 22, at Sunnyside Cafe, just down the road from campus, and was shared between the veteran leader of the defense and the young kid about to take over the offense. Trevor Lawrence had just ascended to the throne after months of speculation about the future of Clemson's quarterback job. Christian Wilkins had been the unquestioned voice of the locker room for years, and the defensive tackle wanted to offer...

Clemson's Christian Wilkins will end his fourth and final season with the Tigers the same way he has ended each of the prior three: with a showdown against Alabama, and for the third time it comes in the College Football Playoff National Championship presented by AT&T (Monday, 8 p.m. ET, ESPN/ESPN App). "I guess the only comparison is the Rocky movies," he said. "I know after three it's a trilogy. But what's four?" It's a good question, though it's doubtful Nick Saban and Dabo Swinney have spent much time researching it. The on-field questions, however, deserve plenty of attention. Sure,...

Stop us if you’ve heard this before, the Alabama Crimson Tide and Clemson Tigers are meeting in the College Football Playoff. For the 4th straight season, the two powerhouse programs will meet in the playoffs – third time in the CFP Finals. Alabama has a 2-1 edge and is 1-1 in the championship game. They defeated Clemson for the title in 2015, before the Tigers returned the favor the following year. This time around, Alabama (13-0) is favored against Clemson (13-0) at Levi’s Stadium on Monday (January 7, 2019, 20:00ET). The spread opened at -6.0 points for the Crimson Tide....

Alabama and Clemson will meet in the CFP National Championship for the third time in the last four years -- and the Crimson Tide are once again the favorites. Alabama has been installed as a six-point favorite over Clemson for in the championship game on Jan. 7 (ESPN, 8 p.m. ET) in Santa Clara, California. Alabama handled Oklahoma and will face Clemson again for the College Football Playoff championship. College football's top two programs will once again meet to decide the national championship next Monday after No. 1 Alabama and No. 2 Clemson both easily dispatched with their semifinal opponents...

Alabama quarterback Jalen Hurts (2) speaks to fans after the Southeastern Conference championship NCAA college football game between Georgia and Alabama, Saturday, Dec. 1, 2018, in Atlanta. Alabama won 35-28. Jalen Hurts spent most of the season watching from the sideline, cheering on the guy who took his job and hoping for one more chance to lead the Alabama Crimson Tide. He didn't pout. He didn't gripe. He didn't transfer. On Saturday, with Alabama’s season hanging in the balance, Hurts got the call. The junior quarterback threw for one touchdown and ran for another with a little more than a...

Stewart-Haas Racing's Kevin Harvick's guaranteed place in the NASCAR Cup Series championship shootout at Homestead has been lost due to a L1 penalty incurred at Texas Motor Speedway.

<p>WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump hailed the University of Alabama football team's "win for the ages" in their latest championship season.</p> <p>Trump hosted Crimson Tide coach Nick Saban and his players at the White House on Tuesday to honor their fifth national title in nine years.</p>

January 24 – Vietnam booked a place in the final of the AFC U-23 Championship against Uzbekistan defeating Qatar in the semi-finals on penalties. Akram Afif, who plies his trade at KAS Eupen in Belgium, opened the score for the Qataris from the penalty spot after Almoez Ali had been dragged down inside the penalty box. In the 69th minute Nguyen Quang Hai equalized after a blunder in Qatar’s defence. Bassam Al-Rawi and Ahmad Moein allowed Hai too much space. Qatar seemed to have won the game when Almoez Ali scored late on, but there was to be a twist...

More than 40 million people watched the NFL’s two preliminaries for the Super Bowl on Sunday, a drop of more than 8 percent compared to last year’s conference championship games. The Nielsen company said an average of 43.2 million people watched the games. While that’s down from the 47.1 million who watched the conference championships last year, it was a more heartening report than the NFL had gotten only a week earlier. This year’s divisional championship round had seen a 16 percent dip in audience size. […] After seeing viewership erosion all year, the NFL will be anxious to see...