19 Jan 2020

Today's sports news: what you need to know

5:08 am on 19 January 2020

Latest - The Sydney cyclist Rylee Field has taken over the Tour leaders yellow jersey after a solo climb up Admiral Hill at the end of the longest stage of the New Zealand Cycle Classic in the Wairarapa.

NZ Cycle Classic.

Photo: PHOTOSPORT

Field broke away with just the 15km climb to go on the 176km fourth stage and finished well clear of the chasers to provisionally go into yellow.

His teammate Kees Duyvesteyn was second with New Zealaner Aaron Gate third.

Field will wear the yellow jersey at the start of tomorrow's fifth and final stage, a 120km circuit around Masteron.

Lupton's win Wellington Cup again.

The seven year old mare Soleseifei has won the Wellington Cup at Trentham.

Soleseifei was ridden by Trudy Thornton and is trained by Jaimee-Lee Lupton, the granddaughter of Snow Lupton.

Snow Lupton trained Kiwi to win the Wellington Cup 37 years ago before the horse went on to win the Melbourne Cup.

Favourite The Good Fight was second with Toms third.

In the group one races, Avantage won the Telegraph and The Mitigator won the Thorndon Mile.

Anderson to be honoured

Four-time World Champion New Zealander Hugh Anderson will be inducted into the MotoGP Hall of Fame later this year.

Jorge Lorenzo

Jorge Lorenzo Photo: LaPresse

He's one of three riders to join the Hall of Fame in 2020 alongside Spain's Jorge Lorenzo and Italian Max Biaggi.

Anderson won the 125cc and 50cc World Championship titles twice between 1963 and 65 and retired in 1966 after taking 25 Grand Prix wins and four titles.

Anderson made his first GP appearances in the 500cc and 350cc classes in 1960, taking a podium in the latter.

"How I felt when receiving the news? At first, apprehension: do my relatively modest achievements warrant this honour? Will I, can I, do justice to this invitation? Some hours later I felt a feelgood sensation envelope me. A gratification that after all this time the modern world has not forgotten the past and the riders of a very much different era still have some value. A question of the history of our sport being recognised at the highest level. Thank you," Anderson said.

Lorenzo is a five-time World Champ and Biaggi a four-time World Champion.

Sainz a triple Dakar winner

Spaniard Carlos Sainz became a triple Dakar Rally champion with the Mini X-Raid team at the age of 57 on Friday while American Ricky Brabec took the motorcycle crown for Honda and ended KTM's 18-year dominance.

Brabec is the first American to win the Dakar on two wheels since the gruelling endurance event started from Paris through the Sahara desert to the Senegalese capital in West Africa in 1979.

Both were also the first winners in Saudi Arabia, a country making its debut as host of an event staged in South America for the past decade.

Two times world rally champion Sainz, whose son and namesake races in Formula One for McLaren, ended the final timed stage with a six minute and 21 seconds advantage over Qatar's defending champion Nasser Al Attiyah.

Sainz also won in 2010 and 2018.

His three victories have been with different car manufacturers, the first coming with Volkswagen and the second in a Peugeot.

- Reuters

Stokes and Pope put dominant England in box seat

Ben Stokes and Ollie Pope both scored centuries as a dominant England took a firm grip on the third test against South Africa, declaring on 499 before reducing the hosts to 60 runs for two wickets at the close of the second day.

South Africa trail by 439 runs and will need to bat for much of the weekend to stay in the contest and avoid going 2-1 behind in the four-test series.

Dean Elgar, 32 not out, and nightwatchman Anrich Nortje will return, chasing down England's first-innings score of 499 for nine declared, after spinner Dom Bess removed opener Pieter Malan (18) and Zubayr Hamza for 10 in fading light and left South Africa in a perilous position.

An unbeaten 135 from 22-year-old Ollie Pope, his maiden test ton, and 120 from Ben Stokes helped England achieve the fourth highest test innings score at Port Elizabeth, the oldest test venue in South Africa.

Keshav Maharaj took 5-180 in a marathon 58 overs after South Africa began the day with the demoralising news that top bowler Kagiso Rabada would be suspended for the last test of the series.

Rabada was given another demerit point by the International Cricket Council for robustly celebrating the wicket of England captain Joe Root.

The bowler, who has accumulated four demerit points in a 24-month period, cannot play the final test due to his infractions.

- Reuters

Barty sets up Adelaide final against teenager Yastremska

World number one Ash Barty fought back from a set down to beat unseeded Danielle Collins 3-6 6-1 7-6(5) on Friday to reach the Adelaide International final where she will face Ukraine's Dayana Yastremska.

Collins came out all guns blazing in the opening set to go up 3-0 and held firm to take the early advantage, but Barty's battling qualities surfaced in the next as she stretched the rallies to claw her way back into the contest.

The pair then exchanged a couple of breaks in the deciding set before the tie-break and Barty appeared to feed off the home fans' energy to secure victory on her second match point.

Barty won her only previous meeting with Yastremska in Miami last year, and will look to head into the season's first major with an eighth singles title in the bag.

She faces Ukraine's Lesia Tsurenko in the first round of the Australian Open where she will bid to end the host nation's 42-year wait for a home-grown champion.

- Reuters