The average person can sprint 100 metres in about 15 seconds.

On Sunday, Kenya’s Sabastian Sawe ran 422 of them back-to-back at roughly the same pace. Well, 17 seconds.

More on the London Marathon below.

4
The consecutive number of years that Manchester City have reached the FA Cup final. They are the first club in the competition's 154-year history to do so. The FA Cup is English football's premier knockout tournament and the oldest national football competition in the world, open to clubs from across the top nine tiers of English football. City came from behind to beat Southampton 2-1 at Wembley on Saturday. They will face Chelsea in the final on 16 May. Despite their streak of appearances, City have only won one of the past three finals.

"These events were not initially set to be free, but the world's game should belong to the world."
New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani announcing free FIFA World Cup fan zones in all of the city’s five boroughs, reversing a previous plan to charge for entry. The zones will screen live matches, with the largest, at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Queens, expected to hold up to 10,000 fans. The move comes as ticket prices to games at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey have spiralled beyond reach for most fans, with seats to the 19 July final listed at more than $US10,000 ($AU13,000). The tournament begins on 11 June across the U.S, Mexico and Canada. 

While NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani will be rooting for Team USA at the upcoming World Cup, he is known to be a fan of Premier League team Arsenal, whose players will appear across 10 national sides. Film director and fellow New Yorker Spike Lee is also an Arsenal fan.

⛳ American Nelly Korda won the Chevron Championship on Sunday, the first women's golf major of the year, by five shots at Memorial Park in Houston. The 27-year-old led from the tournament’s first round to the last, a feat not achieved in a women's major for 35 years. It is Korda’s third major title and her second Chevron in three years, and she returns to world number one. Hannah Green was the highest-placed Aussie, finishing tied for seventh.

🎾 Two-time defending French Open champion Carlos Alcaraz has withdrawn from this year’s tournament with a wrist injury, ending his bid for a third consecutive title. The 22-year-old Spaniard sustained the injury at the Barcelona Open earlier this month. Alcaraz and his Italian rival, Jannik Sinner, have won the last nine men's Grand Slams between them. Sinner has never won the French Open, but he is now set to be the clear favourite in Paris next month and could become the tenth men’s player to complete a career grand slam. The French Open begins next month. 

🏉 South Sydney winger Alex Johnston has become the first player to sign with the PNG Chiefs, the NRL's 19th club set to enter the competition in 2028. The Australian reported on Tuesday that Johnston, the NRL's all-time leading tryscorer with 219 tries, has agreed to a one-year tax-free deal and will join the Chiefs after finishing his Rabbitohs contract in 2027. The 31-year-old has PNG heritage and has played 12 internationals for the Kumuls. The signing comes as the Chiefs also pursue Wests Tigers captain Jarome Luai, who was spotted in Port Moresby over the weekend meeting with club officials.

🏀 Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg has been named NBA Rookie of the Year after a record-breaking debut season. The number one overall pick averaged 21 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists, becoming the first rookie to lead his team in all four major statistical categories since Michael Jordan in 1985. The 19-year-old scored 51 points against Orlando in April, making him the youngest player to pass 50 in a game. Dallas finished with a win-loss record of 26-56 and missed the playoffs. Flagg is the third Maverick to win the award after Jason Kidd (1995, currently the team’s head coach) and Luka Dončić (2019).

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The AFL has sacked Appeals Board chair Will Houghton KC over the board’s reasoning for reducing Lance Collard’s sanction for using a homophobic slur.

He has served as the chair since 2024.

Here’s what to know.

Earlier this month, the AFL Disciplinary Tribunal found St Kilda’s Lance Collard guilty of using a homophobic slur during a VFL match in March and handed him a nine-week penalty, including two suspended. 

Collard denies calling an opponent a “f***ing f****t”.

Last week, the AFL Appeals Board ruled the original sanction excessive but upheld the conduct unbecoming charge. 

In its written reasons for reducing the sanction, the board said: "We observe that football is a hard game. It is highly competitive, particularly at its higher levels. It is commonplace that players can employ language from time to time which is racist, sexist or homophobic whilst on the field.” 

In a statement on Friday afternoon, AFL CEO Andrew Dillon said the league would “not accept, excuse or normalise behaviour or language that demeans, discriminates or vilifies people”.

He added: “The AFL specifically rejects the Appeals Board’s reasoning [and] strongly rejects the statement not only that such language is commonplace, but also any implication that may be a factor in determining the severity of the sanction.” 

On Saturday afternoon, the AFL announced it had sacked Houghton as Appeals Board chair. 

Houghton’s termination came after a wide community response criticising the AFL Appeals Board’s written reasons. 

The AFL Players Association said: “We are deeply concerned… Every step of this process has caused more harm to the LGBTQIA+ community, the First Nations community, and the individuals at the centre of this issue”.

In a statement, Pride Cup CEO Haley Conway said the Appeals Board “contradicted itself” by calling the slur “conduct unbecoming” while at the same time  suggesting such language is “part of a competitive game.”

Demons captain Max Gawn called it an "embarrassing day”. Former West Coast player Mitch Brown, the first openly bisexual man in the AFL’s 129-year history, said in an op-ed for The Guardian that the Appeals Board statement is “not only disappointing, but dangerous.”

The AFL hasn’t named Houghton’s replacement.

Reporting by Pavitra Ravi.

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Sunday's London Marathon produced what many are calling the greatest day in the history of distance running. 

The top two finishers both broke the two-hour barrier, a feat never before achieved under legal conditions. 

Here's what to know.

Kenya's Sabastian Sawe became the first person to run a marathon in under two hours in a record-eligible race, crossing the line in one hour, 59 minutes and 30 seconds. Ethiopia's Yomif Kejelcha, in his first-ever marathon, finished second in 1:59:41, becoming the second person to break the barrier on the same day. Uganda's Jacob Kiplimo was third in 2:00:28, also faster than the previous world record of 2:00:35 set by the late Kelvin Kiptum in 2023. 

In the women's race, Ethiopia's Tigst Assefa defended her title and lowered her own women-only world record (run without male pacemakers) to 2:15:41.  The overall women's world record of 2:09:56 was set by Kenya's Ruth Chepngetich in 2024. She has since received a three-year doping ban, though her record stands because she tested positive for a banned substance well after the race. 

In London, the top three women all finished under 2:16, a first in marathon history. 

Nearly 60,000 runners crossed the finish line, reclaiming the record for the world's largest marathon from New York.

Marathon legend Eliud Kipchoge ran 1:59:40 in a specially engineered event in Vienna in 2019, but that time was never officially recognised. That’s because the event used 41 rotating pacemakers and a pace car, neither of which is permitted under World Athletics rules. 

Kipchoge congratulated both Sawe and Kejelcha in a post to Instagram, calling their achievements “the proof that we are just at the beginning of what is possible when talent, progress and an unwavering belief in the human potential come together.”

Research suggests the optimal window for marathon performance is between 7°C and 13°C. In London on Sunday, it was 10°C at the start, and rose to 17°C through the morning, with light winds and no rain.

The London course also drops roughly 35 metres in elevation from start to finish, giving runners a slight downhill average across the 42 kilometres. Advances in carbon-plated racing shoes, which can improve running economy (how efficiently you run) by more than 6%, are also widely credited as a factor. The Adidas shoes that Sawe and Kejelcha were wearing weigh just 97 grams. 

To put Sawe’s pace in perspective, he averaged roughly 17 seconds per 100 metres for the entire 42.2 kilometres, and ran the second half faster than the first.

Sawe's record comes against a backdrop of doping cases in Kenyan distance running, most notably Chepngetich's ban. 

He said he volunteered for extensive testing to prove he was competing clean, with his sponsor Adidas reportedly providing $US50,000 ($AU70,000) to the Athletics Integrity Unit to fund around 25 out-of-competition tests in the lead-up to the Berlin Marathon last September, and a similar number before London. 

On Monday, Sawe told reporters: "Doping has become a cancer in my country."