This intro is dedicated to the sports fans out there who are racking up some serious sleep debt.

The World Cup saw 39 days of action with plenty of unusual wake-up times, the Tour de France is into its third week, and the CommGames start on Friday in Glasgow.

Stock up on instant coffee and keep the kettle full!

11.04 seconds
The new Australian national record for the women’s 100m set by Torrie Lewis at a track and field meet in Slovakia on Tuesday. In the process of winning the race, the 21-year-old beat Jamaica’s Elaine Thompson-Herah, a five-time Olympic champion across the Rio and Tokyo Games. Lewis also won the women’s 200m event. She will now turn her attention to the women’s 100m, 200m, and 4x100m at the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow, which begin later this week. 

“No one wants to be caught going commando!”
Commonwealth Games Australia Chef de Mission Petria Thomas to AAP ahead of the Games this Friday. It comes after athletes were asked to pack extra clothing, including underwear, due to Glasgow running the Games on a smaller scale with limited laundry service.

Rugby league Immortal Andrew Johns had a short cricket career. The former NRL star played two Twenty20 games for New South Wales in 2006-07, after he was recruited to draw crowds. It was not today's Big Bash League but the state-based competition before it. In one of the matches, he made a somewhat respectable nine runs from 10 balls.

From Deakin Sport Science to using AI to drive decisions at the Sydney Swans

For Mitchell Aarons, it meant completing a double degree in Exercise & Sport Science and Sport Management at Deakin University - picking up placements at Sandringham FC and St Kilda along the way.

He also completed Honours and a PhD at Deakin, researching AI-driven decision support for AFL coaches. In his final months of study, he spotted a LinkedIn post for a Performance Analyst role at the Sydney Swans and applied. Now he uses data and technology to help the coaching team make better decisions on game planning, team selection and game strategy.

Inspired by Mitchell? Your journey could start here – at the #1 sport science school in the world and global leader in sport education*

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🏊 The brother of missing girl Madeleine McCann is set to represent Scotland in swimming at the Commonwealth Games. Madeleine vanished from a Portuguese holiday apartment aged three 19 years ago. Her brother Sean will race long-distance freestyle events when the Games begin in Glasgow on Friday, aiming to boost his chances of making Great Britain's 2028 Olympic team. Though he's never spoken publicly about his sister's disappearance, Sean has supported his parents and twin sister at vigils for Madeleine, most recently the 19th anniversary in May.

⚽ Javier Tebas, the head of Spain’s top-flight football competition La Liga, has called on FIFA chief Gianni Infantino to resign, accusing him of "destroying the football industry" by expanding the World Cup. Tebas told La Gazzetta dello Sport: "Increasing the number of national teams makes no sense. The football industry isn't just the World Cup."  Infantino has floated a 64-team men’s World Cup after this year's 48-team format.

🚣 Norwegian rowing great Olaf Tufte has died aged 50. The two-time Olympic champion won gold in the men’s single sculls at Athens 2004 and Beijing 2008. He also won silver and bronze medals over a career which spanned seven Olympic Games, from his 1996 debut in Atlanta to Tokyo in 2021, where he raced at 45 years old. He was found unresponsive at his farm on Monday and airlifted to hospital, with the cause not made public.

🏊 Australian Olympic swimmer Isaac Cooper has told The Sydney Morning Herald that being sent home from the 2022 pre-Commonwealth Games Dolphins training camp was "the worst thing that's ever happened" to him. Cooper broke his four-year silence on the incident ahead of his first Comm Games in Glasgow. He explained he had shared prescribed sleeping medication with teammates, unaware it was prohibited, and that officials questioned him after he appeared "under the influence." Cooper admits he deserved consequences and added that there are “two sides to every story”. He now sits in the Dolphins' leadership group, and holds an honorary World Aquatics Athletes Committee role. He is set to compete at the Games on Friday. Watch this space.

🏉 Latrell Mitchell may have played his last game in 2026, with the Rabbitohs fullback consulting a neurologist for “complex nerve damage”. Mitchell has been out since early May and missed the State of Origin series. Teammate Jack Wighton said "he's a presence we're missing." In another blow for Souths, captain Cameron Murray is sidelined for up to a month after a calf injury in last Saturday's 34-24 loss to Canberra. Souths sit seventh on the ladder and face the 12th-placed Melbourne Storm this Friday.

Booking your flights and accommodation separately for every trip can feel like assembling a puzzle.

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Just days after announcing former Port Adelaide coach Ken Hinkley as their inaugural coach, the Tasmania Devils have missed out on one of their top recruitment targets. 

North Melbourne midfielder Finn O'Sullivan has knocked back an eight-year deal reported to be worth almost $15 million and will instead re-commit to the Kangaroos. 

Instead of joining Tasmania’s AFL team in 2028, O’Sullivan is close to finalising a two-year extension with the Kangaroos that would run through 2029, according to AFL.com.au. The Kangaroos took the 20-year-old as the second pick of the 2024 draft, and he has played 36 games for the club across his first two seasons.

Reports in May suggested the Devils were also targeting Richmond's Sam Lalor, the top selection from the same year. The Tigers are confident they can keep him too.

The Devils join the AFL in 2028 and cannot officially sign players until their existing contracts expire, so locking in early commitments matters.

Melbourne coach Steven King said on Channel 9’s Footy Classified that rival clubs are already braced for more raids from the new franchise. 

He said: “I think we’re all resigned to the fact of losing one or two good people, whether that’s a player or staff, to Tassie, and unfortunately we probably won’t be able to compete financially with some of the offers that will get thrown around.”

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Anti-doping protocol has come under the spotlight at the Tour de France after its two biggest stars were woken up at unusual hours to give samples. 

Here’s what to know. 

Before Sunday's stage 15, two-time winner Jonas Vingegaard and race leader and defending champion Tadej Pogačar were woken at 2am and 5am, respectively, for testing by the International Testing Agency (ITA).

Later that day, Vingegaard broke his collarbone in a crash and was forced to withdraw from the race. 

Afterwards, Pogačar suggested the interrupted sleep may have played a part in the Danish cyclist’s fall. Belgian rider Remco Evenepoel went further, calling overnight testing "inhumane." 

Testing normally happens between 6am and 11pm, and can only take place overnight in rare cases with a judge's approval. The Paris public prosecutor's office confirmed a French judge signed off on the tests on this year’s Tour. The  process is similar to obtaining a search warrant and is intended to catch riders micro-dosing substances that clear the body within hours. 

The ITA has not said whether it suspected either rider, and neither has been accused of any wrongdoing.

Not everyone is against middle-of-the-night testing. Jonathan Vaughters, the EF Education-EasyPost team boss who rode alongside Lance Armstrong and later admitted to doping himself, has become one of overnight testing's most vocal supporters. 

He argues it is one of the most effective ways to catch riders taking small, hard-to-detect amounts of banned drugs like the blood-booster EPO. Vaughters wrote on X: "If UCI had tested us in 2001 at 2am? We'd all have been suspended and saved the sport 25 years of drama."

Cycling has a long and troubled history with performance-enhancing drugs, which is why testing in the sport is now so rigorous. 

The most prominent case is American cyclist Lance Armstrong, who was stripped of seven Tour de France titles in 2012 after a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency investigation that Vaughters gave evidence in.