Major names from other sports are "to be brought in to inspire British tennis coaches." New Lawn Tennis Association Head of Performance Simon Timson suggested on Friday that Alex Ferguson and Andrew Strauss are "among the influential figures on his wishlist." The coaching initiative applies not to the "rank-and-file workforce" at British centers, but to the likes of Mark Hilton or Ryan Jones, whose respective clients, Dan Evans and Kyle Edmund, were in action for Great Britain in Friday night's Davis Cup tie against Canada. Timson said, "At the LTA, we have got really good Level 4 and 5 qualifications that most other tennis nations are envious of. It's absolutely brilliant up until the point you become an elite coach and you are away on tour with players (London TELEGRAPH, 2/3).
Officials "would be prepared to scrap the bonus points system after one season if it fails to improve the quality of attacking rugby and the number of tries scored" in the Six Nations. Six Nations CEO John Feehan believes that the use of bonus points in a tournament where teams either play two or three home matches is "inherently unfair." However, the Six Nations "agreed to trial the system," which is already used in the World Cup, Premiership and European Champions Cup. Feehan said, "We are not saying we are right in introducing bonus points. It could go the wrong way too. It could be that home teams start to win repeatedly. What you are looking for is a level of uncertainty (LONDON TIMES, 2/4).
The World Anti-Doping Agency said that it still has "full confidence" in a report into Russian doping despite "discrepancies" in the supporting evidence. The report claimed more than 1,000 Russians benefited from a state-sponsored doping program. But WADA's legal team has written to int'l sports federations to inform them of "certain discrepancies." In the letter sent last month, WADA's lawyers said, "It has come to our attention that there are, on occasion, certain discrepancies within the evidentiary summaries of athletes that potentially benefited from sample manipulation and the evidence available on the evidence disclosure package website made available by Professor McLaren" (BBC, 2/3).
Former British Cycling Performance Dir Dave Brailsford "rejected accusations by former world and Olympic champion Nicole Cooke that British Cycling has a culture of sexism." The Team Sky GM said that the culture he promoted was one of "winning, but not winning at all costs." Brailsford: "We were not sexist, but we were definitely 'medalist.' That is why we pushed for equal number of male and female events so our elite female athletes could have the same maximum chance of success as their male counterparts (REUTERS, 2/3).
The British & Irish Boxing Authority (BIBA) is set to use "infrared scanners capable of detecting brain bleeds" at fights from the end of February. The scanners, which cost over £12,000 ($15,000) per device and were used by the Russian boxing team at the 2016 Rio Olympics, are "able to spot possible brain trauma at an early stage by emitting infrared light into the head." It takes three minutes to hold the scanner at eight different points on the head. The scanners "could prevent boxers from sustaining permanent brain damage" by catching trauma early in the window known as a "golden hour" -- the 60 minutes after a head injury when "pre-hospital assessment is critical to the future neurological health of the patient" (SUNDAY TIMES, 2/5).
Female flat and jump jockeys in France "will receive a 2kg (4.4 lbs) allowance in all but pattern races and the daily Quinte handicap from March, France Galop has announced." It is hoped to "increase the opportunities for females who account for a sixth of all jockeys." The "surprise news raised eyebrows" in the U.K., not so much because the allowance is being brought in, but because of the size of it, particularly as the best female riders in the U.K. "are considered the equal to if not better than many of their male counterparts" (London TELEGRAPH, 2/3). The British Horseracing Authority currently has "no plans to follow France Galop's lead by introducing a weight allowance for female jockeys." The BHA plans to hold discussions with the Professional Jockeys Association and said that it would follow events in France with "great interest" (SKY SPORTS, 2/4).
