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Rugby League: World Club Challenge raises profits, and eyebrows

After 40-odd years of watching and writing about this game, I thought I had my eyebrows under contro...

iBet: AC Milan’s lead at the top looks temporary

Juventus lost the lead of Serie A in Italy at the weekend by virtue of their game with Bologne being...

Financial strife fails to dim smiles at high-flying Rayo Vallecano

This is a club that, despite all it's off-the-field financial problems, is currently flourishing in ...

"El Ingles" is back. Today Frank Evans dons his suit of lights in southern Spain and returns to the bullring for the first time in three years. As Salford's only matador is 65 and recently underwent a quad-ruple heart bypass and replacement knee surgery, the bull's chance's appear better than average, but Evans says optimistically: "Today's 65 is yesterday's 40." He's certainly a survivor, having played rugby for Sale for eight years, worked as George Best's manager for four and suffered numerous close encounters with bulls' horns, including a particularly painful rectal rearrangement in 1983. Let's hope he doesn't get gored in the ring again today.

16

Or is it 13? Chinese Olympic gold-medal gymnast He Kexin's passport states her birth date is 1 January 1992, so why did the official Xinhua news agency give her age as 13 as recently as November? Send your answers to: We Want To Win As Many Medals As Possible And Don't Care How We Do It, Beijing.

Fair shout of the week

The finns may have their wife-carrying champion-ships, as detailed here previously, but in America husband-calling and hog-calling are the contests of choice in the fly-over states. Last weekend Doris Probst from Effingham, or it may have been Blindingham, entered both at the Illinois State Fair. She came nowhere in the former, but oinked her way to victory in the latter, the first woman to do so. We can't help thinking there's a moral in there somewhere, but we have absolutely no idea what it is.

Good week for

Shoaib Akhtar, banned fast bowler recalled by Pakistan for the Champions Trophy squad without being made to pay a £57,000 fine... Bindra Abinav, won India's first-ever individual Olympic gold in the 10m air rifle event... and Benjamin Boukpeti, won Togo's first Olympic medal of any hue when taking kayak bronze.

Bad week for

Ruud Gullit, resigned as the coach of LA Galaxy after seven winless games... Luke Donald, a member of the previous two winning Ryder Cup teams, misses this year's event after wrist surgery... Roger Federer, lost in the Olympic tennis quarter-finals and loses his world No 1 ranking tomorrow... and Walthamstow greyhound track, closed yesterday after 75 years of racing.

Look alike contest of the week

Deadline approaches. The complete-drivel cupboard is bare. An email floods in. Phew! Saved by the PR industry yet again. This week's award for shameless – and successful – self-promotion goes to Screwfix, who are searching for tradesmen who look like famous footballers to play in a five-a-side game on 7 September before the Masters final in Birming-ham. Not much competition so far at screwfix.com – their Gianluca Vialli has more of a resemblance to Bobby Charlton, and Paul Gascoigne wasn't Indian the last time we looked – so come on, plasterersand plumbers, get your pix out for the lads.

s.refern@independent.co.uk

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