Dutch-born duo Luckassen brothers opt to play for Ghana

Semenya wins 5,000m, falls short of Olympic qualifying time

The two-time Olympic 800m champion Caster Semenya retained her South African 5000m title last month in Pretoria with her best time over the distance, but still far from the Olympic minimum which means she would not make it to the Olympics. With three months to go before the Tokyo Games (July 23-August 8), the 30-year-old athlete clocked 15:52’28”, more than 42 seconds off the mark required (15:10’) to go to Japan. She has until June 29 to qualify. She has to officially improve her time or else there would be no Olympics for her this year. Gold medalist in the 800m at the London and Rio Olympics, the South African will not be able to defend her title in Tokyo. She has a natural excess of male sex hormones and refuses any treatment to lower her testosterone level below the maximum threshold (5 nmol/L of blood) defined by World Athletics to compete with women over distances ranging from 400 meters to the mile (1609 m). Semenya has been fighting with World Athletics (ex-IAAF) for more than ten years but has already lost several appeals. In August, the Swiss Supreme Court upheld the decision of the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in the name of “sporting fairness”, thus validating the World Athletics regulation that defines a maximum testosterone threshold. On February 19, Semenya decided to take the case to the ECHR in Strasbourg, which did not specify when it would rule. The athlete initially planned to try to qualify for the 200m for the Olympics, but the battle with World Athletics was compounded by sporting considerations that led her to the 5000m. “I’m 30 years old and if I continued to run sprints, it would be a risk to my muscles. On the long distances, you have more time to achieve consistency,” said the three-time 800m world champion.

Dutch-born duo Luckassen brothers opt to play for Ghana

ing for Ajax Football club of Amsterdam. However, Kevin and Derrick have taken the lead in deciding to represent Ghana at the international level. “If my brothers have a problem with something, I try to help them,” Kevin

Dutch-born brothers Kevin and Derrick Luckassen have opted to represent Ghana at the international level. A revelation made known to the Ghana soccer website and making news around Ghana. Kevin (27) and Derrick Luckassen (25), are brothers with Brian Brobbey, who, unlike his brothers, took his father’s last name. Kevin Luckassen, who is on the roster of Turkish Süper Lig side Kayserispor and Derrick, who is also on loan at Kasımpaşa from PSV Eindhoven have decided to commit their international future to the African giants and help Ghana to win laurels including the African Cup of Nations and probably the World Cup. Ghana coach Charles Akonnor has already approached their younger brother Brian Brobbey over a nationality switch although he remains committed to the Netherlands, playLuckassen said. “We are all very ambitious. Brian benefits from that. He has already seen what can come your way. Once he is satisfied, we will say there is still room for improvement. I think he needs that too. He’s the four of us the most shit about everything. “ Brobbey, who will join German Bundesliga side RB Leipzig in July 2021, is yet to make a decision on his international future.

DONE DEAL:

AJ vs Fury – 200 million pounds fight to hold before end of August 2021

Anthony Joshua and Tyson Fury agree terms on heavyweight unification fight as Bob Arum claims ‘there are no more issues’ preventing £200million bout. This boxing showdown would be the biggest in boxing history and promise to be a British duel. Bob Arum insists ‘there is no more issues’ preventing Anthony Joshua finally facing Tyson Fury for the undisputed heavyweight championship of the world. The Top Rank supremo, who handles Fury’s business dealings alongside Frank Warren, has worked tirelessly on the deal since Joshua’s knockout of Kubrat Pulev in December. After dispatching the Bulgarian with consummate ease as one of his mandatory title defence, the IBF, WBA and WBO champion outlined his plans to unify the division. Fury, who holds the WBC and Ring Magazine heavyweight belts, has not fought for more than a year since stopping Deontay Wilder in their rematch in February 2020. However, Arum insists the fight is edging closer to completion and promised fans everything was moving in the right direction. “Yeah as far as I am concerned,” he told the press. “I’ve been working on it; all the points have been agreed to. “That’s what each side has said. Now, we are scrambling around to get the thing signed and everything. “But I can say clearly, based on my

view on everything, that there are no more issues.” Representatives for the heavyweight champions have been deep in negotiations and have made significant progress with AJ’s promoter Eddie Hearn promising fans the undisputed showdown will happen next. AJ said on a JD Sports live stream: “August should be the date. “Trust me. For the fans, for the people that have been calling it on for many, many months. “Shutout to Fury and his team as well, hungry go-getters, that’s what we are. “UK stand up. And to the world – we’re bringing it. “I can’t wait. Undisputed.” This would be AJ biggest fight yet ever after losing one time to Andy Ruiz Jr. and he classically won the rematch to set up this undisputed fight to determine the best in the Heavyweight division in boxing.

Put Some Respect on Her Name: Claressa Shields becomes Boxing’s 1st Ever Two-Division, Undisputed World Champ (And That Includes Men, Too)

BLACK EXCELLENCE

Through the course of her illustrious boxing career, Claressa Shields has made it a point to call herself “The G.W.O.A.T.”- an abbreviation for The Greatest Woman And the fight wasn’t even close. All three judges scored the fight 100-90, a clean sweep for the fighter who calls herself the greatest of all time. Shields landed 116 of 409 punches, and Dicaire landed 31 of 263. Shields landed double-digit punches in seven of the 10 rounds. She also leveraged her popularity into headlined an all-women’s pay-per-view card-the first in nearly 20 years in order to draw much-needed attention to gender inequity within the sport. “For a woman to be an athlete, we have to work a bit harder especially to be a top athlete. We have to continue to fight,” she recently told the press. “Women are never gonna just stop doing sports, they can’t make us disappear. As soon as people realize that, they’ll give us our just due and we’ll be able to flourish better and they’ll stop holding women in sports back.” So again, who’s willing to risk life and limb to tell her she isn’t the G.W.O.A.T? Aside from increased awareness, the Flint, Mich., native is a vocal proponent of female athletes receiving more equitable pay. And

of All Time. And after beating the breaks off of Marie-Eve Dicaire, who the hell is brave enough to tell her otherwise? Before T-Rex laid holy hands on her, Dicaire was best known as an undefeated IBF Super Welterweight Champion. But after their bout in which it took Shields all of about 30 seconds to figure out her opponent, Dicaire is now best known for trying her damndest to survive their skirmish than actually attempting to win the damn fight. “She never really wanted to win the fight,” Shields told reporters after the bout. “She just wanted to be able to say she went all 10 rounds, which I don’t have that kind of mentality. To me, that’s weak, and I’d rather go down on my shield any day and give it a good fight.” She continued, “But she wanted to stay away. She wanted to hold. She wanted to elbow and do all that crazy stuff. I felt like I was winning the fight, but I didn’t get to display what I wanted to display.” While Shields sadly didn’t get to separate DiCaire’s head from her shoulders-I know, I wanted to see it, too, she did emerge victorious. Her triumph, which came via unanimous decision, makes her the first boxer in the four-belt era to be an undisputed champ in two divisions. (Yes, that includes men, too.) So not only did she claim Dicaire’s IBF crown and the vacant WBA world title, but she retain her WBO and WBC junior middleweight titles.

“For a woman to be an athlete, we have to work a bit harder especially to be a top athlete”

as The Boxing Scene points out, while the 25-yearold can command more than just about any other female boxer on Earth, she puts numbers on the board, too: For argument’s sake, Shields hit 410,000 viewers while fighting on Showtime for her bout against Hanna Gabiels. Her most recent contest on the network peaked at 288,000, the same number Adrien Broner averaged a few months back on the same channel against Jovanie Santiago. Or, over on Showtime’s boxing competitor ESPN, Mikaela Mayer-Helen Joseph peaked at 380,000, which was a 3% increase from a heavyweight contest the week prior involving Carlos Takam, who had fought for a heavyweight title. As for the money: Shields earned a guarantee of $300,000 against Habazin, while Broner claimed to have made more than a million against Santiago. And even though she’s already dominating her competition, she’s still hell-bent on improving her craft. “I don’t know how to jump up & down about something I already knew would happen. 90-100,” she tweeted after her latest win. “Back to the drawing board though. I gotta figure out how to make my skills work with these 2 minute rounds to get KOs against top opponents! Matter of fact. My next boxing match will be 3 minutes. Yes, you read that correctly: She wants more time on the clock so that she can run up more knockouts. Congrats to T-Rex for continuing to rewrite the history books and creating a more equitable sport along the way.

Happy birthday to mama Suzie Titi Omoroje at 85.

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