Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) batsman AB de Villiers can still sense the momentum which his side gained in the 13th edition of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in UAE.

RCB is set to play the IPL 2021 opener against Mumbai Indians on April 9 in Chennai and de Villiers feels the side can carry on the winning momentum from last year’s tournament. “It was a long journey. Very happy to be back with RCB, it feels like yesterday that we finished the IPL. I feel we have the momentum from the last tournament and we’ll have a lot of fun,” said de Villiers in a video posted on RCB’s Twitter.

“There are some new names but also old names, the people I have known for ages. Dan (Christian) has been with RCB before, it’s Maxi’s (Maxwell) first time but we all have seen him so often in the IPL, hopefully, a lot of games for us to win together,” he added.

RCB skipper Virat Kohli on Thursday joined the team bubble in Chennai. As per BCCI’s SOPs for IPL 2021, all players (except for those from the India-England series), support staff, and management entering the bubble need to undergo a seven-day quarantine in their hotel rooms.

Every individual will be tested multiple times during this period, and upon returning the negative results, they will be allowed to come out of their rooms and commence outdoor training and practice sessions.

ZURICH: FIFA President Gianni Infantino addressed the G20 Anti-Corruption Working Group on the last day of its videoconference summit and shared 11 key reforms to combat corruption in football.

Invited to speak on the fight against corruption in sport, Infantino shared the lessons that the new FIFA has learned through its post-2016 reforms, as well as from the corruption scandal that brought down the previous administration. Laying out the path taken by world football’s governing body in the first five years of his presidency, the FIFA President listed 11 key reforms designed “to tackle corruption, to bring back accountability in FIFA, in football more generally, and to safeguard the integrity of football and, of course, FIFA.”

In particular, those reforms were: a fully transparent bidding process for the FIFA World Cup; the separation of political and executive powers; terms limits and eligibility checks for elected officials; transparency of finances and compensation; a transparent and centrally supervised transfer system; audited football development investment with accountability, which includes a five-time increase in such investment (USD 1.8 bn) when compared to the past; internal and external compliance overseen by an independent Audit and Compliance Committee; judicial bodies guided by a new FIFA Code of Ethics; strict tender processes for transparent procurement; the promotion of women to decision-making positions in football administration; and the formalised protection of human rights, and the protection of minors and children in sport, as it is important that our children are in a safe environment.

President Infantino expressed FIFA’s desire to establish partnerships with the members of the G20, and pointed to the power of football to help combat corruption: “It’s crucial that the G20 takes an interest in these matters and gives a clear policy direction because football is much more than just a sport. Sport in general is so important for our society, economically and socially, but also in terms of education. We are here to offer our collaboration, we are here to offer our part as a player of a global team to fight corruption.”

Martin Guptill’s masterclass and Finn Allen’s ferocious knock had already put New Zealand on top before Todd Astle and Tim Southee ran through Bangladesh’s batting line-up to help the hosts win the final T20I by 65 runs on Thursday.

Some sensational hitting from the New Zealand openers powered them to 141/4 after the game was reduced to 10-overs-per-side. Bangladesh was then restricted to 76 all out, giving the hosts a fine series sweep. Chasing 142 for a win in the dead rubber, Bangladesh never looked comfortable as they lost two wickets in the first over, thanks to brilliant bowling from skipper Southee.

Mohammad Naim did play his shots but his stint at the crease was so short that Bangladesh gave up any hope they had before starting the chase.

With Naim’s wicket in the fourth over, Astle ran through the Bangladesh middle-order not allowing any batsman to get to the double-digit mark as he finished with four scalps.

Asked to bat first, New Zealand got off to a flying start as both Guptill and Allen unleashed a range of shots right from the word go.

Bangladesh did dismiss Glenn Phillips, Allen, and Daryl Mitchell in the subsequent overs but couldn’t stop the Kiwis from putting 141 runs on board.

Brief Scores: New Zealand 141/4 in 10 overs (Finn Allen 71, Martin Guptill 44); Bangladesh 76 (Todd Astle 4-13, Tim Southee 3-15)

Doping is a grave problem that has infested the international sporting events worldwide. Hundreds of drugs and methods have been used for the purpose of sports performance enhancement. While this practice has been around for centuries, it still prevails in sports competitions at myriad levels. International sports federations, led by the International Olympic Committee, have for the past half century attempted to address this exigency, however, with little effect. It was expected that, with educational programs, testing, and supportive medical treatment, this substance-abusing behavior would attenuate. Unfortunately, this did not happen. In fact, even more powerful and undetectable doping techniques and substances are now being abused by professional athletes, as sophisticated networks of distribution have also developed.

Recently two very renowned Indian athletes— a wrestler, and a weightlifter— tested positive for doping. Methylhexaneamine (MHA), a prohibited stimulant was found in wrestler’s sample and five different steroids, testosterone, androsterone (AND), etiocholanolone (Etio), 5 alpha diol, 5 beta diol were found in weightlifter’s sample.

Methylhexaneamine, also known as 1,3-dimethylamylamine (DMAA), dimethylpentylamine (DMP) 4-methylhexan-2-amine, Geranamine has been reported in a number of doping cases this year including two at the 2010 Commonwealth Games in Delhi, one involving Nigerian athlete Damola Osayemi who was stripped of her gold medal in the 100m after methylhexaneamine was found in her sample. Samuel Okon, also from Nigeria and who finished sixth in the 110m hurdles, tested positive for the drug a few days later. In October 2010, nine Australian athletes have been found by Australian Sports Anti-doping Authority to have tested positive for the substance.

Steroids are synthetic drugs that imitate hormones our bodies produce naturally as part of maturation or in response to stress. Anabolic steroids imitate male sex hormones — the proper term for them is anabolic-androgenic steroids. The term anabolic refers to the process of building muscle tissue, while androgenic refers to male sex characteristics. Anabolic steroids are the kind typically abused by athletes. Combined with strength training, anabolic steroids cause muscle growth in their user, leading to improper use by some athletes for performance enhancing effects.

Steroid profiling is one of the most versatile and informative screening tools for the detection of steroid abuse in sports drug testing. Concentrations and ratios of various endogenously produced steroidal hormones, their precursors and metabolites including testosterone (T), epitestosterone (E), dihydrotestosterone (DHT), androsterone (And), etiocholanolone (Etio), dehydroepiandrosterone (DHEA), 5alpha-androstane-3alpha,17beta-diol (Adiol), and 5beta-androstane-3alpha,17beta-diol (Bdiol) as well as androstenedione, 6alpha-OH-androstenedione, 5beta-androstane-3alpha,17alpha-diol (17-epi-Bdiol), 5alpha-androstane-3alpha,17alpha-diol (17-epi-Adiol), 3alpha,5-cyclo-5alpha-androstan-6beta-ol-17-one (3alpha,5-cyclo), 5alpha-androstanedione (Adion), and 5beta-androstanedione (Bdion) add up to a steroid profile that is highly sensitive to applications of endogenous as well as synthetic anabolic steroids, masking agents, and bacterial activity.

THE IMPACT OF COVID-19 ON SPORTS

The corona pandemic has paralyzed a lot of things in life, including the battle against doping in sports. It has made drug testing almost impossible. Is this an open invitation for would-be cheaters? The coronavirus pandemic made collecting blood and urine samples extremely difficult. It also made 2020 an ideal opportunity for those who wanted to cheat. During the first nine months of 2019, antidoping organizations collected more than 231,000 blood and urine samples from athletes for testing for performance-enhancing drugs. During the same period in 2020, with the coronavirus making collection a high-risk event, antidoping organizations collected about 111,000 samples. In April alone, when cities and countries around the world were locked down, only 576 samples were collected, compared with 25,219 for the same month the previous year.

Germany is one of several countries, including China, Russia and Canada where testing for performance-enhancing drugs has been suspended due to the coronavirus pandemic. In other countries, nobody knows how long more challenging conditions in which they test samples will remain. WADA acknowledged last week that the coronavirus pandemic had created challenges for drug-testers with countries closing borders, cancelling flights, enforcing mandatory quarantines or isolations and the shutdown of the sporting calendar. The lockdown restrictions have significantly reduced the ability of antidoping officials to collect biological samples, and that has created a ripe opportunity for cheating as close monitoring of thousands of athletes before the Tokyo Games this summer is expected to begin.

Writer is a fitness & sports medicine specialist. Views expressed are his personal.

LIVERPOOL: Liverpool’s James Milner has said that proving people wrong has always been a motivating factor for the footballer.“I think it’s just will to win, I suppose, and the drive to be the best you can every day. I think when you lose that you need to retire pretty quick. I’m very competitive in everything you do: training [or] if it’s games, you want to win. Proving people wrong still, it has always been a big driver for me,” the club’s official website quoted Milner as saying. The midfielder, who turned 35 in January, also said: “Every interview you do now your age is brought up. I still feel fine in myself, so why not push for as long as you can? You’re a long time retired, so I want to keep going and keep pushing myself.“Obviously it’s very short term when you get to this age because anything can happen; we know that in football anyway, even when you’re younger. But so far I feel good, I still feel no different to what I did five, seven, eight, 10 years ago in terms of covering the distance in games and things like that. It’s no different. So, crack on,” he added.Liverpool is now the team Milner has served the longest as a senior pro, following his spells with Leeds United, Newcastle United, Aston Villa and Manchester City. The No.7 has amassed 243 appearances and 26 goals over the course of what will soon be six completed seasons at Anfield.Milner further stated that he wants to have an impact on the club and contribute on the field as much as he can.“Especially when you’re at a club like Liverpool and the demand is there every day to win, the players around you, the competition for places and the level they’re at every day, you have to be at your level otherwise you’re not going to be anywhere near it,” Milner said.“The thing I’ve always said since I’ve been here is I just want to have an impact on the club and contribute on the field as much as I can. And sometimes that comes into when you’re not playing — how can you contribute with the team in terms of training and the other side of it? It’s the same reason why you’re driven every day to be at 100 per cent — because you want to be part of something successful,” he added.Liverpool will take on Arsenal in the Premier League on Sunday.

Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar shot 462.5 to edge past the World No 1 Istvan Peni in the final to take the top spot on the podium in the 50m rifle 3 Position event at the ISSF World Cup. It was his first individual gold medal at a senior World Cup.“Since coming out of the lockdown, he was shooting better with every competition,” the High-Performance Specialist Coach of the Junior Indian Rifle Shooting Team, Suma Shirur, told the Olympic Channel. “He shot 1182 in the trials and then 1185 in the all-India university championships.

In the World Cup, his score was not very high but scores overall were low at the (50m) 3 Position events.

That’s because of the very tough outdoor conditions. It was extremely windy on that day.

But hanging in there and performing the way he did showed maturity beyond his years.

Coming out and winning the finals was phenomenal,” Shirur added.Having turned 20 in February, Aishwary is also the youngest Indian in history to win a shooting World Cup gold in the 3 Positions event. He was the only one from India to win an individual gold in a rifle event at the New Delhi World Cup.The Indian shooters raked in a record haul of medals at the New Delhi World Cup.

With a total of 30 medals, including 15 gold, this was their best performance at a World Cup.

Apart from being Aishwary’s personal coach, Shirur, a former Commonwealth Games gold medalist, also guides the junior Indian Rifle Shooting Team. She has shaped the careers of Divyansh Singh Panwar and Aishwary, as both of them progressed through the juniors and have gone on to clinch Olympic quota places for India.Divyansh won a bronze in the 10m Air Rifle individual event while he and Elavenil Valarivan also claimed gold in the 10m Air Rifle mixed team event. Divyansh, Aishwary and Deepak Kumar won the silver medal in the Air Rifle men’s team event. Aishwary also combined with Sunidhi Chauhan to win bronze in the 50m 3P mixed team event.“I am extremely happy for Aishwary and Divyansh, because they are the only ones who won individual medals. That is what we need, and that is what is important when you think of the Olympics. You have mixed team events but not team events at the Olympics, in the air weapon. But presently we don’t have a quota in the mixed team. Winning individual medals was very important,” said Shirur.

“Divyansh has shown exemplary performance before lockdown and to continue at the same level after coming back was great. It was important for us coaches also to see how the kids have coped. Juniors thrive on competition.

They have that raw competitive fire. ‘I want to be better than that person.’ So suddenly when competition stopped keeping them motivated and keeping them hungry, making them do the wall holdings and dry practice was very challenging,” she added.The New Delhi World Cup was the first international competition for the Indian contingent after more than a year. And as such, it helped the shooters, as well as the coaches, gauge just where they stand in the run-up to the Olympics.“The way they dealt with the lockdown was very individual. But initial part was difficult for all. We really had a couple of months of doing nothing. So when they came back, just standing there at the lanes for so many hours was in itself a challenge. Overall the stamina had gone down a little bit. Also for most of them, their kits needed some changes. They needed to fine-tune their rifles, equipment. Each one had their own challenges,” Shirur said.“After the lockdown, this was the first World Cup, first international competition. Everyone was looking forward to it, especially because the Olympics are on. Keeping that in mind, it was important for the shooting world to get started. Keeping the Olympic preparation in mind, this was a very good beginning.”The 46-year-old was glad to see her ward Aishwary Pratap Singh Tomar overcome a particular challenge during the lockdown and clinch a gold in the 50m 3 Position event at the recently-concluded ISSF Shooting World Cup.“Post-lockdown he suddenly looked bigger. I left him looking like a kid and he came out looking like an adult! Aishwary had a growth spurt during the lockdown,” Shirur said.“His old jacket wouldn’t fit him anymore. So we had to actually have a new jacket, adjust the rifle according to size. He came to Mumbai and got a new kit done. It’s always a challenge with boys at this age because their bodies are growing. To be able to deal with that aspect of their life and coming on top despite that, I’m very happy to see that.”Encouraged by their recent performance, and the way they held up, technically and mentally, despite the lockdown disruption, Shirur is optimistic about the future. “The boys look ready,” she sums up.

With ANI inputs