British Cycling has revealed the tender to host the 2014 National Road Championships is now open for interested venues.

This year’s championships take place from 20 to 23 June in Glasgow, medic the first time in history that the racing will take place in the heart of a major city as well as the first time that the National Time Trial Championships has been incorporated into the same weekend of racing. These developments reflect the increased profile of the event and are an indication of the direction the championships has taken in recent years. British Cycling is inviting future host venues to continue to raise the bar for the event going forward. 

Speaking about the changing nature of the National Road Championships, British Cycling’s Cyclesport and Membership Director, Jonny Clay, outlined how British Cycling has grown its biggest one day event over recent years:

“After bringing the men’s and women’s events under one umbrella a few years ago, British Cycling put the National Road Championships out to tender for the first time for the 2013 event, which will also be the first year that the Time Trial is contested alongside the Road Race. These developments, as well as the generation of riders competing who have risen to prominence in recent years, demonstrate the evolution and growth of the event.

“The status that the championships now have and the calibre of riders who contest them make the National Road Championships into a compelling major event proposition for any town, city or region looking to establish itself as a host of major sporting events.”

The 2014 National Road Championships incorporates the men’s and women’s Time Trial Championships and Road Race Championships and is scheduled to take place on 26 June and 29 June 2014 respectively. Tender applications for the 2014 championships remain open until 1 July 2013 with the winning bid anticipated to be announced in September 2013.

Details of the tender process to host the National Road Championships beyond 2014 will be published in due course with details of the 2015 process expected to be published later this year.

The National Hockey League (NHL) is moving dangerously close to an entire season lockout after a further two weeks of the regular season were cancelled.

The 2013 All-Star weekend in Columbus on 26/27 January has also been scrapped as the lockout continues.

The latest decision means no games will be played before 14 December and brings the total number of lost regular season games to 422 – 34.3 per cent of the 2012/13 season.

The current season was originally scheduled to begin on 11 October but the NHL locked out players in mid-September when the previous labour agreement expired with the two sides at odds over how to split $3.3 billion in revenue.

The two sides had an unproductive negotiating session on Wednesday that failed to break the impasse.

“We’ve identified what’s important to players, but they seem to be so far at least unwilling to treat those concerns in a serious way,” said union head Donald Fehr.

NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said: “The reality of losing more regular-season games as well as the 2013 NHL All-Star Weekend in Columbus is extremely disappointing.

“We feel badly for NHL fans and particularly those in Columbus, and we intend to work closely with the Blue Jackets organisation to return the NHL All-Star events to Columbus and their fans as quickly as possible.”

The Zimbabwe soccer match-fixing scandal has seen it’s first casualties as 15 players and officials were banned for life by the Zimbabwe Football Association (ZIFA).

Those sanctioned include former ZIFA chief executive Henrietta Rushwaya and coach Sunday Chidzambwa – who led the Warriors to the African Cup of Nations for the first time in 2004 – while a further 16 players have been cleared, with the fate of 70 others involved yet to be decided.

The banned individuals were accused of accepting money from a betting syndicate to throw matches between 2007 and 2009. During that time Zimbabwe lost to Jordan 2-0, Thailand 3-0 and Syria 6-0 during tours in Malaysia arranged by Rushwaya.

“Today will go down as a sad, depressing day in the annals of history of the game in Zimbabwe,” Justice Ahmed Ebrahim – a former Supreme Court judge who was chairman of the independent panel investigating the case – said.

FIFA has indicated that the bans will take worldwide effect while current ZIFA President Cuthbert Dube insisted no stone would be left unturned in cleaning up the game.

“We will not step down until we clean up football,” Cuthbert said.

Despite ZIFA stating that the bans would take effect immediately, Thomas Sweswe – one of those sanctioned – turned out for his South African club Bidvest Wits on Friday, while Chidzambwa was directing operations from the bench during his side Black Leopard’s 2-0 loss to Orlando Pirates on Saturday.

FIFA has released a statement reading: “FIFA will be in contact with the ZIFA in order to be informed of the exact status of the disciplinary proceedings, receive the decisions and take the appropriate measures as soon as possible.”

Sales of outdoor sports products, such as clothing, footwear and camping gear in China are expected to continue growing, as they are boosted by  the increase of vehicle ownership and the popularity of outdoor activities.

Retail sales of outdoor products have kept an annual growth rate of more than 40 percent in the past five years.

Outdoor sports products retailer in China Sanfo Outdoor Product General Manager, Zhang Heng said that this year the growth rate is expected to slow down to 20-30 percent.

Domestic brands’ sales are now rivaling foreign brands, which used to dominate.

China has become a major emerging market for international outdoor sports brands, because of burgeoning demand. About 75 percent of the top foreign brands have a presence in China. {jcomments on}

Comedian and talk show host Bill Maher has purchased a minority ownership stake in the New York Mets Major League Baseball team.

Maher revealed that he bought a minority share of the team months ago, but gave no details of the deal, the reports said.

“I just thought it would be a great place, especially after I’ve seen some of the ways money can disappear in recent years. I had my money in Lehman Brothers in 2008,” the New York Times quoted Maher as saying.

The Mets, who live in the shadow of the much more successful New York Yankees, have struggled in recent years.

Shares of the cash-strapped club were put up for sale after it suffered financial setbacks in the Bernard Madoff Ponzi scheme scandal.

In March, Fred Wilpon and Saul Katz, owners of the Mets, agreed to pay $162 million to settle a lawsuit by the trustee seeking money for the victims of Madoff’s fraud.

In a video clip that the Mets published on its Twitter page, the comedian said he became a Mets fan when he was six and “I have really never wavered for my love for this team.”

Infront Sports & Media, sale the marketing partner of the German Football Association
(DFB) for the DFB national games and the DFB Cup, has contracted three leading companies as advertising partners for the qualification and friendly matches of the men’s national team.

Workwear and safety company Engelbert Strauss, information technologies firm Kyocera and printing house Flyeralarm will each be involved in both the home and away matches of the national team.

The companies will in turn benefit from prominent stadium advertising in camera view as well as the millions of viewers that these games traditionally attract.

Bobby Sharma has been appointed as the senior vice-president of global business development for basketball by leading international sports company IMG. Sharma has quit his role as vice-president and general counsel at the National Basketball Association (NBA)

Sharma will initially relocate to Mumbai in India, where he will work as part of IMG Reliance, a joint venture between IMG and Reliance Industries. IMG Reliance snapped up all commercial rights to basketball in India for a 30-year period earlier in the year, and the development of a professional basketball league in the country will be one of Sharma’s immediate priorities.

Andrew Wildblood, executive vice-president of IMG and executive director of IMG Reliance said: “Bobby’s appointment is a major step forward in IMG’s commitment to developing the sport of basketball. With his experience in developing the sport of basketball for almost a decade at the NBA, Bobby is the right person at the right time to help us achieve IMG’s goals for the game around the world, both from a player and league development perspective.”

Sharma added: “There is tremendous interest in the game in India and its dynamic market in particular, where more than half of the nation’s population is under 25 years old, and just about every economic metric is headed in a positive direction.”

New Zealand Cricket (NZC) has denied reports it offered to play a charity match in Pakistan to raise funds for victims of the country’s floods.

An official of the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) had said the New Zealand team had offered to help the flood victims and may be touring Pakistan to play exhibition matches, with the funds raised going to the affected.

But although NZC chief executive Justin Vaughan said he had contacted the PCB saying cricket as a whole should be a part of the relief effort, he said playing in Pakistan was not an option due to security fears.

Vaughan said: “At no point did we offer that the Black Caps would be touring as they certainly won’t be playing there this year.

“It would be nice to think that in a cricket-loving country such as Pakistan that cricket could play a part in alleviating some of the suffering that is going on there.

“But at this point in time there is no way anyone can consider putting a cricket team into Pakistan to play.

“If anything, the security risk will be greater now than at any other time so I don’t see the Black Caps going to Pakistan in the short term.

“But if there are ways to help the people of Pakistan, the cricketing community should be doing everything to help.”

The US PGA Championship has been movedfrom its traditional August spot to late July in 2016 to accommodate the Rio 2016 Olympics, the PGA of America have revealed today.

The change to accommodate the golf tournaments at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, with the Games running from August 5-21.

As a result, the 2016 US PGA Championship will be staged at Baltusrol Golf Club in Springfield, New Jersey from July 28-31.

The 2016 Open Championship will be held on July 14-17 at Royal Troon, leaving only 11 days between the final two majors of the year.

Not since 1971 has the US PGA Championship been played outside August and that was because the time of year was considered too hot to stage the event in Florida, where it was won by Jack Nicklaus in February.

“It’s a condensed schedule,” PGA of America chief executive officer Pete Bevacqua said. “Obviously with the Olympics, it’s also a Ryder Cup year, you throw in the (PGA playoffs), so it’s a very congested schedule.

“We actually feel really good about it.

“We think an end of July date in that part of the country and the major metropolitan area just outside of New York makes a lot of sense.

“Less people are on vacation, more people are in town and we think it will work out as a real benefit to the 2016 PGA Championship.” 

The men and women golf competitors for Rio 2016 will be determined by the World Golf Rankings as of July 11 that year.