Alistair and Jonny Brownlee were brothers in arms at a dramatic finale of the World Triathlon Series as double Olympic champion Alistair hauled an exhausted Jonny over the line in a desperate bid to help his younger brother secure the title.
Jonny, silver medallist in Rio, collapsed having finished second but Spaniard Mario Mola’s fifth-placed finish in the final race of the series in the Cozumel, Mexico was enough for the Spaniard to top the overall standings and secure his first ITU world championship title, four points ahead of Briton Jonny. Spain’s Fernando Alarza came third.
But Mola’s overall victory played second fiddle to the show put on by the Brownlee brothers.
Heading into the final race of the season, victory would have handed Jonny the world title and with just under a kilometre to go of the run, victory was firmly in his grasp as he led by 50 metres.
But dazed by the heat and reeling from exhaustion, the Rio Olympics silver medallist began to wander across the road, allowing South Africa’s Henri Shoeman to overtake him in the final stretch of the 10km run to win on the day.
Alistair, who was running in third-place, caught hold of his disoriented brother, wrapping an arm around his shoulder to take his weight over the final few metres, before pushing Jonny over the finish line ahead of himself.
“I wish the flipping idiot had paced it right and crossed the finish line first,” Alistair told reporters after the race as Jonny was given medical treatment.
“He could have jogged that last two kilometres and won the race. You have to race the conditions. It was a natural human reaction to my brother but for anyone I would have done the same thing. I think it’s as close to death as you can be in sport.”
Mola said his joy in victory had been tempered by Jonny’s struggles with the conditions. “First of all this was not how I wanted to win the world championship,” the Spaniard said in a statement. “Luckily I was able to be in the top five considering Jonny didn’t win the race. We want everyone to be safe after the finish line, it’s not the way I wanted it, but that’s triathlon.”
After the 1.5km swim, the Brownlee brothers were in the leading pack that headed into the second transition one minute 39 seconds ahead.
Jonny, 26, set the pace heading into the final run, but Schoeman stayed in touch, eventually capitalising on the Briton’s exhaustion to clinch his first world triathlon series win. An appeal by the Spanish Triathlon Federation to disqualify Jonny for accepting assistance from his brother was dismissed by the ITU jury.
Bermuda’s Flora Duffy was crowned the women’s world triathlon series champion ahead of American Olympic champion Gwen Jorgensen on Saturday. Duffy broke away from the pack with a stellar bike ride, and maintained her momentum in the run to clinch victory. Japan’s Ai Ueda finished third in the overall standings.


Alistair Brownlee (left) helps his brother Jonny to the finish line.


Sweden holds off Russia in World Cup of Hockey
AFP
Los Angeles


Sweden fended off a late comeback bid from Alex Ovechkin’s Team Russia to win 2-1 Sunday as each squad opened its account in the World Cup of Hockey at Toronto.
Ovechkin thought he had the game-tying goal with 8.2 seconds to play in the third period, but game officials ruled it no goal because he batted the puck into the net with his hand.
Video review confirmed the call on the ice.
For Russia, it was a disappointing opening to the two-week, eight-team tournament featuring a wealth of top National Hockey League players.
Washington Capitals captain Ovechkin, still seeking his first Stanley Cup NHL crown at age 31, has had a conspicuous lack of success in a Russian jersey in such “best-on-best” events.
He has won three gold medals with Russia at the World Championships, but the event overlaps with the NHL playoffs and does not feature all of the elite league’s top players.
NHL players began competing in the Olympics in 1998 and Russia have never captured gold, taking silver in 1998 and bronze in 2002. The Russians were bounced from their home Winter Games at Sochi in 2014 in the quarter-finals.
With the NHL’s commitment to making all top players available for future Olympics wavering, the rebooted World Cup may be Ovechkin’s best chance to prove he can lead Russia to a title in a tournament featuring the world’s best.
Ovechkin had scored on a wrist shot through traffic with 33 seconds remaining in the third period to trim the deficit to 2-1.
Team Sweden goaltender Jacob Markstrom, starting in place of ailing Henrik Lundqvist, made 27 saves and forward Gabriel Landeskog and defenseman Victor Hedman scored less than three minutes apart in the second period to stake Sweden to a 2-0 lead.
Landeskog netted a power-play goal at 10:41, four seconds into the man-advantage.
Hedman scored off of a feed from left wing Carl Hagelin at 12:52.
In the day’s other game, Team North America — made up of under-23 players from the United States and Canada — defeated Finland 4-1.
Forwards Jack Eichel, Johnny Gaudreau, Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin scored as the youthful team displayed impressive speed and skill in their first competitive game.
Team North America outshot Team Finland 18-6 in the second period.
Goalie Matt Murray’s shutout was lost when Valtteri Filppula scored for Finland at 15:53 of the third period.



Gabriel Landeskog of Sweden celebrates his second period goal against Russia during the World Cup of Hockey 2016 at the Air Canada Centre in Toronto on Sunday. (Getty Images/AFP)


Alvarez-Golovkin is the new mega fight, but be patient
By Gennady Golovkin
The Guardian


Saul “Canelo” Alvarez loves British fighters. They just keep falling at his feet. When Liam Smith became the fourth fighter from these islands to feel the heat of the Mexican’s power in Texas on Saturday night – joining Matthew Hatton, Ryan Rhodes and Amir Khan – we were reminded that this is a very special champion.
But it’s about time he picked on someone his own size. Like Gennady Golovkin. The unbeaten and probably unbeatable Kazakh – who destroyed Kell Brook in five cracking rounds in London the previous weekend – is the one opponent fans want to see ?lvarez share a ring with. It has to happen.
But that’s what we said for five years about Manny Pacquiao and Floyd Mayweather Jr. By the time they got in the ring, the thrill had gone.
It was the richest and probably most disappointing mega-fight in the sport’s history – and nobody wants to see a repeat of that. But Golovkin is 34. At some point his skills will start to fade, the reflexes will slow and his disregard for oncoming artillery will cost him. For now, however, he is the best fighter in boxing.
Alvarez (or, rather, his management), has been dragging his feet in protracted and tedious talks with Golovkin’s people, whatever the force of his translated declaration on Saturday night: “I fear no man.”
What the Alvarez camp fear is their fighter giving away weight to Golovkin, a natural middleweight (although not a giant), as well as money and home
advantage.
The last two conditions are understandable; what fighter doesn’t want to maximise his earning power, or have the support of home fans? But the first is wholly avoidable.
One of the daft trends of modern boxing has been the manipulation of weight classes. They are just starting points for negotiations now, as champions and challengers go up and down to suit whoever has more clout with the promoters and broadcasters.
Khan jumped two weights to fight Alvarez; Brook went from welter to middle to fight Golovkin; Smith surrendered his WBO light-middleweight title to Alvarez, who is big at the weight and really ought to be operating at 160lbs.
But that is Golovkin’s territory. He beasts anyone at or around 11st 7lb – yet he has said in the past he is willing to compromise. He wanted to fight Mayweather at light-middle, where the great man briefly ruled, but Floyd wasn’t having it. Why, we can only speculate. Was it money or fear of losing his precious “0”?
What a fight that would have been, because they really were the two best in the game. Now the best of the best is Golovkin, with Alvarez only a jab or a hook behind him. Whatever weight they choose, it has to happen.
Eddie Hearn and Frank Warren don’t agree on much. But they surely are united in their frustration with Chris Eubank and
his son.
Rarely in recent times can a British boxer have had such haywire advice from his father as Junior. He had his pen poised over a contract to fight Golovkin, and somehow “English” talked him out of it. So, up stepped Brook, and Matchroom were happy enough with that, although Hearn admitted that dealing with the Eubanks was hardly worth the effort.
When Brook’s trainer, Dominic Ingle, rightly threw in the towel to save his fighter from further unnecessary damage to his fractured eye socket, Eubank, who should have been in there himself, responded by saying, “We don’t own towels.”
Hearn described it as, “possibly the most ignorant comment I have ever read on social media”. There was better to come.
At the weekend, Junior pulled out of his upcoming British middleweight title defence against Tommy Langford, citing a “severe” elbow injury suffered while sparring an unnamed 14-stone opponent.
In an eccentric press release, his team announced: “The relinquishing of the British championship due to injury sustained in a sparring session is perhaps a blessing in disguise. Chris Eubank Jr’s management team will use the injury as an opportunity to step aside and fight high-calibre world competition.”
There was the further inference that he was saving Langford from a beating, the sort he gave Nick Blackwell, forcing him into retirement. He was, in effect, doing Langford a favour – which the proud challenger properly took as an insult.
This time it was Warren’s turn to fume. “Although we are disappointed by the Eubank statement, we are not surprised, as the public know full well for themselves, they make a habit of talking up fights but not following through,” said his office.
 “They are also incredibly unpredictable, unprofessional and very difficult to work with. We feel most for Tommy, who has been waiting patiently for his shot at the Lonsdale belt.”
Langford will get his title shot, and Eubank will move on … to who knows where? He is a terrific fighter, with bags of attitude and good power, although he is not the pure boxer his father reckons.
He should be challenging for big titles, at home or abroad. Instead, he is nursing an injury he probably should have avoided; quite why he needed to be trading with someone two and a half stone above his division is a mystery.
There was an American sitcom in the 50s called Father Knows Best. It was not about boxing.

Canelo Alvarez celebrates after knocking out Liam Smith during the WBO Junior Middleweight World fight at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas. (Getty Images/AFP)