World Athletics

Just as King Canute proved to fawning courtiers that he could not control the tide, so King Juan Carlos demonstrated yesterday that a royal presence on the race course cannot whistle up an un-cooperative wind.

That tough Welsh mare Lady Myfanwy (2.30) looks set for her 10th win from 11 starts this season in the ladies' open at Bredwardine, Herefordshire, today. The seven-year-old's sole defeat came in a Leicester hunter chase won by Minouchka and the winner and third (Rydal Park) have won five races between them since.

Let us hope that he has not been relying too heavily on something so precarious. But the anguish in Henry Cecil was so obvious at York on Thursday that you have to fear otherwise.

Holder and top seed Roger Federer scored a comfortable 6-3 6-3 win over unseeded Spaniard Fernando Verdasco at the Hamburg Masters yesterday to ease into the semi-finals.

England's Lee James, close to giving up golf and applying for a job as a postman last year, now finds himself with a chance to win the Irish Open at Adare Manor this weekend.

Scotland have failed in their bid to add Hull KR's Clint Newton to their World Cup squad, but have higher hopes of one of his team-mates. Newton, the son of the golfer, Jack Newton, was born in America and brought up in Australia. He was hoping a Scottish strand in his ancestry would qualify him for the tournament, but the link turned out to be a great-grandparent, rather than the required grandparent.

Eamon Dunphy, Millwall midfielder turned acerbic controversialist, is always good value – and so it proved on last Sunday's South Bank Show (ITV 1). In one of his occasional sporting forays Lord Bragg of the Big Quiff, Carlisle United fan turned Arsenal season-ticket holder, was exploring David Peace's dark, gritty novel about Brian Clough's 44 days in charge at Leeds, The Damned United.

A double amputee is preparing to make Olympic history after he was given the green light to compete for a place in races against able-bodied athletes at this summer's Beijing games.

Everything seemed to be stacking up against Hampshire yesterday when their first innings ended abruptly, still 51 runs shy of Surrey's first innings total. Their England fast bowler Chris Tremlett was afflicted by back spasms which prevented him from batting but, more significantly, meant he could not bowl.

Harry Redknapp was playing golf with his son Jamie when the draw for the FA Cup sixth round was announced in February. Alone on the fairway they stood together, turned the loudspeaker on Jamie's mobile phone on and listened to the teams being drawn. When Portsmouth came out as the team away to Manchester United, Jamie says that Harry picked up his clubs and threw them – with the anger of a man who has just seen his best chance of a big trophy go up in smoke.

It is the pub quiz final – which team was the only one outside England to win the FA Cup? (Cardiff City in 1927); which team won the Cup then held it for seven years? (Portsmouth in 1939 – there were no further finals until 1946). Neither club has won since, so today's final has a distinctly old-fashioned feel to it.

The veteran cricket commentator Christopher Martin-Jenkins "corpsed" live on air yesterday after he referred to a batsman's "rod" on Radio 4's Test Match Special (TMS).

There was a distinct absence of dancing in the streets when Andrew Strauss and Alastair Cook were reinstated as England's opening batsmen. Good players, sound individual Test records but as a first-wicket partnership they had been notably inauspicious. On the list of English double acts they were mixing with Cannon and Ball not Morecambe and Wise.

"Had we won the Cup," mused David James, "we would have been the best dressed team to win the Cup."

Two years ago Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink sat on a pitch in Eindhoven and, in his own words, "shed a single tear". Middlesbrough had just been beaten in the Uefa Cup final by Seville – and beaten rather badly. No one carried the pain of the 4-0 humbling any more personally than the Dutchman.

Joe Jordan is the coach of Portsmouth and a key man in manager Harry Redknapp's pursuit of one piece of solid silverware to show for all his years of juggling the odds in the top flight of the English game.

It might be suspected that a Wales-England FA Cup final would not need a personal edge to it, but Roger Johnson has decided to give today's Wembley showdown one anyway. Last night the Cardiff centre-half took aim at Tony Adams, the Portsmouth assistant manager, who he credits with doing absolutely nothing for his career while his manager at Wycombe.

Embattled motor racing chief Max Mosley has urged FIA club presidents to let him stay at the helm of Formula One's governing body until October next year in the interest of the sport.

Sean O'Driscoll has cornered the market in understatement. Fortunately his football team are far more eloquent and expressive. They certainly justified their tag as the best exponents of the finer arts last night to book their place in the League One play-off final to give Gary McAllister, manager of opponents Leeds United, plenty of food for thought ahead of an intriguing Yorkshire argument at Wembley.

Leeds moved seven points clear at Super League's summit with a vintage display that saw Danny McGuire claim a fine hat-trick and Kevin Sinfield equal Andy Farrell's scoring record.

Wigan ran riot in the second half touching down five times without reply after being outscored three tries to one at half-time. Vinnie Anderson being sent to the sin-bin proved a turning point, with Warrington holding out during his absence but then conceding three quick tries on his return.

Among the seething Cardiff City support in Wembley this afternoon will be a son and his elderly father clutching a stuffed black cat. Despite their Scottish accents and unusual fan accessory, the pair will go largely unnoticed as the Bluebirds are caught up in FA Cup final frenzy. Yet perhaps they should not. For there in their surname, and yes in that manky old moggie, lies a story that should touch the hearts of any footballing romantic. Cardiffian or not.

While the rest of the country tune into Wembley for this afternoon's 127th FA Cup final, four sides meet either side of the showpiece match, vying for the opportunity to follow Portsmouth and Cardiff to the famous stadium and earn a place in League One next season.

Andrew Flintoff now looks almost certain to play no part in England's Test series against New Zealand but Lancashire believe prompt action by their medical staff may have saved his summer by stopping his side strain turning into a more serious injury.

The Loren Show – the name the 21-year-old Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo gives to his on-track celebrations – continued in the French MotoGP at Le Mans yesterday with a stretcher, a wheelchair, a pair of crutches and a scooter as the supporting props for Fiat Yamaha.

Dwain Chambers yesterday signalled his intention to challenge the Olympic ban imposed on him by the British Olympic Association by seeking to contest the trials for the Beijing Games.

There are occasions when Test cricket appears to do little to promote itself and yesterday was one of them. Hardly a drop of rain fell on the famous old ground but only 55.4 of the scheduled 98.5 overs were completed as bad light ruined the second day of the first Test. Impenetrable cloud cover forced the players from the field on five occasions, much to the frustration of a sizeable and patient crowd.

Tottenham Hotspur's hopes of signing Samuel Eto'o appear doomed to failure as the Barcelona striker is earning £128,000 a week – after tax. Spurs chairman Daniel Levy is prepared to fly out to Spain to try to broker the deal and although the Premier League club believe they can cope with the transfer fee, and hope to negotiate Barça down from the £27m they are currently demanding, Eto's wages are prohibitive.

Jermaine Pennant was officially told by Rafael Benitez yesterday that he can leave Liverpool this summer as the club try to organise their resources to muster a serious bid for the Blackburn Rovers winger David Bentley. Pennant is a long-term target of Newcastle and Benitez is looking, at the very least, to recoup the £6.7m he spent on the player in 2006.

Walter Smith, the Rangers manager, is hoping a hectic fixture schedule will actually work in his side's favour as they attempt to wrest the Scottish Premier League title from Celtic's grasp over the next week.

The Serie A title race, which once looked a stroll for Internazionale, reaches a gripping climax this afternoon with Roma hoping to seal an astonishing triumph. Luciano Spalletti's side have all but closed an 11-point deficit on Inter and victory at Catania today will give them the title if the defending champions fail to win at Parma.

Much as Nottinghamshire had cause to feel pleased with themselves after seeing off Lancashire in under seven sessions, it would have been difficult even for them not to have some sympathy for the plight of their opponents.

Louis Saha's failure to so much as make it through several Manchester United warm-ups this season has prompted the French striker to concede that a role in Wednesday's Champions League final might be his last in a United shirt. "The future isn't in my hands," Saha said. "I know it could be my last game, and I would understand if the manager went for another striker. But I'll try to make it happen for me."