Manchester City ready to fight Premier League after reports club guilty of 100-plus charges

Japan’s men pulled off a stunning upset at the Asian Games on Thursday, beating China to claim table tennis team gold in front of a raucous home crowd. With the sides tied at 2-2 following a back and forth tussle, Sora Matsushima won the decisive match, downing Wen Ruibo 3-1 at Sky Hall Toyota. Matsushima recovered from just losing the opening encounter to Wang Chuqin, who laboured his way to a 3-2 victory, but was overpowered 3-0 by an inspired Tomokazu Harimoto, who set up the thrilling finale...

Frankie Lor Fu-chuen will unleash several of his stars on a key day for the stable at Sha Tin on Sunday, including Classic Cup (1,800m) winner Stormy Grove and Lucky With You in the Group Three Celebration Cup (1,400m). The highlight of Sunday’s card features a stacked field, with the likes of Galaxy Patch, Helios Express, Hong Kong Derby (2,000m) winner Invincible Ibis and Classic Mile hero Little Paradise among the hopefuls. Stormy Grove – a one-time winner pre-import in Australia – was...

South Korean former short-track speedskater Kim Gun-woo has moved quickly to reassure fans that he is alive and well, and that news of his death had been greatly exaggerated. An obituary had appeared on the 28-year-old’s Instagram account, spreading dismay and panic among supporters. However, it soon became apparent that the star’s account had been hacked and the fake news posted without his knowledge. In the early hours of Wednesday, a Korean-language obituary written from the perspective of...

Chiu Hin-chun completed his set of Asian Games medals on Thursday, winning gold for the first time in the lightweight men’s single sculls final. The Hongkonger was tracking second for the first half of the 2,000m race, trailing just 0.63 seconds behind leader Firdavs Akhunov of Uzbekistan. But the 32-year-old managed to hold on and took the lead with 500m to go, before crossing the line first in six minutes and 50.32 seconds. Akhunov could not maintain his pace and dropped out of the medal...

Record-breaking British jockey Saffie Osborne, French superstar Maxime Guyon and top Irish duo Dylan Browne McMonagle and Rossa Ryan will add star power to Hong Kong’s elite riding ranks after being granted visiting jockeys’ licences this winter. The quartet will arrive over a staggered period, starting with Osborne in November, and at a time when Hugh Bowman – championship runner-up to Zac Purton the past two seasons – faces at least four months on the sidelines if he opts to undergo surgery on...

With minimal razzmatazz, an absence of semi-clad women carrying boards, or childish pre-fight hype, little evidence of claret on canvas and certainly no cages, this is not the MMA you know – and that is exactly the way officials want it. The sport made its debut at the Asian Games this week, an important step in a journey it hopes will lead to inclusion in other continental multi-sport events and eventually a place on the biggest stage of all, ideally at the Brisbane Olympics in 2032 if all goes...

Teen sensation Shin Ohashi laid down a marker for swimming’s best, powering to Asian Games 200m breaststroke gold in a world record time on Thursday. The 17-year-old Japanese swimmer came home in a time of two minutes, 04.83 seconds, shattering the previous best of 2:05.48 set by China’s Qin Haiyang in 2023. Kyrgyzstan’s Denis Petrashov took silver in 2:08.67, while the bronze medal went to South Korea’s Cho Sung-jae, who finished in 2:08.76. Moments earlier, Siobhan Haughey won her second...

Three years is a long time in sport, and all athletes have to deal with ups and downs, but few have quite experienced the challenge that emerging Chinese swimmer Yu Yiting has had to face: the sudden, if not entirely unexpected, rise of her teenage compatriot Yu Zidi. But despite facing some serious challenges from the much younger swimmer, Yu Yiting rediscovered her form just before the Asian Games and took her medal tally in Japan to four on Wednesday, storming back from behind at the turn to...

Apprentice Nichola Yuen Hang-yiu celebrated her first Happy Valley win on Wednesday night as trainers David Eustace and David Hall and jockeys Jerry Chau Chun-lok and Vincent Ho Chak-yiu fired in doubles. At her third meeting at the city circuit, Yuen was over the moon after lifting Pierre Ng Pang-chi’s Prestige Always to victory in the second section of the Class Three Mount Butler Handicap (1,200m). Despite being trapped three wide for the first half of the race, Prestige Always raced to the...

Table tennis fans had a unique experience watching star duo Wang Chuqin and Sun Yingsha beat their Uzbekistan opponents in the Asian Games, after state media used three smartphones to stream the match live to viewers back in China. The reason for the extraordinary measure? Out of nine competition tables, organisers of the Asian Games equipped only Tables 1 and 2 with broadcast cameras, leaving the rest without live coverage. Wang and Sun played on Table 4 at Sky Hall Toyota arena on...

North Korea’s Ri Song-gum set three world records to give her country their first gold in weightlifting at the Asian Games on Wednesday, while South Korea’s badminton world No 1 An Se-young had stern words for her watching father. Ri set the world records in the women’s 49kg class in Nagoya, joining an elite club of just four weightlifters who have won three Asian Games gold medals. The reigning two-time world champion added to her Asian Games golds in Jakarta in 2018 in the 48kg class and...

Hong Kong’s Natalie Kan Cheuk-tung beat her personal best time twice in a single day and broke a Hong Kong record set by Siobhan Haughey on her way to bronze in the women’s 100m butterfly at the Asian Games on Wednesday. The 24-year-old touched the wall in 58.05 seconds to finish third behind China’s Yu Yiting and Zhang Yufei, eclipsing Haughey’s previous city mark of 58.12 seconds set in 2023. China’s Yu and Zhang captured gold and silver with times of 56.41 and 56.44, respectively. Kan had...