John Coates, a tactically astute 68-year-old Sydney lawyer, has been President of the Australian Olympic Committee (AOC) for 29 years. He has been involved in three Australian Summer Olympic bids, from three different cities, and maybe - who knows? - will soon be roped into a fourth.

first two bids".Having authored the Sydney 2000 strategy document, he turned his particular focus to Africa

Sydney beat Beijing for 2000 ©WikipediaOver the years, Coates had become friendly with Sam Ramsamy, the South

African who had been chairman of the South African Non-Racial Olympic Committee since the 1970s and

I think we probably got five or six votes [in Africa]," Coates tells me, reflecting on the trip’s significance

South-east Queensland is the fastest-growing area in Australia," Coates says.

China's Sun Yang is set to compete in the inaugural International Swimming Federation (FINA) Champions Swim Series in Guangzhou, following allegations he helped to deliberately smash his blood sample in a row with drugs testers in January. 

 Nine Olympic gold medallists will take part, including Chad Le Clos of South Africa, Sarah Sjostrom

Eight of the best emerging men’s teams in the world are primed and ready for the first of the International Hockey Federation (FIH) Series Finals which start in Kuala Lumpur tomorrow.

hosts India will be grouped with Poland, Russia and Uzbekistan in Pool A, while Pool B will involve South

Africa,  Asian Games champions Japan, the United States and Mexico.In the women’s event at Hiroshima

Hosts Nigeria will play Mauritius in the final of the All-African Badminton Championships after both teams progressed in Port Harcourt today.

The home nation, yet to drop a game in the tournament, beat South Africa 3-0 in the last four to secure

Mauritius is rated the best in Africa so we have to play well to dethrone them."

South Africa hosts the African Senior Judo Championships for the third time in the event’s 25-year history

in Tunis in 2018.Egypt’s defending men’s under 66kg champion Mohamed Abdelmawgoud is top seeded in South

Africa, with second seeding going to the compatriot he beat to gold last year, Ahmed Abelrahman.Morocco's

Rio 2016 Olympian Assmaa Niang, right, will defend her African Senior women's under-70kg title in South

Africa ©Getty ImagesAlgeria’s Abderrahmane Benamadi is top-seeded in the men’ under 90kg category, where

Olympic Youth Development Centre in Lusaka with seven of the 20 people who participated from across South

Africa passing.

team at the 2018 African Youth Games in Algeria’s capital Algiers, where they finished runners-up to South

Africa, and the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires in Argentina, where they ended fourth.Banda

Nigeria eased into the quarter-finals of the All-African Badminton Championships after beating Zimbabwe 5-0 in Port Harcourt today.

Fresh from their 5-0 win over South Africa in their Group D opener yesterday, Habeeb Temitope Bello and

playing host to the All-African Badminton Championships ©Getty ImagesAlso advancing from Group D were South

Africa thanks to their 4-0 win over Zimbabwe.Uganda overcame the Democratic Republic of the Congo 5-

Germany has emerged as a potential candidate to host the 2025 Summer Universiade after a delegation of officials from the country held talks with the International University Sports Federation (FISU).

leading the feasibility study.Other countries who could bid for the 2025 Summer Universiade include South

Africa, Australia and Argentina.Germany has not hosted the Summer Universiade since before the fall

Hosts Nigeria thrashed South Africa 5-0 as action began today at the All-African Badminton Championships

The opening game against South Africa went fine and our strategy is to take each game as it come," Nigeria

A record-breaking 15 countries are set to take part in the All-African Badminton Championships at Port Harcourt in Nigeria.

Algeria, Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Eritrea, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Mauritius, Seychelles, South

Africa, Togo, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.Participants are due to take part in a team event beginning

nbsp;Egypt are the defending champions in the team event, having taken the title for the first time in South

Africa in 2017.

The event has been organised by the Badminton Confederation Africa (BCA) and the Badminton Federation

Cricket Scotland has paid tribute to Con De Lange following his death at the age of 38 on April 18 following a brain tumour.

“He was a great servant to cricket in Scotland as well as South Africa and elsewhere, not just in the

target of 287 from Zimbabwe, with De Lange taking one wicket and then hitting the winning runs.Born in South

Africa, he played 13 one-day internationals and eight Twenty20s for Scotland between 2015 and 2017.De

North and South Korea – who are still technically at war – remain in the running to host the FIFA 2023

South Korea's Football Association has registered to bid for the tournament, expressing an interest in

the latest in a number of displays of sporting unity between the nations, at war since 1950.North and South

Women's World Cup ©Getty ImagesArgentina, Australia, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Japan, New Zealand and South

Africa have also registered.

Paralympics Australia have announced a partnership with global financial services firm Citi in the build-up to Tokyo 2020.

Britain, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Mexico, Nigeria, Philippines, Poland, Singapore, South

Africa, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates.The deal will initially run through until 2020 and continues

Birmingham City Council has released the first look at preliminary images for what Perry Park and the area surrounding Alexander Stadium could look like during and after the 2022 Commonwealth Games.

Birmingham was only awarded the Commonwealth Games on December 21 in 2017 after Durban in South Africa

A penalty in the final seconds by Selvyn Davids completed a dramatic fightback by South Africa that denied

seemed certain of completing a successful title defence following their recent victory in Hong Kong.But South

Africa had other ideas and Kurt-Lee Arendse, Angelo Davids and Ryan Oosthuizen got on the scoresheet

nevertheless, remained two points down until Davids connected with his late penalty.The result means South

numerical advantage tell to earn a comfortable win.The United States lost their semi-final against South

Africa 24-12.