A landmark moment at the Tour de France Femmes avec Zwift as Sigrid Haugset celebrates her first stage victory and claims the Yellow Jersey for the first time. It's a proud day for Norway, Uno-X Mobility, and cycling fans everywhere.
This unforgettable performance proves that determination, teamwork, and courage can lead to the biggest victories on cycling's grandest stage.
#TourDeFranceFemmes #SigridHaugset #YellowJersey #UnoXMobility #Norway
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| Stale Solbakken complains to the officals at half-time |
Norway boss Stale Solbakken believes the overhead wires deserve an assist for England's equaliser as the ball dropped down "straight from heaven" despite FIFA’s ball sensor showing no contact.
Jude Bellingham’s brace secured a 2-1 quarter-final victory that went to extra-time in hot and humid Miami, where Andreas Schjelderup’s cross-shot had given the Scandinavians the lead.
Bellingham cancelled out the opener with a smart finish in first-half stoppage-time, with England breaking quickly after Orjan Nyland’s goal kick was cut out.
The ball appeared to hit one of the overhead TV cables, but FIFA says the chip in the ball did not record anything.
A statement from the governing body read: "Before England’s goal in minute 45+2 against Norway, the sensor in the connected ball showed no peak in the 'heartbeat of the ball’ when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire and changed the movement of the ball."
Solbakken was asked at the start of the post-match press conference whether the camera wire deserved an assist for the leveller, with the Norway boss saying: "Yeah, it probably will.
"That was unlucky for us. The ball fell straight down from the sky, so it changed its direction.
"It became a misunderstanding among our players and it was in a bad moment for us, but we can’t do anything about that.
"I don’t think we will play the game again, so that’s how it is."
Solbakken did not see the ball hit the wire but many on the Norwegian bench did, even if it was not picked up by FIFA.
"I can’t say anything about that because FIFA," he said. If there’s no been no sound or there has been no (reading) in the chip, what can I say against that?
"But the ball drops down straight from heaven says everyone, including Orjan, who is the goalie, including the guy who is going to receive the ball.
"I saw another way just then, so I wonder also what happened. I think it’s pretty clear that it did and it was a strange thing."
It was a painful end to a summer to treasure for Norway, who marked their first World Cup since 1998 by going deeper in a major tournament than ever before.
Put to Solbakken that everyone in Norway will talk about the wire incident until death, he said: "I hope we can think about and talk about other things. That’s my sincere hope.
"I hope that this will not be the story about this team. It shouldn’t be."
- PA
It wasn’t a straightforward victory for Magnus Carlsen over D Gukesh at Norway Chess on Thursday. The former world champion had to overcome mental battles to conquer the reigning king.
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| D Gukesh discussed his mistakes with Magnus Carlsen after losing the match. Image: Norway Chess |
Magnus Carlsen had to fight doubts before beating world champion D Gukesh in their latest encounter at the Norway Chess 2026 on Thursday as the world No 1 secured his first Classical victory on the ongoing tournament. So far in the last three rounds, Carlsen had suffered two defeats and secured one win via Armageddon.
But five-time world champion Carlsen turned the tables against Gukesh on the eve of the Indian Grandmaster’s 20th birthday, winning in 42 moves. Gukesh remained solid in the match during the opening and middlegame with the White pieces, but lost the initiative in the endgame under time pressure.
Gukesh was eventually forced to resign as Carlsen picked up a crucial win after tough three rounds.
In the post-game interview with Take Take Take, Carlsen said that his recent Classical defeats to Alireza Firouzja and R Praggnanandhaa of India had shaken his confidence, and that the victory over world champion Gukesh had come as a big relief.
“It was a huge relief,” Carlsen said. “After missing a few chances, you get a little bit of doubt, like what it’s going to take for me to get back. Feels really good to get that monkey off the back.
“He was up for a fight today, but so was I.”
There’s no doubt the victory has come as a big relief for Carlsen, even if he remains the top-ranked chess Grandmaster. Amid his recent poor form, his critics have been constantly questioning him holding onto the world No 1 ranking despite playing only a few tournaments.
Hand Niemann, who in 2022 was accused of cheating by Carlsen, has said that FIDE needs to change its ranking methodology to reward the players who are more active on the circuit.
A few other critics have started to signal that it’s the start of the end for Carlsen, but the truth is the Norwegian remains the most consistent player across formats.
- FP Sports Desk
Bodø/Glimt have officially become the second Norwegian team in HISTORY to reach the Champions League Round of 16 or beyond 🤯🇳🇴
🔥 They've had to beat some of the competition's giants, taking the W from Man City and Atlético Madrid, whilst drawing with Borussia Dortmund 🙇♂️
😮💨 Now, they've gone one step further and KNOCKED OUT the 2024/25 finalists Inter Milan over two legs.
What a story 🥹
- Onefootball
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| Bodo/Glimt players celebrate after their win over Inter Milan |
Bodo/Glimt are on the march in the Champions League after dumping out European giants Inter Milan, the latest chapter in a remarkable rise for the tiny club from north of the Arctic Circle. Kjetil Knutsen's team reached the last 16 of the biggest club competition on the planet with two wins over last year's beaten finalists -- a 5-2 aggregate victory giving them the greatest result in their history. "I think it's an amazing evening for the club, for the players, for the town and also for Norwegian football," said Knutsen, who has been in charge of Bodo/Glimt since 2018.
"We are not talking about goals, we are talking about how to perform and how we can take steps and develop the players and the team. Now I think that's extremely important.
"We have our way to do it and that's really important."
Tuesday's triumph was their fourth straight win in the Champions League, with Manchester City and Atletico Madrid also falling in the final two league phase matches, which allowed Bodo/Glimt to snatch a spot in the knockout play-offs.
Bodo/Glimt were only promoted to Norway's top tier, a competition which had been dominated for three decades by Rosenborg of Trondheim, in 2017 but have since been crowned national champions in four of the last six seasons.
And since then, they have slowly risen up the domestic and European ranks, last season becoming the first Norwegian team to play in the semi-finals of a major European competition with their run to the last four of the Europa League.
Before this season, their best result was beating Lazio on penalties in the quarter-finals of the Europa League before being eliminated by Tottenham Hotspur.
But now, the team of no stars with a tiny budget have moved to a whole new level with one of either City or Sporting of Portugal awaiting next month.
- Looking forward -
Bodo/Glimt had previously been considered tricky opposition due to their artificial pitch and the frequently frigid conditions at their 8,200-capacity Aspmyra Stadium.
But they have now added strong away performances to their armoury, with a solid defensive display on Tuesday allowing Jens Petter Hauge and Hakon Evjen to dish out two sucker punches.
"I always look forward, so that's how we're thinking. For me, history is not so important," added Knutsen.
It was a rude awakening for three-time winners Inter, whose stature and budget dwarf that of the Norwegians and who are heavy favourites to win Serie A this season.
A pasting at the hands of Paris Saint-Germain might have coloured their last European campaign but Inter got to that final by seeing off Bayern Munich and Barcelona in epic knockout ties.
Inter had much the better in the first half but once Hauge capitalised on Manuel Akanji inexplicably giving the ball away on the edge of his area, there was no way back for the Italians.
"We know that the Champions League is very competitive, if a team reaches this stage of the competition that means that they are offering something," said Inter coach Cristian Chivu.
"They showed that in Dortmund, Madrid, against City and twice against us."
Defeat to Bodo/Glimt was also symbolic after Norway swatted Italy aside twice in World Cup qualifying.
Italy face the prospect of no team reaching the last 16 with Juventus and Atalanta trailing Galatasaray and Borussia Dortmund, the latest blow to the reputation of a grand old footballing nation which has since fallen on hard times.
- Agence-France Presse
Bodo/Glimt has only gotten to play THREE competitive matches in 2026 since their league season ended in November in order to avoid Norway's peak winter. The three games have come against Europe's GIANTS, Man City, Atletico Madrid AND Inter Milan. This team from of a town of just 54,000 people is currently doing the unthinkable. A story that anything is possible in this sport 💛
Credit: The World Anti-Doping Agency
On a quiet street in Poland, a group of camouflaged police officers have gathered. They carry machine guns, apart from the man at the front, who is driving a handheld battering ram into an unmarked door.
The lock quickly snaps and the police pour inside. They have entered a laboratory, akin to the underground facility in Breaking Bad where the rogue schoolteacher Walter White cooked up his crystal meth. Yet the powders they are seizing are not recreational drugs, but performance-enhancing ones.
The raid captured on our video was the result of a two-year collaboration between the World Anti-Doping Agency (Wada) and Europol – the European equivalent of Interpol – and it represents a new front in the war against PEDs.
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| Wada and Polish police raid an organised crime lab making PEDs in Poland |
When we think of dopers procuring illicit steroids like boldenone, nandrolone or stanozolol, we usually imagine them sourcing the drugs from a dodgy doctor with a backstreet office: a one-man cottage industry.
Increasingly, though, such substances are being produced in high volume by organised crime gangs: the same sort of clans that might also be involved in gun-running, people-smuggling or money-laundering.
“These groups are very quick in adapting to gaps in the system,” said Günter Younger, a German former policeman who used to be Interpol’s head of drugs, and is now Wada’s director of intelligence and information (I&I).
“What they want is big profit, low sentence and low chance of detection. Which is why PEDs fit perfectly into their portfolio. The profit is the same as dealing in cocaine, or sometimes even bigger. Law enforcement usually is not very interested in doping, so it’s easier to stay out of trouble. And even if you do get caught, you’re likely to get away with a slap on the wrist.”
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| Günter Younger, using his expertise as Interpol’s former head of drugs, has transformed Wada into a force to be reckoned with - Reuters/Denis Balibouse |
As so often in the field of anti-doping, the robbers got off to a flier, leaving the cops flat-footed on the start line. Wada’s research suggests that dozens of steroid labs have sprung up across Europe over the past decade, with Poland, Slovenia and Serbia among the preferred locations. As Younger puts it: “If you have a warehouse with several tons [of PEDs], you look for a country that has a lower legal framework to follow up on this.”
Paradoxically, though, success can be counter-productive in the world of organised crime. The more money the gangs derive from an activity, the more it attracts attention. In this instance, the wheel of detection has started to turn.
Over the past two years, Wada has collaborated with European law enforcement teams to raid 35 labs and confiscate 40 tons of PEDs – a figure which equates to around 800 million individual doses. Warsaw has been at the centre of several operations, as it seems to be a laboratory hotspot, but significant seizures have also been made in Portugal, Greece, Germany and North Macedonia. Thus far, Great Britain has only been tangentially involved.
Wada’s European project was only the first step in a three-phase plan which will move on to Asia and Oceania in 2026, with the final stage planned for Africa and the Americas after that.
The whole process is being steered by Younger: a tall and imposing 58-year-old with a shaved cueball head, whose police career covered a variety of fields from drugs to counterfeit currencies, cyber crime and terrorism. In 2016, he accepted a move from the Bavarian police force to Wada, having previously collaborated with them on the Lance Armstrong case among other scandals. But in his early days in his new office, he found himself hamstrung by his lack of executive power.
“One of my first cases that I had here involved the IBU, the International Biathlon Union, where we got an informant telling us that the former president had been corrupted by the Russians. It was then that I realised that, as a sport organisation, I can only do voluntary interviews. If I speak to you, and you say ‘I’m not comfortable anymore’, I can’t stop you from leaving.
“So my next idea was to reach out to law enforcement from Austria and from Norway, because Mr [Anders] Besseberg [the former IBU president who has since earned a prison sentence for accepting gifts such as watches, hunting trips and the services of prostitutes] is Norwegian. We met at Interpol and this is where my idea of collaboration started from.”
Since Younger’s arrival, Wada’s I&I department has expanded to reach its present figure of 15 employees, around half of whom have backgrounds in law enforcement. For context, Wada’s entire staff approaches 190 people, who are mostly devoted to the testing side of the operation. The organisation’s budget also skews heavily in that direction, with recent surveys suggesting that more than £200m was spent on global testing in 2019, the most up-to-date figures available.
But I&I could be the next potential growth area for the anti-doping industry. While testing is a useful deterrent, it also has its limitations, with fewer than one per cent of samples coming back positive – a ratio which fails to approach most experts’ estimates of actual wrongdoing. The system mostly picks up the less sophisticated cheats, or those who have genuinely fallen foul of accidental contamination – and it is almost impossible to tell one group from the other.
The really big scandals usually emerge via a tip-off, a raid, or an intervention from law enforcement, as we see in the cases of Armstrong, Balco, or the massive Sochi doping operation that was exposed by Russian dissident Grigory Rodchenkov.
Large-scale PED raids can be inefficient in a different way. If you take down a lab, and you gain access to their client list, you might hope to find professional athletes on the spreadsheet. However, Wada has yet to reveal how many anti-doping rule violations have resulted from the 11,500 names it gathered through its European raids. Perhaps it is too early: the process often takes years to finalise. Or maybe we are talking about a different sort of client: weekend warriors searching for an extra edge.
“Personally, I’m not so interested in who the athlete is,” Younger replied, when questioned on this point. “I’m interested in the coach and the doctor who gets the money out of the athletes’ health. Sometimes we learn that – as in Russia – when you want to be in the national team, you have to do what the coach says. If you don’t, then you’re out. So, for me, the bigger criminals are those that exploit the athletes’ health. Also, we find that today’s amateurs are tomorrow’s elite.”
Whether Wada’s operations are picking up Olympic prospects or not, there are other benefits to the process. For one thing, these chemicals are invariably injurious to health. For another, the trade in PEDs is funding some of the most anti-social criminal groups in Europe. And the volume of product being sold is startling.
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| The trade in PEDs is funding some of the most anti-social criminal groups in Europe |
“It’s so easy for organised crime to sell PEDs,” said Younger, “because they can use the clearnet [a technical term for the freely available part of the internet]. You don’t even need to go to the dark web, which is what you have to do to buy a weapon or normal, recreational drugs. Go online and search for PEDs and you’ll see how many websites you get. Because of the size of the industry, we can shut down a guy producing a ton every month, and the market doesn’t even notice.”
In all probability, the 40 tons of PEDs collected by Wada to date represent no more than the tip of the doping iceberg. But as Younger and his team turn their attention to Asia – thus coming into contact with countries like China and India which produce vast quantities of steroids for the medical market – there is a sense of growing momentum behind their work.
“In 2016 especially, we had meetings where law enforcement said, ‘Wada, who is that?’” Younger explained. “Now they’re coming to us. They say, ‘Can you work with us on this case?’ Or ‘Can you identify whether this is a steroid lab?’ We are building a reputation, and we have so many operations going on that we can only focus on the high-level ones. If you have the right people around the table, you can achieve quite a lot.”
- Simon Briggs
