Ten things to know from last week. July 26-August 1, 2022 included: Tour de France Femmes, Bill Russell's death, Nunes winning the rematch, etc.
Ten things to know from last week
  1. Death of a legend. William Felton ‘Bill’ Russell (USA), the most successful basketball player of all time, died this week, aged 88. Russell won 11 NBA titles and an Olympic gold medal in Melbourne in 1956. He was 12-times an All-Star in the NBA and 5-times the NBA’s Most Valuable Player. A very complete player, he was the backbone of the Boston Celtics which were Champions from 1959 to 1966, one of the biggest eras of domination in any team sport.  He remains second on the all-time NBA rebounds list. He was one of the first national big icons in the United States when the country still had widespread racist policies in place, such as segregation. He was vocally active and highlighted the principle of respect, and was widely regarded to act according to his principles.
  2. Overdue women’s Tour. A week-long Tour de France Femmes was held. Marianne Vos (NED), perhaps the greatest female cyclist of all time and one of the advocates for this happening, won two stages and held the yellow jersey for five days until Annemiek van Vleuten (NED) -last year’s World Tour points leader-, inherited it and won the last two stages to win this historical event.
  3. Champion again. Amanda Nunes (BRA) became the first two-times World Champion in two weights in UFC by completely dominating Julianna Peña (VEN). This was a rematch from the upset of the year as Peña won via Submission to take the UFC Women’s Bantamweight Title that Nunes had held since 2016. Nunes is now concurrently Champion with the Featherweight Title again, as she was from 2018 to 2021. Her record is now 22-5 and Peñas’s is 11-5. On the same card, Brandon Moreno (MEX) won the Interim UFC Flyweight Championship by TKO against Kai Kara-France (NZL). He should face outright Champion Deiveson Figueiredo (BRA) for a fourth fight between them.
  4. Spin and win. Max Verstappen (NED, Red Bull) recovered from a bad 10th place in the qualifying to win take Hungarian Grand Prix lead, before losing the lead with a spin and recovering all the way to win, ahead of Lewis Hamilton’s (ENG, Mercedes), who was won a record eight times at the track and George Russell (ENG, Mercedes), who had taken his maiden pole one day earlier. In the US, Alexander Rossi (USA, Andretti) won the Indy GP race at the permanent track, while Tyler Reddick (USA) won the NASCAR Cup race. The Spa 24 Hours in Belgium were won by Jules Gounon (FRA), Daniel Juncadella (ESP) and Raffaele Marciello (ITA) in a Mercedes-AMG 1-2.
  5. Virtual and real canarinhas. It’s not only in Association Football that the Brazilian national team is great but they also won the FIAF eNations Cup, beating Poland in the Final. The team was made up of Gabriel Crepaldi, Klinger Correa, and Paulo Henrique Chaves. Brazil also had a good week, taking home the Women’s Copa America in Association Football. England, meanwhile, won the European continental tournament beating Germany in Extra time. There was also club action, as Liverpool beat Manchester City 3-1 in the Community Shield, Bayern Munich beat RB Leipzig 4-3 for the German Supercup, and PSG beat Nantes 4-0 for the French Trophéé des Champions.
  6. French disappointment. France had more favorites to win the BMX Racing World Championships than anyone else at home in Nantes but the dream ended for locals Eddy Clerté and Arthur Pilard right after the Final’s start, as they fell down, while Sylvain André made a mistake by going wide and allowing several riders by. He was 5th. Only Joris Daudet rescued a 3rd, behind new World Champion, Simon Marquart (CHE), and Kye Whyte (ENG, GBR). Felicia Stancil (USA) also became a new World Champion, ahead of Zoé Claessens (CHE) and Merel Smulders (NED).
  7. Royal sport. These are intense weeks with several Sailing World Championships. Three of them last week saw the same names extending their records for most titles won in their respective classes. Maarten Jamin, Cristel Pessers, and Jaap Smolders (NED) won the Yngling World Championship, the fifth for Jamin. They established a very large advantage and were able not to drop it in the last regatta as they did in 2014. Piotr Tarnacki, Grzegorz Banaszczyk, and Bartosz Makala won the Micro World Championship – the 10th for Piotr and the 9th for the rest of the crew. Marco Faccenda won the Vaurien World Title for the 8th time. The International 8-Metre Class World Championship also took place, with Norway’s King Harald (NOR), 85, finishing 10th. Jean Fabre (CHE) and his crew won.
  8. Quite a character. Sander Lylloff (DNK) won the 53rd Backgammon World Championship in Monte Carlo, Monaco, beating Zdenek Zizka (CZE) in the Final. Quite the character, he previously managed to come back and beat Wilcox Snellings (CRC/USA) in the Unbeaten Final after a few beers! A few years ago, he was also a popular European Poker Tour Champion. Lylloff won the Contenders tournament earlier this year against Zizka to gain the right to face Masayuki Mochizuki (JPN) for the UBC Championship in Tokyo.
  9. Supermotard. Thomas Chareyre continues extending his legacy as the most successful SuperMoto rider of all time, as he won the Supermoto des Nations again with Team France. This is his 11th Supermoto of Nations title, which added to his 7 individual Championships, he is by far the most successful rider in this discipline. This is also his 8th consecutive nation’s title with France since 2014. Bidart has been part of nine of these world titles since 2011. The event was held in Mettet (BEL).
  10. Extreme gold. Jessica Fox (AUS) almost left the 2022 ICF Canoe Slalom World Championships in Augsburg (DEU) without a gold medal, after being beaten by locals Andrea Herzog and Ricarda Funk for the gold in the women’s Canoe and Kayak golds, respectively, but she won the Extreme Kayak competition just as she did in the first edition, in 2019. She now has 12 gold medals at the Championships, which place her first of all time among women and second of all time in Canoe Slalom. Sideris Tasiadis (DEU, C1), Vít Přindiš (CZE, K1), and Joseph Clarke (ENG, GBR, EX) took the other individual gold medals. Germany had a total of five gold medals.