Eight kilometres after the start, the FS Maestro rider managed by Joey McLoughlin, winner of the first of the eight Tours, made his bid. ‘I planned to get away early because I remembered Chris Young doing the same thing in this race three years ago and gaining two of the race jerseys,’ he said. ‘Unfortunately, my lead was not quite big enoughKELLOGG’S TOUR OF BRITAIN First stage (Glasgow, 200km, 128.8 miles): 1 M Fondriest (Lampre, It) 5hr 20min 29sec; 2 S Sunderland (TVM, Aus); 3 V Ekimov (Wordperfect, Rus); 4 M Saligari (GB-MG, It); 5 A Gontchenkov (Lampre, Ukr) all same time; 6 S Swart (Motorola, NZ) +11sec. Team: 1 Lampre 16hr 1min 44sec; 2 GB-MG 16:02:01; 3 Wordperfect 16:02:01. Overall standings: 1 Fondriest 5:20:18; 2 Ekimov +4; 3 Sunderland +5; 4 Gontchenkov +10; 5 Saligari +11; 6 Swart +20.

Overall team: 1 Lampre 16:01:32; 2 Wordperfect 16:01:54; 3 TVM 16:01:55. Mountains leader: 1 B Luckwell (FS Maestro, GB) 24pts; 2 Sunderland 21; 3 Fondriest 19. Sprint leader: 1 Luckwell 10pts; 2 Ekimov 5; 3 J Svorada (Lampre, Slovakia) 3. Points leader: 1 Fondriest 15pts; 2 Sunderland 14; 3 Ekimov 13.(Map omitted). THREE months after losing his job with the Squash Rackets Association, Jonah Barrington is standing to be its president. The man who was regarded as the sport’s prophet during its boom years of the Seventies is now in its crisis times of the Nineties attempting to become its saviour

The presidency is normally a figurehead role. However, Barrington, former British Open champion six times and former SRA director of excellence, has no intention of its remaining so.

‘If elected I shall again make the utmost commitment to draw together those from different parts of the sport in a common cause,’ Barrington said yesterday.
Squash has never needed it more after the loss of a six-figure sum in the last tax year and the departure of almost all of its leading officials.Barrington, 53, is still a man of considerable charisma, with great motivational powers, a gift for publicity, and able to call on support from different sections of the sport.First, though, Barrington has to win an election against the incumbent, Sir Michael Edwardes, for the well-known industrialist has given no indication of relinquishing without a contest.If Barrington gets the presidency, it will almost certainly force him to relinquish any prospect of paid employment from the SRA, including that of coach to the England team which hopes to win a medal at next year’s World Championship.. A RAILWAY worker’s son from Accrington, the marathon runner, Ron Hill, owed early inspiration to the fictional exploits of ‘Alf Tupper – the Tough of the Track’ in the Victor comic. ‘We weren’t as poor as Alf, even though we did live in a two-up, two-down, with an outside toilet,’ Hill says, ‘but he was my first role model.’ In 1970, ‘Tupper’ was depicted winning the Commonwealth Games marathon, just as Hill did in real life.
Few runners come tougher than Hill himself. The 1969 European Marathon champion has run at least a mile every day since 1964, maintaining the sequence even after a head-on car crash last September left him with a broken sternum. ‘I would not have gone out the next day if I hadn’t had the streak going, but the doctor said I could do it if I took it easy.’ Normally, he covers 50 miles a week.Hill, now 55, has run 1,800 races in 36 years, including 114 marathons ‘I’d like to get to 2,000 before I retire,’ he says. ‘I’m planning one more marathon, the 100th Boston, next April.’ Hill won Boston in 1970, the first Britain to do so.

The London 1992 was his last marathon.With a PhD in textile chemistry, Hill pioneered several developments in sports clothing through his own company until business fell away in the recession. Now he sells his expertise as a consultant, and organises running holidays. Married with two sons, he lives in Hyde, Cheshire.(Photograph omitted). GIVEN the tension between Michael Atherton and the Fourth Estate, last night’s post-Test press conference with the England captain would probably have been a grim one even if England had won by an innings. As it was, his wary, even resentful mood suited a game that, despite England’s encouraging performance, ended in anti-climactic disappointment rather than celebration. ‘I am obviously disappointed not to have won but pleased with the better performance – we certainly played better than at Lord’s,’ Atherton said ‘I thought the side had a decent look about it.

It looked fairly solid and balanced.
‘For four days, we were positive and showed a belief in ourselves that we could win – if you make 477 at Headingley, you obviously have a chance of winning – but they dug themselves out. It was a batsman’s game and it was a fairly remote chance of bowling them out today.’Both Peter Kirsten – whose partnership with Jonty Rhodes, Atherton said, saved the match – and Kepler Wessels, the South African captain, said they felt England had been notably competitive and Atherton added: ‘I try and instill a competitive approach before every Test match. We have been inconsistent in recent years, we need greater consistency and more penetration to win games.’England need to win the next, at The Oval, to square the series and Atherton said: ‘Most of our better performances have come on bouncy wickets, we have played fairly well at The Oval in recent years.’Atherton was pleased with both Phil Tufnell’s bowling and Graeme Hick’s batting yesterday. ‘Graeme played very well, it was exactly what we wanted in the circumstances,’ he said.