Early Sports Chat for 6 June 2025
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RNZ News
18 minutes ago
- RNZ News
Warriors match first major sports game to be mainly solar powered
The Warriors play at Go Media Stadium on Saturday night. Photo: Shane Wenzlick / Saturday night's Warriors match is the first major sports game in New Zealand to be primarily solar powered. An enormous array of solar panels on the roof of Auckland's Go Media Stadium are estimated to cut the facility's energy costs by $150,000 annually, and their first major stress test would be at the sold out match between the Warriors and Titans. Auckland Stadiums director James Parkinson said the panels had been soaking up the winter sun and would provide most of the stadium's electricity. "We've got the solar panels on the roofs of both the east and west ends of Go Media Stadium, and in total there's over 1600 panels up there," he said. "It's a significant installation and they can power over 60 percent of our annual energy needs." Parkinson noted the array of solar panels was unlike any other stadium in New Zealand, and gave the Australians a run for their money. "We believe this is the first of its kind in terms of a stadium in New Zealand, and even in an Australasian context our understanding is the scale of the installation we have here in significant relative to what exists elsewhere." And he said the cost would be recouped quickly. "The modelling that was done suggested a payback period of between six and eight years, and the early data that we're getting suggests it could even be shorter than that," he said. "There's that financial benefit that sits right alongside the environmental sustainability benefits as well."
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Swimming: Canadian teen Summer McIntosh takes aim at Katie Ledecky's throne
Photo: AFP Canadian teen sensation Summer McIntosh is coming for American legend Katie Ledecky's crown as the swimming portion of the World Aquatics Championships kicks off in Singapore on Sunday, marking a tantalising new chapter of their rivalry. Ledecky has kept a tight grip on the 800 metres freestyle, winning four Olympic golds and hoping to become the first swimmer to win seven world titles in a single event when she takes on the distance in Singapore. In May, she shattered her own world record, bettering the mark she set nine years previous. "I've always approached each race with a mindset that something like that could happen," Ledecky told the outlet SwimSwam after the race. "Even as that didn't happen for many, many years, I still maintain that approach." Only the 18-year-old McIntosh appears capable of standing in her path at worlds. She came within two seconds of the 28-year-old American's mark last month, signalling the chance that fans could soon see a changing of the guard. She famously ended Ledecky's 13-year unbeaten streak in the event in 2024, when she bested the American by nearly six seconds at a sectionals meeting in Orlando, Florida. "Anytime I get to race Katie, it's a learning experience and it's always a good race," she told reporters this month. "We bring the best out of each other." McIntosh completed one of the greatest weeks in swimming history with a hat-trick of world records in June, becoming the first to break three different individual long-course records in one meet since American Michael Phelps in 2008. She broke the world marks in the 200m and 400m individual medleys, as well as the 400m freestyle, another event where she will face off against Ledecky in Singapore. The 400m is one of the first events on the programme and also features New Zealander Erika Fairweather - a gold medallist last year in Doha when she clocked a national record time, although her main rivals weren't competing. Dunedin swimmer Erika Fairweather Photo: Simon Watts BW Media McIntosh and Ledecky finished second and third on the podium, respectively, in the 400m at the Paris Olympic Games, behind Australian Ariarne Titmus, who is not competing at worlds. McIntosh's goal in Singapore is to become the first since Phelps in 2007 to win five solo golds at a single World Aquatics Championships, with the 200m butterfly, 200m medley and 400m freestyle also on her agenda. She hopes to compete in five individual events at the Los Angeles 2028 Games, as well. "I'm trying to see this new challenge and see if I can do five events individually and how well I can do in them and how I can manage it... doing that run through now, three years out, is definitely something that will give me lots of confidence," she said. Leon Marchand will be swimming a reduced programme but the home hero of last year's Paris Olympics still intends to make a splash at the world championships. Leon Marchand from France wins the final of the men's 400m individual medley at the Paris Olympics. Photo: photosport A year on from those Games, Europe's standout swimmer has dropped two of his four Olympic gold medal events to focus on the 200 and 400 metres individual medley (IM) with some possible relay action. With the next Los Angeles Games still three years away, the 23-year-old can take the luxury of racing the 200m without restraint. Having no races immediately before or after on the same day, the Frenchman can push to the limit and that could mean fireworks. As the swimmer's France-based coach Nicolas Castel observed this week, Marchand wanted to "see what he was capable of". The world already has a good idea of that: Last November Marchand broke the 200 IM short-course world record at a meet in Singapore and he can become a three-times world champion in the 200 and 400 IM after golds in both in 2022 and 2023. The 200 IM long course world record of 1:54.00 was set by American Ryan Lochte at the 2011 championships in Shanghai and Marchand clocked 1:54.06 in Paris. The Frenchman has held the 400 IM world record of 4:02.50 since the 2023 Fukuoka worlds in Japan and can become the first man to hold both at the same time since U.S. great Michael Phelps. Olympic champions David Popovici (200m freestyle) of Romania, Ireland's Daniel Wiffen (800m freestyle), Germany's Lukas Maertens (400m freestyle) and Italian Thomas Ceccon (100m backstroke) will also be chasing more gold. Wiffen, reigning world champion in the 800 and 1500 freestyle, has said he wants Zhang Lin's 800m world record of 7:32.12 that was set in the era of now-banned super-suits in Rome in 2009 and is considered by many to be out of reach now. - Reuters
RNZ News
2 hours ago
- RNZ News
Top US Justice official meets with Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell for 2nd day
By Selim Saheb Ettaba , Reuters Ghislaine Maxwell at an event in New York in September 2013. Photo: AFP / Getty Images The US Justice Department's deputy chief met on Friday (US time) for a second day with Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned accomplice of late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, whose infamous case has dragged President Donald Trump into a political firestorm. Todd Blanche, the DOJ number two who is also Trump's former personal attorney, has declined for now to say what he is discussing with Maxwell in their Tallahassee, Florida meetings. Maxwell's lawyer David Markus has similarly declined to give details on the meetings' content, but said after a first hours-long session on Thursday that his client had answered every question. Trump is looking to quickly move past the saga, which has seen him on a rare unsure footing over claims his administration mishandled a review of the notorious case. On Friday, Trump again sought to put distance between himself and Epstein , the disgraced financier who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges. "I have nothing to do with the guy," Trump, whose past friendship with Epstein has received much media attention this week, told reporters ahead of a visit to Scotland. He urged journalists to rather "focus" on Democratic Party figures like former president Bill Clinton and his treasury secretary, former Harvard president Larry Summers, whom the president claimed were "really close friends" of Epstein. Asked whether he was considering a pardon or commutation of Maxwell's 20-year prison sentence for sex trafficking, Trump said it was something "I haven't thought about" - but stressed he had the power to do so. Epstein's death in his New York prison cell was ruled a suicide, but it fuelled conspiracy theories that he was murdered to stop him testifying against high-profile accomplices. Trump, who had promised his base revelations about the case, has infuriated some of his supporters after his administration announced in early July that it had not discovered any new elements warranting the release of additional documents. The Department of Justice and the FBI said there was no proof that there was a "list" of Epstein's clients, while affirming that he died by suicide. Blanche and his team entered the Tallahassee courthouse where they were meeting Maxwell through a back door, US media reported. Maxwell's lawyer Markus spoke briefly to journalists ahead of his client's renewed questioning by Blanche. "Ghislaine has been treated unfairly for over five years now," he said, describing Maxwell as a "scapegoat." "Everything she says can be corroborated and she's telling the truth. She's got no reason to lie at this point and she's going to keep telling the truth," he added, declining to give any details about the questions being put to Maxwell. Maxwell was convicted in 2022 for grooming underage girls between 1994 and 2004 so that Epstein could sexually exploit them. "The Department of Justice will share additional information about what we learned at the appropriate time," Blanche wrote on X Thursday. The Wall Street Journal reported on Wednesday that the president's name was among hundreds found during a DOJ review of the so-called "Epstein files," though there has not been evidence of wrongdoing. Trump filed a US$10 billion (NZ$16.6b) defamation suit against the Journal last week after it reported that he had penned a sexually suggestive letter to Epstein for his 50th birthday in 2003. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson cut short the legislative session this week, sending lawmakers home on summer recess a day early to avoid potentially combustible debate - particularly among Trump's Republicans - on the release of the files. -AFP
