Marc aims at Great repeat

GREAT NORTH RUN

BRITAIN’S Marc Scott (above) will be defending his Great North Run title for the first time today.

Prior to Scott’s triumph last year, the men’s elite race had been won since 2014 by Mo Farah, apart from when it was cancelled due to Covid.

Ethiopian Olympic 10,000m champion Selemon Barega and Uganda’s Jacob Kiplimo, the worldrecord holder and reigning world half-marathon champion, are competing in this year’s race.

A total of 60,000 people have entered the 41st running of the world’s biggest half-marathon.

The organisers said: “The thousands of runners are expected to raise an estimated £25million in charitable donations – that will be a fitting tribute to the Queen, who lived her life in service to the country and its people.”

CYCLING

REMCO EVENEPOEL is poised to win the Vuelta a Espana after retaining his overall lead on stage 20. The Belgian (below) finished two seconds behind Enric Mas, his main rival, to lead by two minutes and five seconds ahead of today’s processional final stage of the race into Madrid. SUPERBIKES BY ZOE BURN BRAD RAY powered to the first Bennetts British Superbike race win of the weekend as he led a Yamaha top three at Snetterton.

The Rich Energy OMG Yamaha rider pipped reigning champion Taz Mackenzie by 2.437secs in yesterday’s sprint race, with Ray’s team-mate Kyle Ryde third.

Ray said: “I’ve had really good pace all weekend. We haven’t had a lot of dry track-time but the bike’s feeling unbelievable in the dry.”

BRITISH WORLD SUPERBIKES BY ZOE BURN

ALVARO BAUTISTA beat Brit Scott Redding to the first World Superbike race win of the weekend at Magny Cours as the Spaniard’s two title challengers crashed out.

The Aruba Ducati rider beat Redding’s BMW by 4.079secs at the French track, as both Jonathan Rea and Toprak Razgatlioglu tipped off in separate incidents.