Exclusives

Former Italy striker Mario Balotelli was booked for complaining to the referee about alleged racist chants as his Nice side lost to Dijon. The ex-Manchester City and Liverpool forward was unhappy with the reaction from the home fans when he missed a shot in the 72nd minute, gesturing to the Dijon supporters to be quiet.

Abraham Kiprotich, a Ugandan-born French long-distance runner has won the Access Bank Lagos City Marathon 2018 arriving at the finishing line with a record time of 2hrs 8mins. Kiprotich will take home the $50,000 prize money, joining Abraham Kipton who won the race in 2017 in the record book of winners of Access Bank Lagos City Marathon. Herpha Guta of Ethiopia also won the women’s edition of the race finishing in 2hrs 38mins.

President Muhammadu Buhari has extended his best wishes to Team Nigeria as they begin their epoch-making representation of the country in the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang, South Korea. He commended the women’s bobsleigh team made up of Seun Adigun, Ngozi Onwumere and Akuoma Omeoga for making history by being the first African bobsleigh team to participate in the Winter Olympics in that category.

Nigerian sprinter Divine Odudury is making waves in the American NCAA circuit since the beginning of the year and exactly a week ago, while competing for his school at the Texas Tech Open meet, Oduduru stormed to a Personal Best (PB) of 20.18s in only his second 200m race at an indoor meet! Not only is his time the fastest over the distance in the world this year, it is also a Nigerian Indoor Record as he eclipsed Francis Obikwelu’s former record of 20.46s set in 1999.

Manchester United manager, Jose Mourihno has debunked claims that there is a rift between him and midfielder, Paul Pogba regarding his position on the field of play. Speaking exclusively to Sky Sports, Jose Mourinho said he and Paul Pogba are in agreement that the club's record signing is best deployed as a midfielder, stressing that it would be difficult to find any midfielders with the potential of Pogba - despite having left him out of the team last weekend.

Greece, Ghana and Nigeria are to make first appearance during the opening parade at the 2018 winter Olympics. That’s because the Korean alphabet, known as Hangeul, starts with a sound similar to a “g” in English, followed by a sound close to an “n”.

Olympic teams always enter after Greece, birthplace of the modern Games, and then in alphabetical order according to their names in the host nation’s language, which has usually been Roman script.

Invented by a Korean king, Sejong the Great, as an alternative to complicated Chinese characters, Hangeul is a 600-year-old writing system used in both North and South Korea.