Penulis: Agus S

Northern Ireland has always seen high levels of violence against women and girls. Blaming migrants is a useful way to distract from that

In 1972, loyalist paramilitaries fired bullets into the home of aCatholic woman, Sarah McClenaghan. That night she was at home with her lodger, a Protestant, and her disabled teenage son, David. After forcing her son to get his mother’s rosary beads, proving that she was Catholic, a loyalist paramilitary raped Sarah. David was tortured. The gang then shot them both, David dying of his wounds.

I thought about David and Sarah as I watched rolling news of thepogroms in Ballymena. I thought about them in light of the lie that violence against women and girls has been imported to Northern Ireland via migrants or asylum seekers. It’s always been here.

The rioters say they are acting to drive out foreigners who pose a threat to women and girls. The irony isn’t lost on anybody with knowledge of the local area. Modern-day loyalist paramilitaries are reportedly involved with the violence. In the Belfast Telegraph this week, journalist Allison Morris reported that members of theSouth East Antrim Ulster Defence Association are among the rioters. “The organisation,” she writes, “has been regularly named by our sister paper, the Sunday Life, as protecting sex offenders.” Morris regularly faces death threats for her brave reporting.

The riots in Ballymena are about racism and nothing more. Hatred smothers every brick and petrol bomb thrown. Nobody causing trouble cares about women or children. There are no legitimate concerns at the heart of this. Local Facebook groups with links to the far right are asking for addresses to hit – Roma people are the main target of their ire. Flyers posted around towns and cities call for people to take a stand to protect “our women” and “our Christian values”.

The trigger for the violence in Ballymena was the trauma and pain of a local family. Earlier in the week, two 14-year-old boyswere arrested and chargedwith the attempted rape of a young girl. Romanian interpreters were required at court.

After the arrests, the alleged victim’s family asked for support and solidarity from their local community. Hundreds did so, peacefully protesting to show the family that they weren’t alone. Then came the violence. The chief constable of the Police Service ofNorthern Ireland(PSNI) said the victim of the alleged assault has been “further traumatised” by the rioting. Her family have publicly called for the violence to stop.

Women have never been safe in Northern Ireland. Generations bore the weight of the Troubles, running households and raising children with absent husbands. Hundreds were murdered in the conflict. During the peace talks that led to the Good Friday agreement, theWomen’s Coalition, a political party, described the 30-year conflict as an “armed patriarchy”.

Northern Ireland isn’t a place where women and girls are cherished. The PSNI recorded4,090 sexual offences in Northern Irelandin 2023-24.Twenty-five women have been killedin five years, mostly by white men from Northern Ireland.

I knew one of them: Natalie McNally. We used to be mates. She last contacted me to ask about the home-buying process (I used to be a conveyancing solicitor). Natalie was buying her first house and the process was dragging on. She was killed in that same house in December 2022, her 15-week-old son in her belly. I was holding my own four-week-old son when I learned that she was dead. The trial isdue to take place in November, with the accused previously indicating that he is pleading not guilty.

Well, some say, if we have lots of homegrown criminals, we don’t need more. This is, again, another racist argument, an age-old trope that non-white men are sexual deviants. The problem is men, full stop. In every country in the world, in every community and every faith, people hate women. Misogyny doesn’t respect borders. Fascists want to talk about foreign men to distract from their own disgusting behaviour.

Immigration concerns have featured heavily in the news. Because of the Troubles, Northern Ireland always had low levels of migration. That has changed in recent years. Net migrationreached its highest levels in 15 yearsin 2024. No doubt this has changed certain areas and proved alienating for local people and migrants alike. However, according to a Northern Ireland assembly report, Northern Ireland is still theleast diverse region of the UK. Only 3.4% of people are from a minority ethnic group, compared to 18.3% in England.

Before migrant numbers rose, Northern Ireland’s public services were on their knees. The health service has all but collapsed. The housing system is under considerable strain, we don’t have enough housing to meet demand and rents have risen to unaffordable levels.

People have migrated into this mess. It would be churlish to deny that higher numbers have put pressure on the system. But it’s a flat-out lie to blame migrants and refugees for this country’s ills. Migrants didn’t decimate the NHS. Refugees didn’t underfund social housing and homeless services. Local and nationalpoliticians did that. They are doing very little to fix the systems that broke under their watch. It’s easier to blame people working as Deliveroo drivers.

Northern Ireland needs to tackle its fondness for racism and xenophobia. Racially motivated hate crime is at its highest level since records began. It affects every community, Catholic and Protestant. You can’t “legitimate concern” your way through a pogrom and doing so only validates hatred.

If women in Northern Ireland rioted every time one of us was attacked, the country would lie in ashes.

Sarah Creighton is a lawyer, writer and political commentator from Northern Ireland

His ostentatious birthday parade is his latest reimagining of America’s past. He’d do well to remember that pride must be rooted in honesty

David Reynolds is the author of Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him

Today the US army will parade in style along the National Mall in Washington DC to celebrate its 250th anniversary. This also just happens to be the 79th birthday of President Donald J Trump. As commander-in-chief, he will take the salute from a viewing platform on Constitution Avenue.

But this is not a mere vanity project, as some critics have claimed. History really matters to the US’s 47th president. One of Trump’s last acts before reluctantly leaving the White House in January 2021 was topublish a reportby his “1776 Commission”, created to “restore understanding of the greatness of the American Founding”. Deliberately, the commissioners included few university historians because universities were described as often being “hotbeds of anti-Americanism, libel, and censorship that combine to generate in students and in the broader culture at the very least disdain and at worst outright hatred for this country”.

The 1776 Commission demanded a return to truly “patriotic education”, declaring: “We must resolve to teach future generations of Americans an accurate history of our country so that we all learn and cherish our founding principles once again. We must renew the pride and gratitude we have for this incredible nation that we are blessed to call home.”

In this spirit, on 2 May this year,the president postedthat he was renaming 8 May and 11 November respectively as “Victory Day for World War II and Victory Day for World War I” because “we won both Wars, nobody was close to us in terms of strength, bravery, or military brilliance”, and it was time for the US to “start celebrating our victories again!”

The parade on 14 June is also intended to raise the curtain on a spectacular nationwide celebration of the 250th anniversary of US independence, extending right across the country and culminating on 4 July 2026. According tothe White House website, one feature will be a video history series that “tells the remarkable story of American Independence. It will highlight the stories of the crucial characters and events that resulted in a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world and establishing the greatest republic ever to exist.”

History on parade, indeed. As is often the case, Trump does start with a valid point. After he witnessed the extravaganzaof Bastille Day in 2017, where French and American troops marched down the Champs-Élysées to celebrate the centenary of the US’s entry into the first world war, he was determined to stage a parade of his own. So what’s wrong with that? Shouldn’t countries be proud of their past?

OK (if you don’t mind the cost). But pride should be rooted in honesty, especially when Nato in Europe is engaged in a proxy war in Ukraine against Vladimir Putin, a systematic falsifier of history. And if we’re trying to be honest, world wars aren’t like the World Series with one country trumping all the others and winning almost single-handedly.

Take the second world war. On 3 May this year, former Russian president Dmitry Medvedevdismissed Trump’s claimsas “pretentious nonsense”, asserting that “Victory Day is ours and it is 9 May. So it was, so it is, so it will always be!” Medvedev is now an obedient Putinist, but he and other Russians rightly point to their huge losses in 1941-45 – roughly 27 million people. Stated differently, in the three years from June 1941 to June 1944, between Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union and the D-day landings in Normandy, more than 90% of the German army’s battle casualties (killed, wounded, missing and prisoners) were inflicted by the Red Army. That puts Alamein and Tunis, Anzio and the liberation of Rome into a different perspective.

Yet Americans can rightly say that they were in a league of their own as a “superpower” – a word coined in 1944 to signify “great power and great mobility of power”. Their huge C-47 transport planes and the B-17 and B-24 bombers allowed the US to wage war right across the world. Their modern fleets of aircraft carriers, built to avenge Pearl Harbor, island-hopped across the Pacific to Japan itself. The Pacific war ended with the firebombing of Tokyo and the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Or consider the speed of the remarkable breakout from Normandy that enabled allied armies to liberate Brussels on 3 September 1944, occupying positions they had not expected to reach until May 1945. When an astonished Winston Churchill asked how the GIs were being fed and supplied, US general Omar Bradley said he was running trucks up to the front “bumper to bumper, 24 hours a day”. Ford delivered the goods.

But Britain also played a crucial part in victory. Had our embattled island gone the same way as Scandinavia, France and the Low Countries in the summer of 1940, Hitler would have thrown all his resources against the Soviet Union, while Roosevelt’s US would probably have turned in on itself and concentrated on defending the western hemisphere. Instead, a combination of Churchillian leadership, modern fighters linked to the new Chain Home system of radar and the courage of the RAF pilots managed to keep Hitler at bay. Eventually, Britain became the essential supply base and launchpad for the liberation of Hitler’s Fortress Europe.

And so in 1944-45, the allied armies converged on Germany from east, west and south. Of course, it was an unholy alliance, animated by divergent aims and values. But the extermination of nazism was a goal all the allies shared.

With this in mind, let’s glance back to the US’s most important victory: independence. Yes, this was in large measure a David v Goliath story of “a small rag-tag army defeating the mightiest empire in the world”. The US’s independence was indeed testimony to George Washington’s leadership and his troops’ courage and resilience (reinforced by his insistence on inoculation against the smallpox epidemic). But this wasalso a world waras the British empire battled against its global foes. Crucially, by the 1780s Britain lost naval supremacy because (unusually) three rival seapowers had combined against it: France, Spain and the Dutch. It was blockade by the French fleet that forced Lord Cornwallis’s historic surrender at Yorktown in 1781 and British acceptance of American independence.

The purpose of historical research is to set events in context, not to boost national pride. The story of the US’s founding, like that of Hitler’s defeat, reminds us that allies matter – in the past, the present and the future. That should not be forgotten when history goes on parade.

David Reynolds’s most recent book is Mirrors of Greatness: Churchill and the leaders who shaped him. He co-hosts the Creating History podcast

War is the prime minister’s doctrine. Israel’s strikes on Iran – falsely described as pre-emptive – are the latest example

Benjamin Netanyahumust be stopped. The Israeli prime minister’s lust for war as a solution to his myriad problems is nothing short of a threat to us all, one that extends far beyond Israel’s neighbors. Netanyahu knows no other way. War is his doctrine. War is his reflex. War is his answer. He believes the power of war will unite Israeli society and will stifle any American criticism of him, necessary since the machinery he needs to make his wars comes mostly from Washington. And, with his aggression against Iran, he seeks to drag the United States further into another endless military quagmire in the region and light the world on fire.

Early on Friday morning, Israel launched a series of unprovoked strikes against Iran, targeting Iran’s nuclear energy facilities, its top scientists, its military commanders, and parts of its military and civilian infrastructure. Television imagesshowa residential building in Tehran damaged by what looks like a missile attack. Iran, which has not suffered an assault this severe since its war with Iraq in the 1980s, isreportingat least 70 people killed and 320 injured thus far. Meanwhile, Israel’sgenocidal campaign in Gazacontinues out of the public eye, as aninternet blackouthalted most aid operations.

Netanyahu argues that the Israeli attack on Iran was a “pre-emptive strike” against a clandestine nuclear weapons program. But that’s simply a lie. A “pre-emptive” strike requires an imminent threat of invasion or military force. Iran was not imminently about to attack Israel, with or without a nuclear weapon. What Israel engaged in last night was better described by its defense minister as a “preventive” strike against an opponent’s infrastructure.

Regardless of what you think about Iran’s nuclear energy program, about the status ofnegotiationswith the United States regarding its nuclear program, or about recentpressurethe International Atomic Energy Agency has brought on Iran, a preventive strike by Israel against a sovereign nation is a blatant act of aggression. It is fundamentally illegal under international law and will further erode the prospect of sovereign states living in peace and security with each other.

Iran has long claimed that it is only pursuing a civilian nuclear energy program and has no ambition to make a nuclear weapon. That might also be a lie, but who would blame them for wanting such a deterrent now? It’s widelyunderstoodthat North Korea’s nuclear arsenal effectively functions as a deterrent against an American attack, after all.

Israel, which isbelievedto have about 90 nuclear warheads and enough plutonium for many more,refusesto sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the only country in the region to do so. That refusal has also made thelong desired goalof a nuclear-free Middle East impossible.

And anyway, there’s always been something deeply racist about which country is or is not permitted to develop nuclear weapons. In a briefingpaper, the Nobel prize-winning International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons states that “racism is ingrained in nuclear weapons history and doctrine”, and that non-western states are regarded “as ‘irrational’, ‘emotional’ and somehow ‘less capable’ of negotiating a Treaty than Western governments”. Let’s remember that the United States is the only country to use a nuclear weapon. Twice. As the briefing paperpointsout, the US “public widely supported the bombing partly due to anti-Japanese racism, depicting Japanese people in subhuman terms, in some cases fit for extermination”.

Netanyahu needs his external enemies to survive his internal divisions. A day before launching this aggression on Iran, his coalition barely survived a vote to dissolve parliament. (The issue driving the vote was the compulsory military service of ultra-Orthodox men.) As war with Iran has now become a very real possibility, talks about his fragile coalition will recede. This is the same Netanyahu whopropped up Hamas for yearsto thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state. This is the same Netanyahu whobroke the ceasefirein Gaza in March of this year. This is the same Netanyahu who, in the latest negotiations about a ceasefire in Gaza, reportedlywon’t even agree to Hamas relinquishing power in Gaza, so dependent is he on creating and maintaining external enemies for his own survival.

Where are the European leaders now? Will Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron, and Friedrich Merz stand up to Netanyahu and Trump? Will they use some real power to reject Netanyahu’s warmaking barbarism, based as it is on naked domination, supremacy, violence and conquest, or will we hear only vague and useless platitudes about “restraint” after the fact? Western European leaders constantly talk about how much they value peace, justice, equality and the rule of law. Now is the time to put those words into practice.

Moustafa Bayoumi is a Guardian US columnist

As attendances at other meetings decline, the monarch’s presence makes Ascot a soft power asset for Britain

Ascot will mark the 200th anniversary of the first Royal procession at its showpiece race meeting next week. The intermittent noise of jets on the final approach to Heathrow will be one of the few deviations from the sights and sounds when George IV first trundled his way up the course in 1825. The king and queen will ride in the first of the horse-drawn carriages, their liveried attendants will be upright in the saddle and, as they pass the Royal enclosure, the gentlemen’s top hats will be doffed in the familiar mark of respect.

There is little else, in sport or the wider world beyond, that remains just as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Napoleonic wars. Demand for the Royal Ascot experience also remains strong. After a post-Covid surge, attendances are indecline at both the Derbyand Cheltenham’s festival meeting in March. At Royal Ascot 2024, though, the year-on-year crowd numbers were up.

The meeting’s most significant racegoer, meanwhile, has been present at (almost) every opportunity since his accession to the throne in 2022. The King attended all five days in 2023, when Desert Hero, a horse bred by his mother, carried the royal colours to victory in the King George V Handicap, and four days in 2024, missing only the Wednesday card when the Prince of Wales was there to present the prize for the feature race – the Prince of Wales’s Stakes.

So the more pessimistic predictions of a steady decline, and perhaps even the end, for the crown’s association with Ascot – and, by extension, the sport of kings as a whole – after the death of Elizabeth II have proved to be unfounded. Charles III is the ninth reigning monarch to ride in the Royal procession, and the 10th to sit on the throne since the meeting was effectively established with the first running of the Gold Cup in 1807.

“People tend to forget that there was aRoyal Ascotbefore Queen Elizabeth II,” Nick Smith, the track’s director of racing and public affairs, said on Friday, “and the level of interest from monarchs will vary. It’s well known that Queen Victoria didn’t go to Royal Ascot for most of the latter part of her life, when she was in mourning for her husband.

“All monarchs past and present would come to Royal Ascot with varying degrees of focus on various elements of what they’re going to see. With Queen Elizabeth II it was primarily about the horses, but if anything, it’s a wider set of interests for the current King and Queen. For instance, there’s an exhibition this year around the Queen’s Reading Room, which is a charity very close to the Queen’s heart.”

While the royal presence is a key ingredient of the meeting, it is not, in other words, a one-way street. Some monarchs focus almost entirely on the racing, others appreciate the social, cultural and economic benefits attached, including inward investment by the owners whose arrival in Berkshire each year creates a version of Davos for sovereign wealth.

“Royal Ascot is one of Britain’s most powerful soft power assets,” Smith says. “It is a major promotion of the British summertime overseas, and a major promotion of British sport overseas. And if you’re getting presented with a trophy by the King and Queen, you can’t replicate that experience and that means an awful lot to an awful lot of people.

“At the heart of it all, it’s the traditions that make it special. The procession is broadly unchanged in 200 years, and it’s the same with the dress codes, not just in the Royal enclosure but throughout the entire site. People who come to Royal Ascot know what they want to see and they know what they’re going to get.”

The King and Queen are expected to attend all five days of this year’s meeting, they will have a sprinkling of runners through the week and there is a real buzz in particular around Willie Mullins’s Reaching High, who is expected to line up for the Ascot Stakes at 5pm on Tuesday’s opening day.

Reaching High became the first horse owned by a reigning British monarch to be stabled in Ireland when he was sent to Mullins’s yard after Sir Michael Stoute’s retirement. But he offers a link to recent history too, as he was one of the last horses bred by Elizabeth II, and a son of Estimate, the mare whose success in the 2013 Gold Cup was the most cherished of all the late Queen’s Royal Ascot winners.

The three-year-old sprint handicap, the feature race on York’s annual Macmillan Charity card on Saturday, is always one of the strongest races of its type all season, and the fact that just two favourites have won this century is worth bearing in mind with the many and varied betting opportunities of Royal Ascot so close at hand.

This year’s favourite is Charlie Hills’s Double Rush, who was an obvious pick to head the early betting on the bare form of his two-from-two record this year. He has drawn stall 20 of 22, however, on a course where low numbers often enjoy a significant advantage, and makes no appeal at all at his latest odds of around 5-1.

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Marchogion (3.35),the cosy winner of a similar event at Newmarket last month with several of his rivals in behind, is a better option at around 7-1. He has had more racing this year than many in this field but his latest outing was only his third on turf and he has obvious scope for further progress off a 7lb higher mark.

York 1.50:Dashing Darceyis in the early stages of his career with Geoff Harker after a six-figure switch over the winter and has little to find on his latest form at Haydock to get his first win for his new stable on the board.

Sandown 2.05:Richard Hannon’sClassicis without a win for nearly two years, but that success came over seven furlongs at this track off 89 and he is now back down to a career-low mark of 87. His hold-up style can make life tricky but Ryan Moore is an eye-catching booking to ride and he has travelled like a well-handicapped horse in both of his outings this season.

York 2.25:Adrian Keatley and Jody Townend took this valuable contest for female amateur riders with Kihavah two years ago andMaghlaak,the runner-up in the same race over track and trip at the Dante meeting that Kihavah used as a springboard to success, has a clear chance to follow suit.

Sandown 2.40:The lack of a run this season is a slight concern butCoto De Cazawas all speed as a juvenile, the Simon & Ed Crisford stable remains in fine form and his winning form in last season’s Group Three Cornwallis Stakes at Newmarket is the best on offer.

Bath1.23 Wannabeawallaby 1.58 Whisperwood 2.33 Flash Harry 3.08 Sisters In The Sky 3.43 Twilight Moon 4.15 Warm Glow 4.50 Union Island

Sandown1.30 Man Of La Mancha 2.05 Classic 2.40 Coto De Caza 3.15 Cosi Bello 3.50 Wave Rider 4.25 Soho Square 5.00 Star Of Dubai 5.35 Loving Look

Chester1.35 Perineighs 2.10 Moonstone Boy 2.45 Magico 3.20 Tattie Bogle (nb) 3.55 Brave Knight 4.30 Archduke Ferdinand 5.05 Oslo

York1.50 Dashing Darcey 2.25 Maghlaak 3.00 Absurde 3.35 Marchogion (nap) 4.10 Stellar Sunrise 4.45 Garden Oasis 5.20 Sir Les Patterson

Hexham4.20 Allbetsoff 4.55 Pescatorius 5.28 Halfway House Lad 5.58 Pergamon 6.28 Miss Maverick 6.58 My Friend Yeats 7.28 Matching Energy

Uttoxeter5.40 Hope Rising 6.10 Manowest6.40 Laravie 7.10 Mr Le Philosophe 7.40 Willie Shake Hands 8.10 Another Lord 8.40 Stumps Or Slips

Leicester6.20 Sirius A 6.50 Hinitsa Bay 7.20 Kisskodi 7.50 Trojan Truth 8.20 Clipsham Noble 8.50 Beach Point

York 3.00:Absurdetravelled as well as the winner, Illinois, in the Group Three Ormonde Stakes at Chester last time and Willie Mullins’s versatile gelding will appreciate the slight drop in grade to Listed company here.

Chester 3.20:On the face of it, 14th of 14 last time out does little to advertise the chance of Charlie Johnston’sTattie Bogle,but he was racing for the second time in five days, has been given a month off since and has also drawn an ideal berth in two, given that he is the obvious front-runner in the field.

Dutch four-time world champion rose to fame as something of a scoundrel and has showed signs of reverting to type

Max Verstappen rose to fame as something of a villain. As the Formula One circuit hops back across the Atlantic for the weekend’s Canadian Grand Prix, he appears on the verge of reclaiming the role.

Like Tim Robbins’ strong-armed and hot-headed Nuke LaLoosh character in the baseball film Bull Durham, the brash Dutch phenomenon announced his presence with authority – undeniable skills and unfortunate lapses in judgment or focus. He became well acquainted with the walls of many a race circuit and earned a gentle warning from F1 management.

His ascendance to theworld championship title in 2021 at Abu Dhabiwas also controversial – some might instead say farcical, as if the rule book was tossed out of one of Abu Dhabi’s growing array of 300m-tall buildings. Race officials had no truly coherent reason for allowing some cars to “unlap” themselves while following a safety car, allowing Verstappen to start the final lap right on Lewis Hamilton’s tail, with a fresher set of tyres … and everyone knows what happened next.

Since then, though, the Dutchman’s narrative has changed. He is no longer the impudent youngster with one tarnished championship. He’s a four-time winner, following up his breakthrough by taking the 2022 and 2023 titles with dominance not seen since Michael Schumacher’s heyday in the 2000s.

But while he held off Lando Norris to winhis fourth straight title in 2024, for the past 12 months the wins haven’t been coming quite as easily. This year, he stands in third place and may be losing contact with the McLaren duo of Norris and Oscar Piastri. As his results have reverted to his late-2010s form,so has his temper. After taking out his frustration on George Russell in Spain and being demoted to 10th, he is on the precipice of a suspension, not a fifth title.

After the incident in Spain, Italian taxi drivers fought back against the accusation thatVerstappen drives like they do. Anyone who has spent time in Italian taxis would agree that being compared to a four-time F1 champion would, under most circumstances, be considered a compliment. Not now.

So Verstappen the Villain is well and truly back. Russell expressed surprise in Montreal on Thursday that the Dutchman had even offered an apology of sorts but suggested he would be unlikely to change his aggressive approach even if he did accumulate the 12 penalty points that would result in a ban. The question for F1, now and for the foreseeable future: is this a good thing? Does the sport do better when it has someone to root against as well as many drivers to root for?

Other sports benefit from having foils for the fan favorites. If a supporter’s favorite team loses, there’s always a chance the New York Yankees or Manchester United might lose as well, and there’s comfort in schadenfreude. Consider Nascar, where fans either loved or hated Dale Earnhardt’s “Intimidator” style and often distrusted Jeff Gordon because he was a smooth-talking Californian, not a rough-edged man with a southern state drawl.

Nascar also has long benefited from its unpredictability. In the modern era, champion drivers typically win no more than 25% of the races in a given season. In F1, Verstappen cruised to the 2023 title by winning 19 of 22 races.

But F1 has been doing just fine during the era of Verstappen dominance, especially in North America. The 25 May F1 race in Monaco drew the third-highest TV rating in US history, ESPN claims, with an average of 2.3 million viewers and a peak of 2.6 million. Imagine what could happen this Sunday, with F1 on a less glitzy but less predictable circuit than the traditional but tedious Monaco streets. Last year, the Canadian GP averaged a robust 1.76 million viewers in the US, ESPN reports. In Canada itself, the ratings were reported at a record 1.4 million, with 3.5 million viewers on all platforms – nearly 9% of the country’s population.

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Credit the Netflix documentary series Formula 1: Drive to Survive with showing that the people who drive and service these cars are human – or superhuman, in the case of the fiery crash from which Romain Grosjean emerged like a phoenix or a Targaryen and stunned doctor/YouTuber Dr Mike and countless others. Drivers have been shown to have delightfully quirky personalities, such that the top story on the 6.1 million-strong F1 Reddit sub on Thursday was a debate over the veracity of a photograph that may or may not show that longtime title contender Valtteri Bottas has broken a Colorado restaurant’s record by consuming 51 tacos in one hour. (A cursory check of Yelp finds a review from August 2019 confirming that the 51-taco record dates back at least that far, so at best, Bottas tied the record.)

But the biggest development this year is that the title chase is far from a foregone conclusion. The season is still young, and Verstappen’s powerhouseRed Bullteam may respond well to F1’s in-season rules adjustments. But he’s nearly 50 points off the pace set by the Australian Piastri, with Piastri’s fellow McLaren prodigy Norris a close second.

Verstappen the Villain surely is a boon for F1 fandom. But Verstappen the Vulnerable may have an even greater impact. He did set the pace in opening practice on Friday, though he fell to ninth in second practice, when Russell went quickest. Norris was second fastest second time around, with Russell’s teammate Kimi Antonelli setting the third-best time to underline Mercedes’s speed. Piastri was only sixth in second practice, with Lewis Hamilton eighth.

Charles Leclerc suffered a heavy accident after nine laps in first practice. He crashed into the barrier on the entry to turn four and sustained significant damage to the left-hand side of his Ferrari. Leclerc’s survival cell on his Ferrari needed replacing, which sidelined him for the remainder of the day.

In a stable and affluent society, it is possible to declare that ‘life is for living’ through pursuits that shorten your odds of dying

Last year I visited St Moritz’s infamous Cresta Run. You know the one – the vertiginous skeleton course that has killed a number of its participants and maimed many more. I was with a group of friends who were attempting it for the first time, and who quickly became addicted to the adrenaline fix. I stubbornly refused to even contemplate it.

It’s not just that my mates are braver than me – they are – but they’re all decent athletes, cricketers, hockey players, marathon runners and Channel swimmers. They have rapid reflexes and hand-eye coordination: I barely have a sense of where my arms and legs end. There are endless ways to hurt yourself on a crushingly heavy toboggan with razor-sharp runners that’s hurtling at 50mph between sheer walls of solid ice, and if anyone was going to slice off a finger or break their head landing upside down, it was me.

We all have different tolerances for risk. Plenty of my friends refuse to contemplate cycling, even though they know it would get them about town quicker and save them money. I don’t think twice about the dangers. But I’ve seen and experienced enough near-misses to know they have a point.

Last Saturday, the Isle of Man Senior TT race – the showcase event of the island’s annual motorbike-racing festival – was called off only six minutes before it was due to start. Gusty wind and rain made conditions tough all week; now they were causing experienced riders serious concern. The organisers heeded the warnings and scratched the blue-riband race for only the second time in its 118-year history.

That’s a pretty serious intervention for a motor sport meeting that is already considered the most dangerous on the planet. The TT races are held on the island’s regular roads and you only need to watch a few moments from one of the bikes’ onboard cameras to appreciate how terrifying it is. The trees, telephone boxes and brick walls lining the roadside may whip past like pixellated scenery but they’re all too solid, and all too close. There have been 156 competition fatalities since 1907.

It is tempting to balk at a sporting contest that has resulted in death almost every year it has been held. For those outside the motorcycling community, the acceptance of such a high toll seems not just alien but foolhardy and irresponsible. But visit the Isle of Man in TT week and you’ll soon see: no one there is glorifying danger, either in the paddock or on the sidelines. My own experience, when I spent timein the former some years ago, was of riders who could not have been more cognisant of, or serious about, the risks they were facing.

Our attitudes towards risk – in sport, as in life – aren’t fixed. Just look at how far rugby union has moved on player safety since professionalisation – changes in the scrum sequences, new laws on tackling, concussion protocols, smart mouthguards. In 1977, the England cricketer Dennis Amiss was laughed at when he took to the crease in a batting helmet. Within 25 years they were mandatory for every junior player.

If sports have sometimes celebrated the physical danger they pose that’s no surprise, given how many have their roots in combat preparation and masculine coming-of-age traditions. Ancient civilisations from Greece to China promoted martial arts. The stickball game that’s the precursor to lacrosse iscalledkapucha toliby the Choctaw, AKA “the little brother of war”.

Safety isn’t of paramount concern when you’re moulding soldiers or executing undesirables. Chariot racers hurtling around Roman circuses were often trampled by horses or dragged under their own wheels (and this was considered family entertainment, at which women were welcome). Sunday archery practice, mandatory in England from 1363, was frequently lethal, in spite of the standard warning call: “’Ware the prick!”

I learned the latter from Steven Gunn and Tomasz Gromelski’s new book,An Accidental History of Tudor England. Throwing sports were popular in the summer back then and there are records of bystanders being hurt or killed by all sorts: sledgehammers, stones, pikestaffs and plough parts. When drowning rates spiked among Cambridge undergraduates in the 16th century, the university banned swimming (a first offence earned you a public beating, a second, expulsion).

“It’s not that they’re reckless about risk,” Prof Gunn says, “but sometimes, other things seem more important.” Many of the footballing deaths he came across were accidental stabbings, because the players – working men – had nowhere safe to leave the knives they usually carried in their belts. “And if you haven’t got a knife when you get to the end of a game, how are you going to have anything to eat?”

Our own era can offer similar stories. The rapid rise of extreme sports in the 90s reflected a wider shift towards individualism, with personal freedom and self‑expression reaching an ecstatic apotheosis in their dopamine hits and adrenaline-fuelled highs. In a stable and affluent society, it is possible to declare that “life is for living” through pursuits that shorten your odds of dying.

Motor sport has always been dangerous (motorbike racing especially so – the tragic deaths oftwo British Superbike riders at Oulton Parkin May were another reminder of that). But attitudes towards acceptable risk have changed even there, as the post-Senna history of F1 demonstrates. And in recent years many measures have been taken to make the TT event safer – especially after 2022, when it endured its joint-deadliest year.

The past two years have witnessed no fatalities, despite several bad crashes last week and one rider remaining in hospital in a serious condition. Does the scratching of the Senior TT indicate that attitudes to acceptable risk are changing even on the Isle of Man?

By sheer coincidence, I found myself at a reunion for our Cresta Run trip last week, surrounded by dozens of people who had thrown themselves down the icy terror and lived to tell the tale. There was a bond there that I would never share, forged by the dangers that people had knowingly undertaken together. I couldn’t make their choices, but I can still admire them.

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We open with what will surely be the finale at Lord’s on day four. South Africa are 213-2 in their second innings, needing 69 more to win, after a wonderful partnership between Aiden Markram and an injured Temba Bavuma. Join Geoff Lemon on our over-by-over report, before he joins Ali Martin, Andy Bull and Simon Burnton to review all of the action.

Bath are aiming to roll back the years by claiming their first league title since 1996 against another of the game’s storied clubs at Twickenham. Under Johann van Graan the regular-season table-toppers have already enjoyed a bumper season, claiming silverware in the Premiership Rugby Cup in February and European Challenge Cup last month. What chance a treble 12 months on from their 25-21 final defeat by Northampton? Staging something of a grand farewell party are Tigers, who have a host of key figures bidding a last hurrah: Ben Youngs, Dan Cole, Mike Brown, Julián Montoya, Handré Pollard and the head coach, Michael Cheika, all bow out after the final – and signing off with English rugby’s prime silverware would be quite the sendoff. Your live host Lee Calvert keeps the updates flowing while Robert Kitson and Michael Aylwin report from a sold-out Twickenham.

Saturday’s first semi-final will see Germany’s 37-year-old Tatjana Maria take on second seed Madison Keys, while Chinese first-seed Qinwen Zheng will play American Amanda Anisimova. Sean Ingle is our reporter courtside in west London.

Nine years ago, the last time Oakmont hosted the US Open, Scottie Scheffler was a 19-year-old amateur when he made an opening 69. Although he went on to miss the cut in 2016, the American world No 1 is back as a heavy favourite to win back-to-back major titles following his US PGA Championship triumph. That would give Scheffler the third leg of a career grand slam and he would join a list of Oakmont winners which includes Gene Sarazen, Sam Snead, Ben Hogan, Jack Nicklaus and Ernie Els. Scott Murray keeps you updated with rolling coverage of the third round while Ewan Murray reports from Pennsylvania.

Max Verstappen will have to keep out of trouble as he chases an unprecedented fourth Canadian Grand Prix win in succession, with only a penalty point between the defending champion and a race ban. The Red Bull driver has won for the past three years in Montreal, the last time after starting alongside Mercedes’s pole-sitter, George Russell – the same rival he clashed with two weekends ago – in a qualifying draw. How Verstappen will respond is an open question but others are sure to want to take whatever advantage they can of the situation at a circuit famed also for changeable weather. Yara El-Shaboury keeps track of the action with our rolling blog.

Alexander Abnos is your host as Fifa’s billion-dollar global club tournament gets under way in Miami. Thirty-two teams take part, with the matches staged across 11 cities in the United States, the month-long event involves the English clubs Chelsea and Manchester City. Inter Miami’s involvement rests on their winning the MLS Supporters’ Shield for the best performance in the regular season, even though LA Galaxy went on to win the actual MLS playoffs and were left out. That meant organisers could shoe-horn in the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner Lionel Messi as well as Luis Suárez, Sergio Busquets and Jordi Alba. Barney Ronay reports from the Hard Rock Stadium.

Lee Carsley is confident there is more to come from his young squad after the holders opened their campaign with a 3-1 win over the Czech Republic. They next face Slovenia in Nitra, before their last group fixture against Germany. “I definitely expect us to keep improving, the longer we can stay in the tournament,” says Carsley, who had seen his side fail to pick up victories in their last two warm-up matches against the Netherlands and Spain, alongside a 5-3 defeat by France in March. Rob Smyth helms our minute-by-minute coverage.

Scott Murray returns to provide expert commentary on the closing stages at Oakmont where many of the big names have struggled. The tournament will come to the boil at a venue with a history of dramatic finishes, including Dustin Johnson’s fraught finale in 2016, Ernie Els’s three-way tussle in 1994 and Johnny Miller’s barnstorming surge to victory in 1973.

Of the 32 clubs at the men’s Club World Cup, Palmeiras have the only female president, a billionaire businesswoman who pulls no punches

“People think women are the weaker sex, and we’re not. I fight back. If they hit me, I hit back – but much harder. The way I hit back is by continuing to work and by showcasing Palmeiras’s work.”

Leila Pereira is in full flow as she sits in the Palmeiras president’s office in São Paulo. In the 110-year history of a club founded by Italian working-class immigrants, she is the first woman to hold the post. The male dominance of global football is laid bare once again when you look at the lineup for the revampedClub World Cupin the US: of the 32 participating clubs, representing six continents, Pereira is the only female president.

“It brings two emotions,” she says. “On one hand, I’m thrilled. On the other, I wish there were more women in football. My joy and my hope are that by seeing me in this position, other women are inspired to pursue their own space in football. This didn’t fall into my lap. It took years and I had to overcome many challenges to get here. It’s no use calling someone an inspiration if you’re not prepared to roll up your sleeves and fight for what you want.”

Since being elected president in December 2021, Pereira has emerged as one of the most influential figures in Brazilian football – a world still fraught with political manoeuvring behind the scenes. Her reach extends well beyond Palmeiras. Last year she became the first woman to lead the Brazil men’s national team delegation, during their European friendlies against Spainand England– a role appointed directly by the Brazilian football confederation’s president. While largely symbolic, the appointment underscored her rising influence within the game and in the notoriously political Brazilian confederation.

She has never been afraid to show a firm hand – even when it involves a Palmeiras hero. In June last year, Dudu, the club’s joint-most decorated player with 12 titles, sought a move to Cruzeiro after struggling for game time following a lengthy recovery from a cruciate ligament injury. Having agreed terms, he then reversed his decision, prompting Pereira to publicly call on him to “honour his commitment” to the Belo Horizonte club. Although Dudu stayed until December, the situation soured. It culminated in what Pereira described as a departure “through the back door”. Dudu responded on Instagram with abuse.

Pereira feels he would not have responded in the same way to a man. “Why do you think he acted that way? No doubt, because I’m a woman. He felt free to be rude.” She has filed a lawsuit against him seeking “no less than R$500,000 [£67,000]” in damages. Within five months, Dudu had joined Cruzeiro’s rivals Atlético Mineiro, citing a lack of playing time.

A billionaire businesswoman, Pereira was ranked fourth in Forbes’ 2023 list of the richest women in Brazil, with a fortune then estimated at R$8bn. But her wealth wasn’t made in football. Until 2015, her main focus was chairing a financial company specialising in high-interest personal loans to mainly lower-income individuals, founded by her husband, Roberto Lamacchia, and serving as rector of a university centre also owned by the couple.

Born in Cambuci, Rio de Janeiro, she was raised in Cabo Frio, another municipality in the same state, by her father, a doctor, and her mother, a housewife. The middle child between two brothers, she had little interest in football, despite growing up in a family of diehard Vasco da Gama fans. While her brothers went for kickabouts, she played with dolls.

Palmeiras entered her life at 18, when she met her future husband. At the time, she was studying journalism at a university in Rio de Janeiro. After two years working as a trainee at TV Manchete, she decided to switch paths and study law. “I always had this strong desire to be independent,” she says. “And that’s why everything I do today is rooted in this personal drive. I’ve always had this feminist streak, even before I knew what feminism really meant.”

Her rapid rise to the top of Palmeiras’s hierarchy has drawn scrutiny. Her professional relationship with the club began in January 2015, when Palmeiras were short on cash, without a permanent shirt sponsor and having avoided relegation on the final day of the previous season. She suggested her husband’s company should sponsor the club he loves as a way to lift his spirits after a period of ill health. And that is what happened.

Over a decade-long partnership, Palmeiras rose to the summit of Brazilian football as the dominant team, winning 14 major titles, including back-to-back Copa Libertadores, four league championships and two Brazilian Cups. This golden era spanned three club presidents: Paulo Nobre, Maurício Galiotte and Pereira herself.

Her tenure as both club president and principal sponsor between 2021 and 2024, however, was not without controversy, with critics raising concerns over potential conflicts of interest – allegations she firmly denies. Since January, her company has stepped away from its sponsorship role, with the club now backed by a different company.

Her current term runs until 2027 and Palmeiras are in far better shape than many of their rivals. Last year, the club posted record revenues of R$1.2bn, over a third of which came from selling academy-developed talent.

A decade ago, Palmeiras’s youth system was largely unremarkable. Now it leads the field. Gabriel Jesus paved the way, with a £27m move to Manchester City, followed by Endrick’s £61m transfer to Real Madrid. Danilo joined Nottingham Forest for £18m, Luis Guilherme went to West Ham for £25.5m,Vitor Reis was sold to Citythis January for £29.6m – a record for a Brazilian centre-back – and Estêvão is bound for Chelsea in a deal worth up to £53m.

That stream of income has allowed Palmeiras to flex their financial muscle. In February, they signed the striker Vitor Roque – then on loan at Real Betis from Barcelona – for £21.7m, making him the most expensive signing in Brazilian club history.

“I have no doubt that Palmeiras are the best-run and most credible club in South America,” Pereira says. “But of course, that level of excellence isn’t down to me alone, it’s thanks to the incredible professionals we have. No one achieves anything by themselves.” She adds, with evident pride: “European giants now trust us to do business. Today, we’re a global reference. And it’s a woman at the helm.”

She says: “Palmeiras are one of the few clubs in Brazil that meet all their financial obligations on time – staff, players, transfer fees. That’s non-negotiable for me. I come from a business background and football will not tarnish my name. I want to walk into our training ground and hold people accountable without owing them anything. It’s absurd that some [Brazilian] clubs can’t pay wages yet keep signing players. That’s why I advocate for financial fair play in Brazil.”

At the Club World Cup, Chelsea supporters will get a closer look at Estêvão. Widely seen as the most electrifying export since Neymar first lit up the late 2000s, it will be the 18-year-old prospect’s last dance in green and white before making the move to Stamford Bridge. “He’s a phenomenal player and I understand why my husband didn’t want to let him go. This boy will one day be the best in the world. He’s that good and will always be one of our academy’s own. Just like Endrick, Vitor Reis, Luis Guilherme … ”

While Pereira has maintained the philosophy laid down by her predecessors, it is Abel Ferreira who has shaped the club’s golden era on the pitch. The Portuguese coach is both the most successful and the longest-serving manager in Palmeiras’s history. Appointed by Pereira’s predecessor, he has won 10 trophies in just over four years, an extraordinary feat in a country where managerial turnover is common.

A Sporting full-back who began his coaching career in the club’s youth ranks before spells at Braga and Paok, Ferreira will lead Palmeiras into their opening Group A match against Porto at MetLife Stadium in New York on Sunday. They will then face Al Ahly on Thursday, before rounding out the group stage against Inter Miami in Florida on 24 June.

“The Club World Cup is a major challenge, and we’re excited about it. Just because some clubs are European giants doesn’t mean we can’t compete. After all, it’s our players who get signed by those clubs.”

Whatever the outcome on the pitch, Palmeiras arrive in the US not only as a dominant force in South American football, but as a club reshaped by modern management, and fronted by a woman who has refused to be defined by it. She is outnumbered by men, but not outpowered.

Fee of £100m plus £16m add-ons is possible British record

Coveted playmaker will seal move when window reopens

Liverpool have agreed a club-record deal to sign Florian Wirtz fromBayer Leverkusen. The Premier League champions will pay a guaranteed £100m for the coveted Germany international, plus potential add-ons of £16m that would make Wirtz the most expensive British transfer of all time.

Richard Hughes, Liverpool’s sporting director, has been engaged in negotiations for the attacking midfielder for several weeks and a deal was finally struck on Friday morning. Leverkusen had wanted €150m (£127.6m) for the 22-year-old, who had also attracted interest from Bayern Munich, Manchester City and Real Madrid, but made it clear to the German club that Anfield was his preferred destination. He will undergo a medical in the coming days and finalise the transfer once the window reopens next week. Personal terms have already been agreed, with Wirtz understood to have rejected more lucrative offers from elsewhere.

Liverpool made it clear throughout negotiations that they would not meet Leverkusen’s asking price but, after settling on a guaranteed £100m, the past few days have centred on the extent and the structure of the add-ons. Wirtz will become a British record signing, eclipsingChelsea’s £115m purchase of Moisés Caicedo, if sustained success at the highest level activates the extra £16m.

The fee will comfortably be a record investment by the club. ­Liverpool’s previous record transfer wasthe £85m dealthat brought Darwin Núñez to Anfield from Benfica in June 2022. The champions hope to recoup most of that sum this summer by selling the Uruguay international, who has interest from the Saudi Pro League and European clubs.

Liverpool’s ability to fund the Wirtz deal has been made possible thanks to frugal spending in the previous three transfer windows. Federico Chiesa, another forward who could leave this summer, was the club’s only incoming before Arne Slot’s debut season as head coachfor £10m plus £2m in add-ons from Juventus. The club’s faith in the squad rebuilt by Jürgen Klopp was vindicated as Slot’s team won arecord-equalling 20th league titlewith four matches to spare.

Liverpool consider Wirtz a world-class and potentially transformative talent. His signing is, therefore, in keeping with the approach that saw Alisson Becker and Virgil van Dijk bought for then record transfer fees, and not a departure in transfer strategy by owners Fenway Sports Group.

The club had expected Wirtz to join Bayern, or possibly remain with Leverkusen, but the player’s desire for a fresh challenge outside Germany and his talks with Slot tilted the fight in their favour.

City claim they pulled out of a deal for Wirtz due to the overall costs involved in signing the attacking ­midfielder, who can play across the front line, on a five-year contract. Reports in Germany, however, have suggested Wirtz was unconvinced about City due to doubts over Pep Guardiola’s long-term future at the club.

Hughes also remains in talks with his former club Bournemouth over the signing of left-back Milos Kerkez, who is valued at £45m. Liverpoolhave already signed Jeremie Frimpongfrom Leverkusen for £29.5m while the Georgia goalkeeper Giorgi Mamardashvili will complete his move from Valencia following last summer’s £29m deal. Liverpool have so farsold Caoimhín Kelleher to Brentfordfor a fee that could rise to £18m and made £10m from allowing Trent Alexander-Arnold to join Real Madrid 29 daysbefore his contract was due to expire. There will be further outgoings during Liverpool’s ambitious summer revamp.

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Meanwhile, the former Arsenal midfielder and Rangers manager Giovanni van Bronckhorst is set to join Arne Slot’s backroom staff as a replacement for John Heitinga. Van Bronckhorst has been out of work since being sacked by Besiktas in November and has extensive coaching experience with Feyenoord, Slot’s former club, the Chinese Super League side Guangzhou and Rangers, whom he led tothe 2022 Europa League final.

The 50-year-old was sacked by Rangers later that year after a poor start to the 2022-23 campaign. Heitinga was appointed head coach of Ajax last month on a two-year contract.

Northern Irishman’s birdie on 18th secures place

Big names tumble out as DeChambeau finishes on +10

Clubs were thrown but the towel was not. Rory McIlroy battled Oakmont’s treacherous setup and his own frustrations to survive for the weekend at the 125thUS Open. As McIlroy clung on, high-profile exits from Pennsylvania included the defending championBryson DeChambeau, Tommy Fleetwood, Dustin Johnson, Joaquin Niemann, Justin Thomas and Shane Lowry. In epitomising how Oakmont can mess with the mind, Lowry earned a one-stroke penalty after lifting his ball on the 14thgreen while forgetting to mark it. The Irishman could only laugh and, to be fair, did.

McIlroy’s day began with two double bogeys inside three holes. By the 12th, the Masters champion flung his iron 30 yards down the fairway in anger at a loose shot. Five holes later, McIlroy broke a tee marker after cracking it with his three-wood. Yet amongst this was admirable fighting spirit; McIlroy fired an approach shot to within 4ft of the 18thhole, a birdie ensuring a 72 for a six-over aggregate. McIlroy last four, played in two under, were crucial. The madcap nature of thisUS Openis such that McIlroy will believe he has a squeak of winning. Only three players – Sam Burns, JJ Spaun and Viktor Hovland – are under par. Burns leads the other two by one at minus three.

Welcome to Grindsville, Pennsylvania. Any golfer standing still was doing wonderfully well. They assessed four foot putts as if they were instead the Gaokao Exam. Smelling salts might as well have replaced energy drinks in the locker room. George Duangmanee shot 86, 89 on his US Open debut. The poor fella did not birdie a single hole amid a string of unmentionables. If watching elite golfers being reduced to quivering wrecks is your thing, this major constitutes essential viewing.

DeChambeau’s departure at 10 over is still a shock. The Californian added a 77 to Thursday’s 73. Thomas four-putted from 22ft, the low point in back-to-back rounds of 76. Johnson, who won here in 2016, continues his slide towards early retirement.

Denny McCarthy branded five and a half hour Oakmont rounds as “a punch in the face.” The steam was just about visible from Jon Rahm’s ears as he assessed his 75. “I’m too annoyed and too mad right now to think about any perspective,” said Rahm. “I am very frustrated. Very few rounds of golf I played in my life where I think I hit good putts and they didn’t sniff the hole, so it’s frustrating.” Whether Rahm thought pin placements were unfair was left for others to ponder. At four over, he remains a contender.

Scottie Scheffler has matched Rahm’s aggregate. “Gosh, dang it” bawled Scheffler after a wayward drive, which is as close as he will ever come to an expletive-laden tirade. “I battled really hard,” Scheffler said. “It’s challenging out there. I was not getting the ball in the correct spots and paying the price for it. Felt like me getting away with one over today wasn’t all that bad. It could have been a lot worse. Around this golf course I don’t think by any means I’m out of the tournament.” Scheffler was still on the practice range three hours after he walked from the final green.

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Against this grisly backdrop, the Friday performance of Burns was exceptional. Burns converted from 20ft at the 9th, his last, for a five under par 65. Three under par claimed the clubhouse lead; Burns could sit back and watch the rest suffer. “The golf course is really too difficult to try to figure out what’s a good score and what’s not,” Burns explained. “You’re really just shot by shot and trying to play each hole the best you can. If you try to be too perfect with putting it can drive you crazy, so I just try to really read it, put a good roll on it, focus on the speed and hope for the best. I have tried to play too perfect and tried to force it a little bit at times. So now I am trying to really be patient and take what the golf course gives me.”

Hovland lurks. The Norwegian found himself in precisely the place you would rather not be on this course, 80ft from the hole on the final green. Hovland calmly two-putted, his 68 meaning one under par at halfway. In this Ryder Cup year, Hovland’s return to form is excellent news for Europe and their captain Luke Donald.

“I’ve just been in a really nice mental state this week,” said Hovland. “Both of my rounds have been very up and down. I feel like a couple times if it would have happened at another tournament, for example, I could have potentially lost my mind there a little bit. But I felt like I kept things together very well.” Indeed, Hovland played his closing stretch in level after a double bogey on his 11th.

Brooks Koepka twice reached three under on the back nine, his front half. Koepka bogeyed three in succession around the turn before dropping further shots at the 4th, 8thand 9thfor a 74. Two over par might frustrate Koepka given his second round start but he is firmly in the mix.

Koepka is arguably the most fascinating actor in this show; a one-time major specialist, he has produced inauspicious results since winning the 2023 US PGA Championship. Koepka missed the cut both at that event and the Masters this year. At Quail Hollow last month, Kopeka was heckled over his decision to accept tens of millions to perform on the LIV Tour. Whether it was that viral moment, a heart-to-heart with his straight-talking coach Pete Cowen or simply the ironing out of technical flaws, Koepka suddenly looks a threat once again. Oakmont is unlikely to faze him. It has already done exactly that to countless others.