Tour de France: Kaden Groves ou l’improbable exploit solitaire d’un pur sprinteur

Le sprinteur australien Kaden Groves a réussi un dépassement de fonctions aussi improbable qu’exceptionnel samedi pour décrocher la 20e étape du Tour de France sur les routes détrempées vers Pontarlier après un raid solitaire de seize kilomètres.A la veille de l’arrivée finale à Paris, Tadej Pogacar a conservé le maillot jaune de leader avec 4:24 d’avance sur Jonas Vingegaard dans un classement général inchangé si ce n’est l’entrée fracassante de Jordan Jegat dans le Top 10 à la faveur de l’échappée.Les deux favoris sont, eux, restés au chaud dans le peloton, martyrisé par la pluie sur une bonne partie du parcours, et arrivé plus de sept minutes derrière le vainqueur.Celui-ci est inattendu, car voir un sprinteur s’imposer sur un parcours aussi accidenté que celui du Jura est déjà un sacré exploit, même si l’Australien (1,76 m, 76 kg) est l’un de ceux qui passent le mieux les bosses.Le réussir en solitaire dépasse l’entendement et Kaden Groves, 26 ans, était lui-même totalement incrédule en coupant la ligne, en larmes.”C’est la première fois que je m’impose en solo. J’avais de super jambes et quand la pluie est arrivée, j’y croyais encore plus. J’adore le froid”, a-t-il dit après avoir apporté à l’équipe Alpecin sa troisième victoire dans ce Tour après Jasper Philipsen et Mathieu van der Poel qui ont tous les deux abandonné depuis.- Jegat se fait insulter -Groves sera encore un candidat à la victoire dimanche lors de la dernière étape sur les Champs-Élysées. En attendant, il devient le 114e coureur à lever les bras sur les trois grands Tours après déjà avoir gagné sept étapes de la Vuelta et deux du Giro. Toutes lors d’un sprint massif évidemment.”Il a prouvé qu’il était plus qu’un sprinteur mais aussi un magnifique coureur. Après les abandons de Jasper et Mathieu, on était un peu perdus, mais au final notre troisième leader nous ramène encore un succès”, s’est félicité son directeur sportif Christophe Roodhooft.Avant de voir la lumière au milieu du déluge, Groves a dû se battre comme un lion pour intégrer la bonne échappée avec douze autres valeureux.Déterminé à chiper la dixième place du général à Ben O’Connor, le jeune Jordan Jegat a aussi été obligé de s’accrocher pour garder sa place à l’avant où il n’était “pas le bienvenu” selon le directeur sportif de l’équipe Picnic qui redoutait que la présence du Français ne “tue” l’échappée.Jegat s’est même fait pourrir par l’Italien Simone Velasco qui l’a “insulté de tous les noms” au point de mériter un carton jaune, selon le Français.”Tim Wellens et d’autres coureurs lui ont dit qu’il n’avait pas à me parler comme ça. Ils m’ont dit +ouais dommage que tu sois là+ mais ils comprenaient, c’est le jeu. Je voulais être dans l’échappée et c’est mon droit.”- La poisse pour Grégoire -Le grimpeur de TotalEnergies ne s’est pas laissé déstabiliser et a attaqué dans la côte de Thésy où il a été rejoint puis lâché par l’Australien Harry Sweeny qui a passé une dizaine de kilomètres seul en tête avant d’être repris.Au final, la mission était accomplie pour Jegat qui se hisse au dixième rang du général, signifiant qu’il y aura, sauf accident, deux Français dans le Top 10 avec Kévin Vauquelin, 7e.”Je suis un Breton, je lâche jamais rien. J’ai mis ce que j’avais à mettre sur la route. Et forcément je suis ému”, a-t-il dit.Un autre Français aurait pu briller samedi, Romain Grégoire. Très fort sur ses terres franc-comtoises, le coureur de Groupama-FDJ a pris quelques mètres d’avance en tête de l’échappée dans la descente de la côte de Longeville.Mais, prenant tous les risques, il est parti à la faute dans un virage à droite en compagnie d’Ivan Romeo. Les deux hommes sont partis en glissade avant d’aller taper violemment le trottoir.Devant, trois hommes dont Kaden Groves en ont profité pour prendre le large. Et à 16 kilomètres du but c’est le sprinteur d’Alpecin qui s’est détaché seul pour se lancer dans un long contre-la-montre sous une pluie battante.Creusant méthodiquement l’écart, il s’est imposé avec presque une minute d’avance sur Frank van den Broek et Pascal Eenkhoorn, revenu de derrière, alors que Romain Gréoire a terminé cinquième, une énième déception pour son équipe Groupama-FDJ.

‘Famine’, ‘starvation’: the challenges in defining Gaza’s plight

The United Nations and NGOs are warning of an imminent famine in the Gaza Strip — a designation based on strict criteria and scientific evidence.But the difficulty of getting to the most affected areas in the Palestinian territory, besieged by Israel, means there are huge challenges in gathering the required data.- What is a famine? -The internationally-agreed definition for famine is outlined by the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC), an initiative of 21 organisations and institutions including UN agencies and aid groups.The IPC definition has three elements.Firstly, at least 20 percent of households must have an extreme lack of food and face starvation or destitution.Second, acute malnutrition in children under five exceeds 30 percent.And third, there is an excess mortality threshold of two in 10,000 people dying per day.Once these criteria are met, governments and UN agencies can declare a famine.- What is the situation in Gaza? -Available indicators are alarming regarding the food situation in Gaza.”A large proportion of the population of Gaza is starving”, according to the World Health Organization’s chief, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.Food deliveries are “far below what is needed for the survival of the population”, he said, calling it “man-made… mass starvation”.Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Friday that a quarter of all young children and pregnant or breastfeeding women screened at its clinics in Gaza last week were malnourished, blaming Israel’s “deliberate use of starvation as a weapon”.Almost a third of people in Gaza are “not eating for days” and malnutrition is surging, the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) said Friday.The head of Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City on Tuesday said that 21 children had died across the Palestinian territory in the previous 72 hours “due to malnutrition and starvation”.The very few foodstuffs in the markets are inaccessible, with a kilogramme (two pounds) of flour reaching the exorbitant price of $100, while the Gaza Strip’s agricultural land has been ravaged by the war.According to NGOs, the 20 or so aid trucks that enter the territory each day — vastly insufficient for more than two million hungry people — are systematically looted.”It’s become a technical point to explain that we’re in acute food insecurity, IPC4, which affects almost the entire population. It doesn’t resonate with people,” said Amande Bazerolle, in charge of MSF’s emergency response in Gaza.”Yet we’re hurtling towards famine — that’s a certainty.”- What are the challenges in gathering data? -NGOs and the WHO concede that gathering the evidence required for a famine declaration is extremely difficult.”Currently we are unable to conduct the surveys that would allow us to formally classify famine,” said Bazerolle.She said it was “impossible” for them to screen children, take their measurements, or assess their weight-to-height ratio.Jean-Raphael Poitou, Middle East programme director for the NGO Action Against Hunger, said the “continuous displacements” of Gazans ordered by the Israeli military, along with restrictions on movement in the most affected regions; “complicate things enormously”.Nabil Tabbal, incident manager at the WHO’s emergency programme, said there were “challenges regarding data, regarding access to information”. – Can famine still be avoided? -For France’s foreign ministry, malnutrition and the “risk of famine” is the “result of the blockade imposed by Israel”.The Israeli military denies it is blocking humanitarian aid entering Gaza. On Tuesday it claimed that 950 truckloads of aid were inside the Strip waiting for collection and distribution by international organisations.Israeli government spokesman David Mencer insisted there was “no famine caused by Israel. There is a man-made shortage engineered by Hamas.”Hamas has consistently denied that. The New York Times on Saturday reported that, according to two senior Israeli military officials and two other Israelis involved, “the Israeli military never found proof” supporting the official Israeli allegation.NGOs have accused Israel of imposing drastic restrictions.More than 100 NGOs — including MSF, Caritas, Save the Children, Amnesty International, Medecins du Monde, Christian Aid and Oxfam — have urged Israel to open all land crossings and “restore the full flow of food” into Gaza.- What does a famine declaration tell us? -A fresh Gaza IPC assessment is due very soon.For some, the technical debates over a famine declaration seem futile given the urgency of the situation.”Any famine declaration… comes too late,” explained Jean-Martin Bauer, the WFP’s director of food security and nutrition analysis.”By the time famine is officially declared, many lives have already been lost.”In Somalia in 2011, when famine was formally declared, half of the total number of victims of the disaster had already died of starvation.Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.The Israeli campaign has killed nearly 60,000  Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.cl-burs/sva/ib/rjm/rmb

Gaza civil defence says Israeli fire kills 25

Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli fire killed 25 people on Saturday in the Palestinian territory devastated by more than 21 months of war.Agency spokesman Mahmud Bassal told AFP the dead included nine people killed in three separate air strikes in Gaza City.Eleven people were killed in four separate strikes near the southern city of Khan Yunis, while two were killed in a drone strike in Nuseirat refugee camp, he added.Bassal said three people were killed by Israeli gunfire while waiting for aid in three separate incidents in northern, central and southern Gaza.One of the three was killed “after Israeli forces opened fire on people waiting for humanitarian aid” northwest of Gaza City, the agency said.Witnesses told AFP that several thousand people had gathered in the area.One of them, Abu Samir Hamoudeh, 42, said the Israeli military opened fire “while the people were waiting to approach the distribution point”, located near an Israeli military post in the Zikim area, northwest of Sudaniyah.The Israeli military told AFP that its troops fired “warning shots to distance the crowd” after identifying an “immediate threat”. The civil defence agency said another man was killed by a drone strike near Khan Yunis, while one was killed by artillery fire in the Al-Bureij camp in central Gaza.The Israeli military said it was continuing its operations in Gaza, adding that it killed members of a “terrorist cell” which it accused of planting an explosive device.It said the air force had “struck over 100 terror targets” across Gaza over the previous 24 hours.Bassal said civil defence teams also recovered the bodies of 12 people following Israeli bombardment north of Rafah the previous night.The recovery operation was conducted in coordination with the UN humanitarian office (OCHA), he said, adding that the bodies were taken to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis.Media restrictions in Gaza and difficulties in accessing many areas mean AFP is unable to independently verify tolls and details provided by the civil defence agency and other parties.Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza after a deadly attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on October 7, 2023.The Israeli campaign has killed 59,676 Palestinians, mostly civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory.Hamas’s October 2023 attack resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, most of them civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official figures.

Too early to judge Gill and his young India team, says Dev

Former India captain Kapil Dev on Saturday said it is too early to judge new Test skipper Shubman Gill and his young team in England despite two defeats.Gill, 25, took over a team in transition after the retirements of stalwarts Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli ahead of the five-Test tour of England.The visitors, who trail the series 2-1, lost the opener before they bounced back to level the series. They then went down in a closely-fought third Test at Lord’s.Ben Stokes’ England are in the box seat in the fourth Test and in sight of clinching the series.”The team came close to winning (at Lord’s) and then lost,” said Dev, who is the president of Professional Golf Tour of India (PGTI), on the sidelines of the announcement of the second half of the national golf calender.”It’s a new team and it is getting an opportunity. In the coming days, these boys will come back with tournament victories. “Any new team needs time to adjust. The new captain has to learn a lot and this series will be a learning step (for him).”Gill, a top-order batter, leads the series batting with over 600 runs including three centuries and a career-best of 269 in the second Test in Birmingham.Pace spearhead Jasprit Bumrah has been India’s best bowler with 14 wickets in five innings despite the collective decision that he play just three Tests to manage his workload.Bumrah, a yorker specialist who bowls with an unusual slingshot action has more than 200 Test wickets in his injury-prone career of 48 Tests.But Dev, who never missed a Test due to injury in his 16-year-old career that ended in 1994 with 434 wickets, defended Bumrah’s decision to skip matches.”I think everybody is different,” the 1983 World Cup-winning captain told reporters.”Times have changed, bodies are different and they are working differently. “He is one of the finest bowlers we have. His action is so awkward, and to sustain it this far, I think it’s fabulous. “We never thought that someone would play so long (with this action) because he puts so much stress on his body. He is still delivering for the Indian team, hats off to him.”Dev said Indian golf is ready to take a leaf out of cricket’s set up in India and expand with the PGTI securing new sponsors and increased prize money for tournaments.

NASA says it will lose about 20 percent of its workforce

The US space agency NASA will lose about 3,900 employees under Donald Trump’s sweeping effort to trim the federal workforce — at the same time as the president prioritizes plans for crewed missions to the Moon and Mars.In an emailed statement, NASA said around 3,000 employees took part in the second round of its deferred resignation program, which closed late Friday.Combined with the 870 who joined the first round and regular staff departures, the agency’s civil servant workforce is set to drop from more than 18,000 before Trump took office in January to roughly 14,000 — a more than 20 percent decrease.Those leaving the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the deferred resignation program will be placed on administrative leave until an agreed departure date. An agency spokesperson said the figures could shift slightly in the coming weeks.”Safety remains a top priority for our agency as we balance the need to become a more streamlined and more efficient organization and work to ensure we remain fully capable of pursuing a Golden Era of exploration and innovation, including to the Moon and Mars,” the agency said.Earlier this year, the Trump administration’s proposed NASA budget put a return to the Moon and a journey to Mars front and center, slashing science and climate programs.The White House says it wants to focus on “beating China back to the Moon and putting the first human on Mars.” China is aiming for its first crewed lunar landing by 2030, while the US program, called Artemis, has faced repeated delays.NASA is still run by an acting administrator after the administration’s initial pick to lead the agency, tech billionaire Jared Isaacman — endorsed by former Trump advisor Elon Musk — was ultimately rejected by the Republican president.