SPEEDWAY: Brothers Chris and Jack Holder scored maximum points in the last heat to earn reigning Premiership champions Sheffield a narrow 46-44 win at Leicester on Thursday night.

Jason Doyle top scored with 13+1 points and Emil Sayfutdinov bagged 11+2 as last year’s runners-up Ipswich won 48-42 at table-topping Oxford and Belle Vue saw off bottom of the table King’s Lynn by the same score in the other midweek meetings.

RUGBY LEAGUE: Tara Jones will become the first woman to referee a men’s professional game in Britain when she takes charge of Oldham’s League One game with Cornwall on Sunday afternoon.

In 2018, she was the first female match official, as an in-goal judge, at a Super League fixture. Jones currently plays for St Helens in the Women’s Super League and has also won 13 international caps for England.

DARTS: Michael van Gerwen beat Luke Littler 6-3 in Birmingham’s Premier League of Darts final on Thursday night to claim his fourth league win of the season.

Van Gerwen is third in the overall table, four points behind Littler and two away from second-placed world champion Luke Humphries. Round twelve of the 17-week tournament is on van Gerwen’s home turf next week at the Rotterdam Ahoy arena. 

CYCLING: World Champion Mathieu van der Poel is a clear favourite for the men’s Amstel Gold race on Sunday.

Starting in Maastricht and stretching over 250kms through hilly terrain in the Dutch province of Limburg before finishing in Berg en Terblijt, it is the first of the season’s Ardennes classic races.

Last year’s winner Tadej Pogacar is not on the startlist but 2022 champion Michal Kwiatkowski is part of the Ineos Grenadiers team.