South Africans and boxing fans are remembering Dingaan Thobela, a boxing legend who passed away at 57.

Thobela, known as “The Rose of Soweto” where he grew up, died in his Johannesburg apartment after battling an undisclosed illness. He was found by family members who couldn’t reach him on the phone.

Thobela had a stellar career, competing from 1990 to 2006 and winning three world titles in two weight divisions. With 40 wins out of 56 fights, including 26 knockouts, he left a lasting mark on the sport.

Tributes poured in for Thobela, with many recalling his incredible speed, skill, and power in the ring. Advocate Ike Thamsanqa Khumalo reminisced about the memorable moments Thobela gave fans, describing some as comedic.

A third runner on the Refugee Olympic team has been suspended for a positive doping test, with the announcement coming two days before the IOC confirms its selection of athletes for the Paris Games.

Anjelina Nadai Lohalith was informed of her alleged use of banned heart medication, trimetazidine, and was provisionally suspended, the athletics integrity unit said. She did not give a timetable for disciplinary proceedings.

Lohalith, who fled war in South Sudan as a child and took refuge in a refugee camp in Kenya, was on a scholarship from the International Olympic Committee to prepare for her third consecutive Summer Games.

The 31-year-old ran the 1,500m for the Refugee team at the last two Summer Games, first competing in 2016 in Rio de Janeiro and at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics.

The IOC and UNHCR, the United Nations refugee agency, have planned a media event on Thursday to finalize the selection of the refugee team for the Paris Olympic Games which will be held from July 26 to August 11.

Lohalith represented the Refugee Team at three World Athletics Championships and was one of 29 members of the Refugee Olympic Team in Tokyo.

The UNHCR said 75 athletes in 14 sports received scholarships to Paris. These athletes come from 12 different countries and now live in 24 host countries.

A scholarship athlete from Morocco , 3,000m steeplechase runner Fouad Idbafdil , was banned for three years in December after testing positive for the endurance hormone EPO.

In March, another 1,500m runner from South Sudan, Dominic Lokolong Atiol , was also provisionally suspended for testing positive for trimetazidine.

The drug, known as TMZ, was also found in high-profile positive tests in 2021 by Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva and 23 Chinese swimmers who were preparing for the Tokyo Olympics.

Valieva’s case came to light during the 2022 Winter Games in Beijing, where she helped the Russians win the team gold medal. Valieva was subsequently disqualified, suspended for four years, and the Russians were demoted to bronze swimmers, while the United States were promoted to gold swimmers. The case is ongoing and further appeals are pending.

The Chinese swimming affair was described in detail on April 20 in investigative reports from the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD.

The swimmers were not suspended, and three of them won gold medals in Tokyo, because the World Anti-Doping Agency accepted the explanations and evidence provided by Chinese authorities that the athletes had been contaminated with traces of the drug in a hotel kitchen.

Twenty-three-year-old Kevin Opia shares a passion for football with her twin brother Robert.

“He’s my biggest role model in this game. I look up to him,” she says.

She used to tag along with him and his mates whenever they would go to the local park for a kickabout. “I’d always just kind of watch them, and sometimes even join them if they’d let me.”

A primary school teacher helped Opia gain the confidence to step out of her brother’s shadow and join a team. “She basically trained me to be the best version I can be within the sport. “I started to see that people saw potential in me.”That made me really excited and really accepted.”

Opia was encouraged to focus more on her education rather than playing sports. “Whereas my brother, he kinda had that persistence to just keep pushing and go after his dreams.” “The mum would be happy for her to stay home, watch the kids, while the boys go out and kick the football. “It was just us supporting men, going down to watch our brothers, our uncles playing,” she says.

Ms Madua says she was inspired by the heroics of the Matildas at last year’s Women’s World Cup. She also met up at African restaurants with friends and family to watch Nigeria’s impressive run. For years, the annual African Cup NSW has brought the community together, with players representing their home country.

Ms Madua says it has been a struggle to gather enough players to field women’s sides, and when they did, they were often scheduled to play early in the morning.

She’s been appointed vice-president of Kama Umoja, a standalone soccer tournament for African women that kicks off in October.

“We’ve been doing this for so many years and our voices were in the background. “It’s one of the first women’s cups in NSW for women of colour, solely based just for us.”

It’s hoped the tournament will create discussions in the community about the benefits of sport. “Having those conversations is going to stem from the parents first.

“We’re able to speak to them in such a way that they understand that their daughters are just as great as the men.”

Opia will be representing her home nation South Sudan at Kama Umoja.

She played in the first women’s side at the African Cup and says there are now plenty more girls willing to sign up to play. “I want the girls to be in their own zone, in their own empowerment, and just have a great time,” she says.

“We’re all just trying to come together as one and play that sport that we all love.”

This summer’s meeting between YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul and former world champion Mike Tyson has been officially sanctioned as a professional fight.

It means the outcome of the bout, which is scheduled to take place in Texas on 20 July, will appear on both their records.

However the fight will have certain conditions, including that the contest can only be eight, two-minute rounds and 14oz gloves must be worn, rather than 10oz.

The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation said it has conducted a review of Paul and Tyson, evaluating the records to date of both men as well as their medical history before approving the pro fight with “certain waivers”.

“The safety of the contestants competing in the ring or the octagon is always the primary concern,” the TDLR said.

Tyson, who will be 58 at the time of the fight and whose professional career ended in 2005, most recently competed in an exhibition bout in 2020 and will turn 58 three weeks before facing Paul.

Paul, meanwhile, beat Ryan Bourland in his 10th professional fight in March.

“Mike Tyson and Jake Paul signed on to fight each other with the desire to do so in a sanctioned professional fight that would have a definitive outcome,” Nakisa Bidarian of MVP Promotions said.

Tyson was the first heavyweight boxer to simultaneously hold the WBA, WBC and IBF titles in 1987 but his reign as unified champion came to a shock end in 1990 as he was beaten by Buster Douglas in one of the biggest upsets in boxing history.

Although he briefly regained the WBA and WBC titles in 1996, he then suffered back-to-back defeats to Evander Holyfield – the second ending as Tyson was disqualified for biting part of Holyfield’s ear off.

Tyson’s legal issues have included a rape conviction in 1992, for which he served three years of a six-year prison sentence, and in 1999 he served a third of a 12-month sentence for a road rage assault.

He got back into shape to play his part in an exhibition bout with fellow former world champion Roy Jones Jr in 2020, and his fight with Paul will take place in Arlington’s AT&T Stadium, home of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys, which has a seating capacity of 80,000.

Paul has won nine of his 10 fights, mostly against ex-UFC fighters, with his solitary defeat coming against British boxer Tommy Fury in February 2023.