BNT MISC

Two-time Olympic gold medalist David Rudisha said that he is lucky to be alive after surviving a plane crash in his home country of Kenya on Saturday.

According to TMZ Sports, Rudisha detailed the scary experience to the Nation local newspaper. He had been flying with five other people after attending an annual Maasai Olympics event at a wildlife sanctuary in Kimana, Kenya.

Rudisha said the engine malfunctioned "seven or eight minutes into the flight," causing the plane to go down in the Imbirkana area in southern Kaijado County. He added that the pilot was able to navigate the plane until one of its wings hit a tree and caused it to spin before landing in a rocky field.

"It was a scary episode where you hold your heart in your hand as you pray to God," the 800-meter world record holder said. "The pilot did an incredible job to keep the plane afloat and stable for long."

Rudisha and the rest of the passengers managed to escape the crash without any serious injuries. They were all evacuated to Makindu Hospital for treatment. Kenya Masters Athletics chairperson Stephen Ole Marai was later transported to Nairobi West Hospital with a rib injury.

"We thank God we all came out alive with some soft tissue injuries that were treated before all were discharged save for one," Rudisha said.

Rudisha, the 800-meter champion in the 2012 London and 2016 Rio Olympic Games, has endured a near-death experience before, as his SUV crashed into a bus in a Kenyan village in August 2019. He sustained only minor injuries in the accident.

Rudisha has not officially announced his retirement from running, but he hasn't competed internationally since 2017. Last month, the 33-year-old said he was considering making a transition to coaching.

The World Professional Billiards and Snooker Association has suspended Yan Bingtao from the World Snooker Tour as part of an ongoing investigation into match-fixing.

"The suspension will remain in place until the conclusion of the investigation or any subsequent charges that may or may not be brought," the organization said Monday in a statement. "Yan Bingtao has the right to appeal this decision."

This comes days after Lu Ning, Li Hang, Zhao Jianbo, Bai Langning and Chang Bingyu were suspended from the WST as well.

Jason Ferguson, chairman of the WPBSA, told Eurosport the organization was "presented with some new evidence" that required further scrutiny of the 22-year-old Yan.

Ferguson decided a suspension was warranted after Yan, the No. 16 player in the world, was interviewed by Nigel Mawer, the WPBSA's head of integrity. He said the investigation is far along and "won't take as long as you think."

Yan was the youngest-ever Masters winner at age 20 when he defeated John Higgins in the 2021 final. He was eliminated in the first round of the 2022 edition and was slated to oppose Mark Williams in the opening round of the 2023 tournament.

Yan's suspension will also prohibit him from competing in the English Open. Ashley Hugill earned a walkover in the first round as a result.

WWE is reportedly reuniting with one of its longtime personalities.

Fightful's Sean Ross Sapp confirmed Monday a report from PWInsider that William Regal has agreed to terms to rejoin the company in a backstage role. The 54-year-old had spent the past nine months with All Elite Wrestling.

AEW CEO Tony Khan said during a media call last Wednesday that Regal had requested his release from the company because he wanted to return to WWE so he can work with his son, WWE NXT performer Charlie Dempsey.

Prior to joining AEW in March, Regal had held various roles for WWE over the course of two decades. When his in-ring career came to an end in 2013, he became the on-screen general manager for WWE NXT as well as a trainer at the WWE Performance Center. He was eventually given the title of Director of Talent Development and Head of Global Recruiting. WWE released him from his contract on Jan. 5, 2022.

As a member of AEW, Regal acted as a manager of the Blackpool Combat Club, which consisted of Jon Moxley, Bryan Danielson, Wheeler Yuta and Claudio Castagnoli. Regal had real-life history with Danielson and Moxley stemming from their time together in WWE.

Regal's return to WWE is a major addition to the company's creative team. He had a hand in the direction of the acclaimed "Black and Gold" era of WWE NXT, so fans should be excited to have him back working behind the scenes to develop future superstars.

Listen to Ring Rust Radio for all of the hot wrestling topics. Catch the latest episode in the player below (some language NSFW).

Gio Reyna has responded to a report from Paul Tenorio and Sam Stejskal of The Athletic that said the young Borussia Dortmund attacker showed an "alarming lack of effort in training" in the week before the World Cup.

Reyna released a statement Monday on Instagram in which he said he let his emotions affect his training and behavior after USMNT coach Gregg Berhalter told him he would play a limited role at the World Cup:

"Just before the World Cup, Coach Berhalter told me that my role at the tournament would be very limited. I was devastated. I am someone who plays with pride and passion. Soccer is my life, and I believe in my abilities. I fully expected and desperately wanted to contribute to the play of a talented group as we tried to make a statement at the World Cup.

"I am also a very emotional person, and I fully acknowledge that I let my emotions get the best of me and affect my training and behavior for a few days after learning about my limited role. I apologized to my teammates and coach for this, and I was told I was forgiven. Thereafter, I shook off my disappointment and gave everything I had on and off the field."

Reyna added that he was "disappointed that there is continuing coverage of this matter (as well as some highly fictionalized versions of events) and extremely surprised that anyone on the U.S. men's team staff would contribute to it," noting Berhalter had said in the past that team-related issues would remain "in house."

Berhalter alluded to the situation with Reyna at the HOW Institute for Society's Summit on Moral Leadership on Tuesday (h/t Kevin J. Delaney of CharterWorks), though he didn't name him:

"In this last World Cup, we had a player that was clearly not meeting expectations on and off the field. One of 26 players, so it stood out. As a staff, we sat together for hours deliberating what we were going to do with this player. We were ready to book a plane ticket home, that's how extreme it was. And what it came down to was, we're going to have one more conversation with him, and part of the conversation was how we're going to behave from here out. There aren't going to be any more infractions.

"But the other thing we said to him was, you're going to have to apologize to the group, but it's going to have to say why you're apologizing. It's going to have to go deeper than just 'Guys, I'm sorry.' And I prepped the leadership group with this. I said, 'Okay, this guy's going to apologize to you as a group, to the whole team.' And what was fantastic in this whole thing is that after he apologized, they stood up one by one and said, 'Listen, it hasn't been good enough, You haven't been meeting our expectations of a teammate and we want to see change.' They really took ownership of that process. And from that day on there were no issues with this player."

CharterWorks later said in an editor's note that Berhalter's comments "were not meant to be public, but were erroneously greenlit for publication by someone representing the event organizers."

Berhalter also said the meeting was supposed to be off the record and that "it's not really important" who the player in question was, per ESPN's Jeff Carlisle.

But further reporting indicated the player was Reyna.

It wasn't hard to suss out that Berhalter was speaking about the 20-year-old, one of the USMNT's brightest young talents but someone who played a surprisingly small role in the team's four games at the World Cup.

While it didn't come as a huge surprise that Reyna didn't start—the midfield trio of Tyler Adams, Yunus Musah and Weston McKennie was the strength of the team, and wingers Christian Pulisic and Timothy Weah were its most dangerous attackers—the fact that he wasn't even a substitute in two games became a major storyline.

The team missed his creativity and passing while struggling to unlock deep defensive blocks, though he did play the entire second half in the USMNT's 3-1 loss to the Netherlands in the round of 16.

That may have been an indication that all had been resolved. It remains to be seen if the airing of the dirty laundry, even if unintentional by Berhalter, creates a rift between the two men or between Reyna and the U.S. Soccer Federation.