Le De’fi, which has the indigestible name of Bouygues Telecom/Transiciel 6th Sens, was one of seven teams starting in the Addeco Maxi One Design World championship on a 900-mile race to Lorient in southern Brittany.
If they arrive first then they may take a break from their work building the radically designed yacht they hope will carry them to glory in the Louis Vuitton Cup series, which begins in Auckland in October.New Zealand’s Jeff Scott, in charge of Ludde Ingvall’s Scandia-backed European entry, was second behind his compatriot Ross Field, the Kiwi who in 1997 won the Fastnet Race, with Scott on board, in the same class of 80ft, water- ballasted boat.The French were trying everything but failing to get past Scott. However, in the light airs of the first night, navigator Marcel van Triest took the French much further off shore in the search for advantage as they sail toward the Bay of Biscay.. MAHMOOD BHATTI, the former England winger, yesterday led Sussex to their first County Championship victory when they beat Yorkshire 3- 2 in an exciting final at the Milton Keynes National Stadium. Earlier in the day they had overwhelmed Cheshire 5-0 while Yorkshire required a penalty-stroke shoot-out to beat the defending champions Surrey. After a 1-1 draw Yorkshire won the penalty barrage 4-3.
The hard-working Bhatti was always in the thick of the fray, never flinching from some hard tackling by a resolute Yorkshire defence as the game swung from end to end.

Jason Collins opened the scoring for Sussex in the 10th minute after Bhatti had split the Yorkshire defence.A fine reverse-stick shot from David Hadwick brought the equaliser for Yorkshire in the 19th minute. Mark Wood put Yorkshire ahead eight minutes into the second half from a follow-up shot after his first effort had wrong-footed goalkeeper Nick Dale. Two minutes later Bhatti levelled the scores to set up a cracking closing period.The winning goal came with five minutes remaining when Will Champness cracked home their sixth penalty corner – a fitting reward for the defender who had done so much to keep Sussex in the game.Cheshire reversed the result of last season’s Under-21 final when they beat Somerset 4-3 as they made amends for the poor showing of their senior side. It required a surprise 21st-minute goal from Guildford’s Roly Ward, which opening the scoring for Somerset, to prompt Cheshire into scoring mode.Within seconds Cheshire were on terms with a penalty stroke from Jon Hodgkinson. Andrew Taylor and Andrew Brogdon put them 3-1 ahead before Somerset stepped up a gear although they were never quite able to snatch an equaliser, even with Cheshire being reduced to nine men following temporary suspensions in the closing minutes. Ward returned form suspension to claim his second goal and Somerset’s third..

Newcastle Falcons 12 Leicester Tigers 21

THEY WERE tryless on Tyneside at tea-time but, rather more to the point, utterly legless in Leicester by closing time. Martin Johnson’s exhausted Tigers may have put one paw on the Allied Dunbar Premiership trophy by winning at Northampton six long weeks ago but the mathematics were not done and dusted until yesterday, when Tim Stimpson tuned in his radar, took several deep breaths and kicked his new club to victory over his old one. He had seven shots at goal and never looked like missing, just as the Midlanders never looked like slipping up.
It could hardly have been sweeter for England’s occasional and much-maligned full-back, who will treasure this winner’s medal far more than the one he picked up with Newcastle last season. Stimpson contributed next to nothing to the Falcons’ 1998 title, thanks to a prolonged contractual dispute that denied him meaningful action for weeks and months on end.

It has been very different this time around; indeed, he has contributed as much as anyone during the championship run-in, which is some compliment given the unstinting efforts Johnson, Fritz Van Heerden, Martin Corry and the rest of the Leicester heavy mob.For 20 minutes in the middle of the second half, Newcastle were in there with a puncher’s chance. Jonny Wilkinson’s left boot was swinging with a jazz drummer’s rhythm and when he stroked over a third penalty from a metre inside his own half and promptly followed up with a fourth from less outrageous distance, the gap opened up by his rival kicker before the interval was down to three points. Stimpson would have the final say, though, landing nerveless goals on 74 and 80 minutes to send the Leicester hordes into emotional orbit and Dean Richards into the relative ecstasy of a half-smile.”I passed around the champagne last year but didn’t drink a drop,” said Stimpson, a picture of rude health once again after looking like a wraith for most of the previous campaign. “This time, I think I’ll have three or four days’ worth.” Good on him. He is a far, far better player than his many critics love to make out; his fielding of the odd awkward ball was impeccable yesterday and the force of his running made the Newcastle backs think twice about committing themselves to the tackle. Clive Woodward returned home from last summer’s southern hemisphere tour thinking he had seen enough of his muscular maverick to last him well into the next millennium.

He would be well advised to reconsider.There was, of course, far more to Leicester than Stimpson; in condemning Newcastle to a first league defeat at Kingston Park in well over three years, they played with the cussed resolve they have shown all season, especially up front where Johnson mauled his socks off and Van Heerden dished out the mother and father of a hiding to Garath Archer and Doddie Weir at the line-out. Denied the services of an entire midfield for much of the long, hard Premiership road, they could also point to the dependability of Pat Howard, Jon Stuart and Craig Joiner in the high-impact areas.Howard, already suffering from a half-crippled shoulder, was bounced repeatedly by a rampant Va’aiga Tuigamala during the first hour of highly physical contest, yet he performed with a bravery far beyond the call of duty. Joiner also gave everything of himself as the Samoan centre, positively oozing danger and hostile intent, bulldozed into what he thought was the soft underbelly of the Leicester defence As it turned out, there was no softness and no underbelly. Just elbows and shoulders and hard, hard heads.Stimpson gave his colleagues an early settler with a sweet three-pointer in the fourth minute and, thus encouraged, Leicester proceeded to rule the roost in the opening period.