Barcelona are on the verge of the Champions League final, after they beat Liverpool 3-0 in the first leg of their last four clash at the Nou Camp last night. And as ever one man stole the headlines, with Lionel Messi's brace putting Barça within touching distance of a place in Madrid. Luis Suarez - a former League Cup winner with Liverpool - opened the scoring against his old side after getting the better of Virgil van Dijk, before Messi bundled home a second after 75 minutes. He landed the killer blow soon after, curling in a stunning free-kick in the 82nd minute, with Ousmane Dembélé then missing two golden late chances to put the tie to bed. After his side's defeat Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp paid tribute to Barça's number 10: "I knew before that Lionel was a world-class player and now I saw it again I am not too surprised." Tonight Arsenal and Chelsea are both in Europa League semi-final action - the Gunners at home to Valencia, Maurizio Sarri's side away to Eintracht Frankfurt.
Yesterday saw the curtain come down on one of the greatest careers in Irish sporting history, as jockey Ruby Walsh announced his immediate retirement from racing. Walsh had just delivered a masterclass to partner Kemboy (13-8) to victory in the Punchestown Gold Cup when he confirmed his decision: "That's it, you'll never see me on a horse again - I'm finished. I'm not going out for the next one. Racing has been great to me but it doesn't last forever." Walsh enjoyed nearly 2,800 winners during his glittering 24-year career, with a record 59 of them at the Cheltenham Festival, but said retirement had been on his mind for a while: "The time comes when you want to do something else with your life. I was going to go when I won a big one. I thought if I get through the year I'd go at Punchestown." Life after Ruby begins with today's third day of the Punchestown Festival, with Philip Hobbs' British raider Defi Du Seuil a 15-8 favourite for the Ryanair Chase (6.40pm).
Today sees the return of Eamon Donoghue's GAA Statistics column, and he has looked at the low number of New York natives who have featured for the side ahead of their Connacht Championship opener against Mayo this weekend. He writes: "Since their inaugural year in the competition, back in 1999, only 11 New York natives have featured in a championship match. And only 12 Americans - in 1999 Emmet Haughian from Chicago was the team's goalkeeper. This is regardless of the huge interest and finance within the GAA in the city's Irish communities. In New York's first five years competing in Connacht, they had five Americans make it on to the pitch; in the past five years only three have featured."
Elsewhere South African double Olympic gold medallist Caster Semenya lost her landmark legal battle against the IAAF yesterday, which means she will now have to lower her testosterone levels if she wishes to continue to compete in events from 400m to the mile. And the ruling on Semenya, announced by the Court of Arbitration for Sport, has been backed by Sonia O'Sullivan. She writes: "In my opinion it is a positive decision, made to safeguard the future of women in sport, to promote fair and meaningful competition within the female category of athletics."
And Irish golfer Leona Maguire holds the lead in the inaugural Moonlight Classic in Dubai, after she shot a course record eight under par round of 64. Philip Reid writes: "Playing on a sponsor's invitation, Maguire - ranked 237th in the world rankings - had nine birdies and a lone bogey to claim a two strokes lead over Germany's Olivia Cowan with Spain's Nuria Iturrios, who currently leads the LET order of merit after her victory in Morocco last Sunday, a shot further adrift in third."
