Coming up this week: Wales welcome back their wayward boyo, cyclists defy gravity in a German gymnasium, and Chess masters sweat under tropical skies in Goa. Plus: National Women’s Soccer League playoffs ignite across the Atlantic, Formula One’s Sao Paulo sprint, and figure skaters chase Olympic sparkle in Osaka. Here’s your InsideTrack to the global action.
RUGBY
The boyo is back as Rees-Zammit swaps gridiron glamour for Welsh graft
To label him Welsh rugby’s prodigal son might be pushing it, but Louis Rees-Zammit’s homecoming does feel like a rare shaft of sunlight piercing the cloud over the valleys. After the bleakest two years in living memory for Welsh rugby, the NFL experiment’s returnee brings with him a touch of gridiron glitz — and perhaps, at last, a little joy for the long-suffering faithful.
Wales’s victory over Japan in Kobe in July ended a run of 18 successive defeats — a joint record for a Tier One nation — and they face a daunting November with further games against Japan, New Zealand and South Africa. Watching the red trainwreck from afar was Rees-Zammit, who shocked the sport by walking away in January 2024 to try his hand at American football.
One of the fastest players in world rugby, with fizzing acceleration and an inventive mind, Rees-Zammit appeared an ideal fit for his adopted sport. But despite various camps with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Jacksonville Jaguars, he failed to make the grade and did not play a single regular-season game in the NFL.
Now he is back, ready to line up against Argentina — and boyo do Wales need him. Playing club rugby for Bristol this season, he looks a bulked-up version of his former self. And while he’s yet to set the West Country alight, Welsh fans will clutch at any spark to lift them from their seats as a grim November looms under new coach Steve Tandy.
Wales and Argentina close out a packed weekend that peaks with a Saturday night classic in Paris — a rerun of France’s 2023 heartbreak against South Africa. England should make it nine straight at home to Fiji, while Australia, humbled at Twickenham, must beat Italy in Udine to keep their 2027 World Cup seeding hopes alive.
A viral meme of rugby’s fortress records sets the scene: New Zealand’s 49-game Eden Park streak leads the list, with England and Georgia next best. The All Blacks also boast 19 unbeaten at Murrayfield — a mark they’ll expect to stretch to 20 against a Scotland side that has never beaten them in 32 attempts. The Scots crushed the U.S. 85–0 last week, but New Zealand’s form in Chicago suggests another long afternoon in Edinburgh.
Autumn International Series, various venues — November 8-9
CYCLING
Ballet on wheels and bike-ball battles as Goppingen hosts cycling’s most unique show
The world’s finest indoor cyclists have descended on Goppingen, Germany, for the UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships — a weekend where balance, artistry and nerve meet in perfect equilibrium.
It’s the one time each year the sport’s two sister disciplines, artistic cycling and cycle-ball, come together under one roof, along with their own World Cup circuits and fiercely loyal followings. More than 20 nations are represented, each chasing the coveted rainbow jersey and a place in cycling’s most niche hall of fame.
In artistic cycling, athletes perform five-minute routines set to music — a mesmerising mix of ballet and biomechanics on fixed-gear bicycles. Across the hall, the mood shifts from graceful to gladiatorial as cycle-ball teams battle two-a-side, striking goals with wheels and bodies in a tactical tussle that borrows from football but unfolds at dizzying pace.
This year marks only the third time a women’s cycle-ball world title will be contested — a small but significant stride toward parity in a sport that long confined that crown to men. As hosts and reigning champions in both men’s and women’s events, Germany will expect nothing less than gold — and a roar to match.
A fresh scoring system and expanded women’s programme reflect the UCI’s intent to modernise a sport steadily gaining international traction. It may all take place indoors, but the skill, theatre and tension on display would fill any arena.
UCI Indoor Cycling World Championships, Goppingen, Germany — November 7-9
CHESS
Goa plays host as chess titans chase World Cup glory
The chess world has packed its pieces and flown to Goa, where the FIDE World Cup is now in full swing — a knockout carnival featuring 206 players from 80 nations and a $2 million prize pool. It’s an unfamiliar format for chess, but with three golden tickets on offer to next year’s Candidates Tournament — the winner of which gets to challenge the reigning world champion for the title — the stakes could scarcely be higher.
India, the new capital of world chess, dominates the seeding list: reigning world champion Gukesh Dommaraju sits top, trailed closely by compatriots Arjun Erigaisi and Rameshbabu Praggnanandhaa.
But the intrigue stretches well beyond home soil. American Hans Niemann has put a cheating controversy behind him to return as a contender but crashed out against Italian Lorenzo Lodici in one of several upsets, meaning a Candidates spot could go to an unheralded player.
At the other end of the board, 12-year-old Argentinian prodigy Faustino Oro turned heads by winning his first-round match — a reminder that chess’s next revolution may already be sitting in the schoolroom — before losing to experienced Indian grandmaster Vidit Gujrathi in the second-round tiebreaks.
The World Cup checkmates its way toward a finale on November 27, by which point only one player will have turned Goa’s tropical calm into lasting glory.
FIDE World Cup, Goa, India — October 30-November 27
EXTRA TIME
What else we’re watching
Soccer: The NWSL playoffs kick off on Friday as defending champions Orlando Pride host Seattle Reign, setting the stage for a high-stakes post-season. Top seeds KC Current, who shattered league records for points, wins and clean sheets in a dominant 2025 campaign, begin their title push on Sunday against eighth-seeded Gotham FC. But their momentum has been tempered by concern over a late injury for back-to-back Golden Boot winner Temwa Chawinga, whose fitness could shape the path to the championship.
Formula One: Sao Paulo’s Interlagos circuit hosts the penultimate sprint weekend of the F1 calendar, with McLaren’s Lando Norris and Oscar Piastri separated by just one point with four rounds remaining, and Red Bull’s Max Verstappen still a threat behind them. The chances of the title battle going all the way to the final race in Abu Dhabi look strong but every race from now could bring a twist to the tale. Verstappen has closed a 104-point gap down to 36 points since the end of August while leader Norris has beaten Piastri in the last five races. Can Piastri, who would be the first Australian champion since Alan Jones in 1980, turn it around or is Britain on for the latest in a long line of champions? Or could Verstappen make the comeback to end all comebacks with a fifth title in a row?
Figure skating: With the Milano Cortina Winter Olympics just four months away, the world’s top figure skaters are fine-tuning their salchows and spins at the NHK Trophy in Osaka — the fourth stop on the ISU Grand Prix circuit. Absent “Quad God” Ilia Malinin, fresh off a record-breaking win in Canada and already bound for the Grand Prix Final, the spotlight falls on Japan’s Yuma Kagiyama, his chief Olympic rival, and home favourites Kaori Sakamoto and Yuna Aoki, who will look to dazzle an expectant crowd.
Soccer: Lionel Messi’s Inter Miami stand on the brink this weekend, locked at one apiece with Nashville and staring down a decisive Game 3 in the MLS playoffs. The best-of-three format has brought tension, travel and television drama, and now comes the moment of truth. With 40 goals to his name across all competitions, Messi remains the heartbeat of Miami’s global circus — and anything less than a semi-final berth would feel like failure for a club built in his image.
Reporting by Ossian Shine and Julien Pretot; Editing by Yasmeen Serhan and Andrew Cawthorne