Today's sports news: What you need to know

Latest - The All Blacks will play the Wallabies in Dunedin if Auckland does not move to Covid-19 alert level 1 in time for the second Bledisloe Cup game scheduled for 18 October.

The first Bledisloe Cup Test will be held at Wellington's Sky Stadium on 11 October with the second Test to be played at Eden Park the following week.

NZR general manager professional rugby and performance Chris Lendrum said: "We are confident the match will go ahead at Eden Park, but we are also making responsible contingency plans as we have all the way through Covid-19.

"Our preference and intention is to play the match at Eden Park, but if we can't have crowds due to Alert Levels we will look to move the match to Forsyth Barr Stadium in Dunedin."

NZR will confirm the location of the second game when Auckland's alert levels are reviewed on 5 October.

Pogacar wins Tour de France

Tadej Pogacar became the first Slovenian to win the Tour de France after he retained the overall leader's yellow jersey in the 21st stage won by Sam Bennett.

The Team UAE Emirates rider, who will celebrate his 22nd birthday tomorrow, is the youngest man to win the race since Henri Cornet in 1904.

Pogacar, who pulled off a major upset when he claimed the yellow jersey from Primoz Roglic with a monumental performance in yesterday's time trial, also won the white jersey for the best Under-25 rider and the polka dot jersey for the mountains classification.

Roglic ended up second, with Australian Richie Porte taking third place.

Pogacar also won three stages in one of the most brilliant individual performances in recent Tour history, leaving Roglic's dominant Jumbo-Visma team stunned.

It was an anti-climatic finale on the Champs Elysees as only 5,000 fans were allowed on the famous avenue as a precaution against the coronavirus.

Of the two New Zealanders who finished the tour, George Bennett was 34th and Jack Bauer 83rd.

-Reuters

Reds impress

Liverpool delivered a powerful statement of intent about their desire to retain the English Premier League title with a comfortable 2-0 dismissal of Chelsea at Stamford Bridge.

Jurgen Klopp's champions were already in complete control even before Chelsea defender Andreas Christensen was shown a red card on the stroke of half-time.

Son Heung-min scored four goals in a stunning display as Tottenham secured their first Premier League win of the season by coming from behind to thrash Southampton 5-2.

Neal Maupay scored twice as Brighton cruised to a comfortable 3-0 victory over an under par Newcastle at St James' Park.

All Whites striker Chris Wood scored the opening goal for Burnley but they were beaten 4-2 by Leicester.

-BBC

Mixed results for squash players

A win and a loss for the New Zealanders in the quarter-finals of the Manchester Squash Open.

Paul Coll avenged his World Championship final defeat against world No.4 Tarek Momen with a hard-fought 3-2 win over the Egyptian to book his place in the semis, while Joelle King was beaten in four games by top seed Camille Serme of France in her quarter-final.

"I'm stoked, I set myself a goal of winning a lot of these ones when we first come back and it was a big one there against Tarek," said Coll, the world number five from Greymouth.

Vinales wins in Italy

Yamaha's Maverick Vinales claimed his first win of the season in the Emilia Romagna MotoGP at Misano World Circuit, after race leader Francesco Bagnaia of Pramac Racing crashed with seven laps remaining.

Pole-sitter Vinales got off to a slow start but finished strongly to clock a time of 41 minutes, 55.846 seconds and beat fellow Spaniard Joan Mir of Suzuki by 2.425 seconds.

KTM rider Pol Espargaro was moved up to third to make it an all-Spanish podium when Petronas Yamaha's Fabio Quartararo was handed a three-second penalty for exceeding track limits.

The first seven rounds of the COVID-19-hit season have produced six different winners, with Quartararo taking the opening two races in Jerez, Spain.

Ducati's Andrea Dovizioso finished eighth to cling on to the world championship lead with 84 points, a point ahead of Quartararo and Vinales.

-Reuters

Evans wins in Turkey

Toyota's Elfyn Evans won Rally Turkey to reclaim the lead in the world rally championship from team mate Sebastien Ogier.

The Welshman had been fourth at the start of the final leg but ended up celebrating his second win of the season by a margin of 35.2 seconds as rivals hit trouble on the rocky stages.

Evans leads the championship by 18 points with two rounds remaining. The Welshman has 97 points to Ogier's 79.

Hyundai's overnight leader Thierry Neuville, winner of seven of the rally's 12 stages, finished second with team mate Sebastien Loeb a distant third after both suffered punctures on the day's opening stage.

Toyota extended their manufacturers' championship lead over Hyundai to nine points.

The next rally is in Sardinia on Oct. 8-11.

-Reuters