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Sport 1: General Style

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Plural

dpa describes this coverage as sport, not "sports", in its advisories and daily schedules, but the adjective is sports.

teams usually take a plural: e.g.
Liverpool have gone six games without a loss. ...
Germany were world champions in 1974 and 1990 ....
Manchester United are no longer in the European Cup ...

However, it is best to use the singular when referring specifically to a team, squad, side etc.
e.g. The Russian Olympic squad consists of 20 world champions

Scores

Use a dash, not a colon in match reports, e.g. 2-0.
In tennis, the winner's score is always first: e.g. Becker was beaten 6-3, 6-2, 4-6, 6-0 by McEnroe. The same should apply in text in all other sports: Arsenal's 3-0 defeat at Liverpool was their first away loss of the season.

Times

Write out times at first mention, abbreviate thereafter. e.g. Baumann's time of 3 minutes 49.6 seconds was his fastest of the season. His previous best was 3:50.2.
Use a colon to separate minutes and seconds. Use a point to separate seconds and decimal fractions.

Rounds

First round, second round, third round etc. quarter-finals, semi-finals, final. A team or player reaching the "Achtelfinale" is going through to the last 16. See also Phrases To Avoid.

Metrics

In Athletics, or Track and Field, for times use decimal fractions and for distances use metric units.

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