Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1011650
maltatoday | SUNDAY • 5 AUGUST 2018 28 MIXED MARTIAL ARTS SPORTS DOCTORS are optimistic about Formula One triple world champion Niki Lauda's recovery following a six-hour lung transplant. The Austrian motor racing legend, 69, underwent the sur- gery in Vienna on Thursday. His condition at the time had been "extremely critical", the head of the department that performed Lauda's surgery said. "In the last seven days, Mr. Lauda was kept alive only by a pump, a sort of heart-lung machine," head of the Depart- ment of Thoracic Surgery Wal- ter Klepetko said in a television interview released by Austria's Oe24 on Friday. Without a transplant, life ex- pectancy in such circumstances would be limited to days or weeks, he said. "Considering the not very easy circumstances, we are very, very happy with the developments," Klepetko said, adding the hos- pital would release a compre- hensive update about Lauda's condition at a later time. Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff on Friday wished chair- man Lauda a safe and speedy recovery and hoped the Aus- trian would be back at the races before long. "The world knows Niki as an F1 legend with incredible power and resilience," Wolff, also Austrian, said in a message before the August factory shut- down. "For all of us at Mercedes he is our chairman, our mentor and our friend," he added. "We have missed him by our side in Hockenheim and Hungary and can't wait to have him back with us on the grand prix tracks of this world." "The recovery he now faces is not a race. But knowing Niki, I'm sure he will soon be telling every nurse and doctor that he has had enough of the hospi- tal," Wolff said. Four times world champion Lewis Hamilton, who is lead- ing the championship for Mer- cedes, also sent Lauda – who was instrumental in signing the Briton from McLaren at the end of 2012 – a message on In- stagram. Lauda, who was badly burned in a near-fatal Formula One crash in 1976 and later became an airline entrepreneur, was taken ill recently. He won his titles with Ferrari and McLaren in 1975, 1977 and 1984. He recently agreed to sell con- trol of his Laudamotion airline to Ryanair. Doctors optimistic about Formula One great Lauda's recovery McGregor to face Nurmagomedov in UFC return MIXED martial arts fighter Conor McGregor will meet Russian lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov in Las Vegas in October on his return to the Ultimate Fighting Cham- pionship (UFC). The Oct. 6 bout will be Irish- man McGregor's first since the former two-time division champion pleaded guilty in New York last month to a mis- demeanour disorderly conduct charge for throwing a hand truck at a bus full of fighters in Brooklyn in April. The Nurmagomedov fight, part of UFC 229, is tipped to be the biggest in the cham- pionship's short history and could become the first MMA match to hit two million in pay-per-view sales. McGregor, 30, has not fought in the octagon since he knocked out Eddie Alvarez in Nov. 2016 to win the light- weight title and become the first fighter to hold two UFC belts at the same time. Since then, his only prize fight has been a lucrative box- ing bout against Floyd May- weather which he lost. McGregor was eventually stripped of both his UFC belts, and in his absence the light- weight division has become one of the most exciting in the UFC. The unbeaten Nurmagome- dov is currently at the top of the pile, having secured the belt in an unanimous decision win over Al Iaquinta in Brook- lyn in April. Ever since, fans have wanted to see how his smothering style would fare against McGregor's punching and quick move- ment.