■ Soccer
Turkey sells out tickets
Turkey sells out of tickets for Turkey-England match
Next month's crucial European championship qualifier between Turkey and England at Istanbul's Sukru Saracoglu Stadium has been sold out, organizers said Friday, two weeks before the Oct. 11 Group 7 game. The sellout was widely anticipated as the match determines which team will advance directly to next year's Euro 2004 finals. England leads the group standings with 19 points from seven games, followed by Turkey with 18. The Anatolia news agency reported Friday that the 42,000 seats were sold out at a total revenue of 2.5 trillion Turkish lira (US$1.8 million). England has turned down its ticket allotment for the game and has warned fans not to travel to Turkey because of a history of crowd trouble between fans from the two countries. Turkish officials have promised tight security and have said English fans would not be allowed in the stadium even if they have tickets.
■ Cricket
Play gets washed out
Rain continued to hit New Zealand's tour opener Saturday as play was washed out on the second day of a three-day match against the Board President's XI, cricket officials confirmed. Early morning showers left the outfield soggy in southern city of Visakhapatnam, the Andhra Pradesh Cricket Association said. The first day's play on Friday was restricted to 10.2 overs. The Indian Board President's team scored 23 without loss in 46 minutes of batting. Heavy rain has been lashing the coastal city of Visakhapatnam since Wednesday. New Zealand will play two tests and a one-day international series that also features world champion Australia during its eight-week tour of India.
■ Gymnastics
Russia wins group title
Russia defended its title Friday in the group competition at the World Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships to lead eight countries in qualifying for the Olympic Games next year. Russia scored a total of .50.325 points in the two exercises: five ribbons and three hoops and two balls. Bulgaria took second with 50.175 points. Italy and Belarus tied for third with 46.450 each. The top eight teams qualiyfing for the group competition at the Olympics. Two more wild card teams will be chosen. Russia took the gold in groups ahead of Greece and Ukraine. The individual all-around finals are today.
■ Cycling
Simeoni wins 19th stage
Filippo Simeoni won the 19th stage of the Tour of Spain on Friday while Isidro Nozal's overall lead dwindled to just under two minutes. Simeoni, riding for the Domina Vacanze team, edged Denmark's Klaus Moller in a final stretch sprint, finishing the 164km leg between La Vega de Alcobendas and Collado Villalba in three hours, 51 minutes and 18 seconds. The pack, led by Cristian Moreni of Italy, finished 16 seconds back. Heras, riding for the US Postal Team, sliced more than a minute off Nozal's lead, climbing to second place overall and ending the day 1:55 minutes behind the Spaniard. Nozal finished 31st, 1:30 behind Simeoni, but that was still enough for the Spaniard to hold on to the yellow jersey for the 15th straight day.
■ Tennis
Massu upsets Montanes
Top seed Nicolas Massu of Chile, ranked 28th in the world, defeated Albert Montanes of Spain 6-4, 1-6, 6-4 Friday in the US$380,000 Campionati Internazionali di Sicilia, the final ATP event on clay this year. No other quarterfinal matches were completed because of rain. In the day's second match, No. 8 seed Luis Horna of Peru led Spain's Oscar Hernandez two games to one in the first set when the downpour began. That match will resume Saturday morning. Other quarterfinals to be played on Saturday include No. 6 seed Alberto Martin of Spain against Argentine Franco Squillari; No. 5 seed Paul-Henri Mathieu of France against Argentine Diego Varonelli. In the final match Thursday, Argentine qualifier Diego Veronelli, playing for the first time since his upset of No. 2 seed Russian Nikolay Davydenko, needed little more than an hour to take apart Romania's Victor Hanescu, 6-4, 6-2. Veronelli is ranked 232 in the world.
■ Basketball
Nuggets accept Japanese
Japanese guard Yuta Tabuse has joined the NBA after signing with the Denver Nuggets, the team announced Friday. Tabuse, from Yokohama, played for Division II BYU-Hawaii from 2000-2002 before joining the Toyota Alvark of the Japan Basketball League last season. According to NBA Japan public relations director Ryuta Uchino, Tabuse is the first Japanese player to take part in an NBA training camp. Japan's Yasutaka Okayama was drafted by the Golden State Warriors in 1981, but didn't join the team. In a statement Friday, Nuggets GM Kiki Vandeweghe described Tabuse as an exciting young player. "He can really play at a fast pace and knows how to get the ball into the hands of the right people," Vandeweghe said. The 1.75m Tabuse also played in six games in the Rocky Mountain Revue for the Dallas Mavericks last summer, averaging 4.5 points, 1.7 rebounds and 1.0 assists in 13 minutes.
A runner who stopped during a marathon in China to pose doing the splits and another who hoarded energy gels have been banned for two years, the local athletics association said yesterday. The incidents happened during Sunday’s marathon in Sichuan Province’s Chengdu and were widely shared online. Videos showed a female runner stopping suddenly and dropping to the ground in the splits position, holding up her arms in a heart shape as she apparently posed for a photograph. She “committed obstructive fouls during the race, affecting the safe participation of other runners,” the Sichuan Athletics Association said in a statement, which identified
Mercedes’ Kimi Antonelli yesterday vowed to “keep raising the bar” after winning the Japanese Grand Prix to become the youngest driver in Formula One history to lead the championship standings. The 19-year-old Italian took advantage of a mid-race safety car to jump into the lead after a dreadful start from pole position, crossing the line ahead of McLaren’s Oscar Piastri and Ferrari’s Charles Leclerc. Antonelli’s Suzuka victory came two weeks after the first grand prix win of his career in China, and sent him top of the championship standings after three races, nine points ahead of team-mate George Russell. Mercedes are struggling to
Liverpool star Mohamed Salah on Tuesday said that he would leave the English club at the end of the Premier League season, marking an earlier-than-planned departure for one of the club’s greatest-ever scorers and soccer’s biggest names. The 33-year-old Egypt forward, who has scored 255 goals in 435 appearances for Liverpool, “reached an agreement” to quit the team a year before his contract was due to expire, the Premier League champions said. Salah’s form has dipped in his ninth year at Anfield, to such an extent that he was dropped for a stretch of games late last year — leading to the
There were some big games to be played yesterday in the NBA, with the Atlanta Hawks to play the Detroit Pistons in a matchup pitting a Hawks team who are rolling against a Pistons team trying to lock up the Eastern Conference’s No. 1 seed. The Oklahoma City Thunder were to play the Boston Celtics, a showdown featuring the two most recent champions, while the Houston Rockets faced the Minnesota Timberwolves, a game that could factor mightily into Western Conference seeding. Elsewhere, the Washington Wizards were to play the Utah Jazz, with the Wizards on a 16-game slide visiting against a team
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