Herculez Gomez and Roberto Brown scored early to lead the Colorado Rapids to their first US Major League Soccer season-opening victory, a 2-1 win over DC United on Saturday.
Terry Cooke had two assists for the Rapids, who opened the Major League Soccer season in their new US$131 million stadium and had lost nine of 11 season openers.
Officially, it was a sellout at the 18,000-seat Dicks' Sporting Goods Park, although the stadium had empty seats amid flurries and freezing temperatures.
PHOTO: AP
FC Dallas 2, Real Salt Lake 2
In Salt Lake City, Carlos Ruiz scored in the fourth minute of stoppage time to rally FC Dallas to the draw with Real Salt Lake.
Salt Lake was about one minute from winning a season opener for the first time, but goalkeeper Nick Rimando ran out to grab the ball in front of the goal and missed, leaving Ruiz to head in the tying goal. Jeff Cunningham scored twice for Salt Lake.
Red Bulls 0, Crew 0
In chilly Columbus, Ohio, Claudio Reyna wore the captain's armband for New York in his first Major League Soccer game as the Red Bulls drew with Columbus.
Reyna, a midfielder who has played 112 games for the US national team, signed with the Red Bulls in January after a 12-year career in Europe.
Neither team was able to generate many scoring opportunities in a game played in blustery, below-freezing conditions that included snow in the second half.
Fire 1, Revolution 0
In Bridgeport, Illinois, Logan Pause scored in the fourth minute to give Chicago the victory over New England in both teams' season opener.
Chris Rolfe sent the ball to Justin Mapp, who crossed it into the box. Pause headed the ball off the left post and into the net to give the Fire a 1-0 lead.
The goal was Pause's first in Major League Soccer.
Chivas usa, 2 Toronto FC 0
In Carson, California, Ante Razov and Sacha Kljestan scored to lead Chivas USA over expansion club Toronto FC in both teams' season opener.
Toronto FC became the first club outside the US to participate in Major League Soccer. The league's 13th franchise had four Canadian-born players in the starting lineup -- goalkeeper Greg Sutton and defenders Maycoll Canizalez, Marco Reda and team captain Jim Brennan.
Razov scored in the 20th minute for his 99th MLS goal. He has played in all 12 MLS seasons. Kljestan scored his first MLS goal in the 87th minute.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier