Caretaker manager Ray Lewington ended his spell at the helm of struggling Fulham with a 1-1 draw at Birmingham City on Saturday, burying the Cottagers further in the drop zone.
Fulham, who had manager in-waiting Roy Hodgson watching from the stands, failed to overcome their 5-1 Boxing Day thrashing by Tottenham and let slip a 1-0 first-half lead when Carlos Bocanegra's headed goal was canceled out just under the hour mark by a deflected Sebastian Larsson drive.
The draw has left Fulham -- who were reduced to 10 men late on when Hameur Bouazza was redcarded -- free falling further into the relegation zone after Roy Keane's Sunderland beat Bolton Wanderers 3-1. Fulham are now 19th in the league on 15 points.
The in-form Gary McSheffrey should have opened the scoring within the first five minutes for Alex McLeish's Birmingham after being played clean through a sleepy Fulham defense that was caught on a counter attack with only Antti Niemi to beat.
But the 25-year-old Blues winger squandered the perfect chance to take the lead by drilling his shot high into the crowd. The opener came just a few minutes later but at the other end.
The Cottagers' US defender Bocanegra connected with a Simon Davies inswinging corner to blast his header past former Fulham shotstopper Maik Taylor at the near post to give the Londoners the lead.
McLeish's men did not have to wait long for the fruits of their increased second-half labor.
Ten minutes after the restart, Fabrice Muamba found Sebastian Larsson on the left. The Swede's powerful low shot took a deflection off Fulham's Elliot Omozusi to stump Niemi and put Birmingham back in the game.
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
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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