A superb Antar Yahia goal gave Algeria a 1-0 victory over Egypt on Wednesday and a place at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
The France-born defender who plays for German club VfL Bochum struck on 40 minutes to settle a playoff necessitated by the bitter North African rivals finishing level on points and goal difference in one of five African groups. As a lofted through ball landed in the Egyptian penalty area, veteran Abdelzaher al-Saqqa allowed it to drop behind him and Yahia volleyed an unstoppable shot into the net off the underside of the crossbar.
African champions Egypt dominated the second half territorially, only to come up against a watertight defense backed by goalkeeper Faouzi Chaouchi.
The match, played at a packed Al-Merreikh Stadium, passed without incident amid tight security after the Algerian team bus was attacked in Cairo last Thursday, leaving three players injured and triggering reprisal attacks.
On Saturday, Emad Moteab scored five minutes into injury-time to give Egypt a 2-0 win which forced the playoff and raised hopes of a first appearance at the finals in 20 years, but it is the Desert Foxes who will join hosts South Africa, Cameroon, Ghana, Ivory Coast and Nigeria.
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