Dazzling Borussia Dortmund restored an 11-point lead at the top of the Bundesliga on Saturday, charging past hosts VfL Wolfsburg 3-0 for their 10th win in 11 away games this season.
Bayer Leverkusen, second on 39 points, had briefly cut the gap to eight on Friday, but goals from Lucas Barrios and Nuri Sahin either end of the first half and another from Mats Hummels made sure Dortmund kept up their title run with their 16th win in 20 games.
Bayern Munich came from a goal down to edge past Werder Bremen 3-1 in the north-south derby to move into third place on 36 for the first time this season.
FSV Mainz 05 beat Kaiserslautern 1-0 thanks to a Lewis Holtby volley for their first win after two defeats this year that lifted them to fourth, also on 36.
Schalke 04 suffered a surprise 1-0 home defeat to TSG 1899 Hoffenheim, who celebrated their first win under new coach Marco Pezzaiuoli, while Hamburg SV slumped to a 2-0 defeat at Nuremberg to drop to seventh on 30 points.
Leaders Dortmund did not need long to establish who was boss on the pitch with Barrios tapping in a Mario Goetze cross in the second minute.
With Japanese offensive midfielder Shinji Kagawa out for the rest of the season with a broken foot, Goetze slipped into his role with ease, dictating the visitors’ attack.
Dortmund had more than 60 percent possession for much of the first half, determined to improve their spectacular away record this season.
Juergen Klopp’s team went 2-0 up just before the break with Wolfsburg clearly lacking ideas and being far too static. Goetze crossed again into the box and Sahin benefited from some confusion to score.
Hummels dashed any Wolfsburg hopes in the 71st minute, tapping in from close range.
In Bremen, the hosts struck two minutes after the restart, taking a deserved lead when Per Mertesacker was left unmarked at the edge of the Bayern box to slot home.
Arjen Robben sneaked in to level with his second goal in two games, Mertesacker fired into his own net and substitute Miroslav Klose sealed Bayern’s win four minutes from time.
Bremen’s misery was complete when goalkeeper Tim Wiese was sent off in the 88th minute for a rough challenge on Thomas Mueller.
Also on Saturday, St Pauli beat Cologne 3-0 in a relegation battle in Hamburg.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY STAFF WRITER
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