Burkina Faso and Senegal booked places at next year’s Africa Cup of Nations on Saturday, while defending champions Egypt will be shock absentees from the tournament after losing in Sierra Leone.
A goal in each half from Moussa Sow — leading scorer in France’s Ligue 1 last season — gave Senegal a 2-0 home win over the Democratic Republic of Congo and an uncatchable five-point lead in Group E.
Namibia upset visiting Gambia 1-0 to leave the Burkina Faso with an unassailable six-point advantage in Group F and seven-time winners Egypt remained bottom of Group G after a late penalty condemned them to a 2-1 defeat.
After collecting just two points from four previous qualifiers, Egypt believed they had no chance of reaching a tournament they won three consecutive times since 2006 and they sent Olympic and youth team players to west Africa.
Former champions Tunisia took a giant stride toward joining Burkina Faso, Ivory Coast, Botswana, Senegal and co-hosts Gabon and Equatorial Guinea at next year’s finals by forcing a 0-0 draw at closest Group K rivals Malawi.
Cameroon, four time Cup of Nations champions, trounced Mauritius 5-0 in the mini-league won by Senegal to keep alive their slim hopes of making the finals as one of the best two runners-up.
The absence of star striker Didier Drogba, who suffered concussion playing for Chelsea the previous weekend, did not prevent Ivory Coast raising their Group H goal haul to 17 from five games with a 5-0 drubbing of Rwanda in Kigali.
Dennis Oliech found the net in stoppage-time to snatch a 2-1 home win for Kenya over Guinea Bissau in Group J, while Algeria came from behind under new Bosnian coach Vahid Halilhodzic to force a 1-1 Group D draw in Tanzania.
South Africa-based midfielder Tangeni Shipahu became the unlikely toast of Burkina Faso by scoring the 83rd-minute winner that gave Namibia a rare competitive victory after three consecutive pool losses.
Namibian officials have lodged a protest against Burkina Faso defender Herve Zengue, who they claim is Cameroonian and not eligible to play for the country of his wife, and it will be heard in Cairo later this month.
Sheriff Suma put Sierra Leone into an early lead, Mohsen Marwan leveled on the stroke of halftime and it looked like the Baby Pharaohs would escape with a point until Mohamed Bangura converted an 84th-minute penalty.
Victory lifted Sierra Leone to eight points and a share of first place with South Africa, who were scheduled to face Niger in sauna-like Niamey yesterday without injured captain and midfielder Steven Pienaar.
In Saturday’s other qualifiers, Ghana beat Swaziland 2-0, while Mali defeated Cape Verde Islands 3-0.
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