LOSC Lille Metropole recovered from their Champions League exit to beat Dijon FCO 2-0 and move two points behind the leaders, while Olympique Lyonnais failed to hit the heights of midweek, but still won 1-0 at Lorient on Sunday.
Ligue 1 champions Lille, whose 0-0 draw with Trabzonspor on Wednesday sent them out of Europe, closed the gap on Montpellier Herault after the south coast side lost 1-0 at lowly Valenciennes on Saturday.
Moussa Sow’s close-range header on 16 minutes gave third-placed Lille the lead as they returned to their Metropole Stadium with renewed purpose.
Winger Eden Hazard made it 2-0 early in the second half following a well-worked move involving Sow and Joe Cole as Lille racked up a 16th domestic game unbeaten.
Sow and Cole — with an acrobatic volley — both hit the post amid a cacophony of singing from the home fans, but promoted Dijon had their moments, striking the woodwork and having an effort cleared off the line.
Second-placed Paris Saint-Germain host Lille next Sunday.
“I set a goal to win against Dijon, to show that we had moved on,” Lille coach Rudi Garcia told reporters. “The aim now is to put in a big performance in Paris and do everything possible to take maximum points at the Parc des Princes. We will be very ambitious. Afterwards, we’ll see what pans out.”
Lyon, who performed a near miracle in making the Champions League knockout stages in midweek by thumping Dinamo Zagreb 7-1 away, overcame a more stubborn Lorient thanks to Alexandre Lacazette’s angled daisy-cutter on 54 minutes.
Mid-table Lorient, managed by Lyon playmaker Yoann Gourcuff’s father Christian, had matched their visitors in the first period, but they suffered a rare home defeat as Remi Garde’s side went two points behind Lille.
In Sunday’s other match, AJ Auxerre beat fellow strugglers OGC Nice 2-1.
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
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