Montpellier pulled five points clear of second-placed Paris Saint--Germain in the Ligue 1 title race with a narrow 1-0 victory at home to Valenciennes on Saturday.
With PSG not in action until they tackle Sochaux at Parc des Princes in yesterday’s game, Rene Girard’s side took full advantage by strengthening their grip on top spot ahead of their final five games of the season.
Montpellier took the lead after just five minutes at Stade de la Mosson, with Souleymane Camara kneeing home Younes Belhanda’s drilled cross from the right following a short corner.
Defending champions Lille closed to within two points of PSG and increased their cushion in third place to eight points by winning 2-0 at Dijon.
Lille were reduced to 10 men in the 35th minute when Idrissa Gueye was shown a straight red card for a foul on Brice Jovial, but four minutes later Eden Hazard squared for Rio Mavuba to put the visitors into the lead.
Rennes surged above Lyon and Toulouse into fourth place by winning 1-0 at Brest through a first-half Julien Feret penalty, while Toulouse lost 2-1 at in-form Evian.
Saint-Etienne drew level on points with Lyon and Toulouse by cruising to a 4-1 success at relegation-threatened Caen.
Bottom club Auxerre remain five points adrift of safety after losing 1-0 at Nice and seeing both Dennis Oliech and Willy Boly sent off.
In Saturday’s late game, a Jussie double gave Bordeaux a 2-1 win at home to Marseille that condemned Didier Deschamps’ beleaguered side to their 12th Ligue 1 game without victory.
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