Super Basketball League play is to resume this evening with Kinmen Kaoliang taking on top-ranked Pure Youth Construction at the Sinjhuang Sport Complex in New Taipei City at 6pm, followed by a showdown between the Taiwan Mobile Cloud Leopards and Bank of Taiwan.
After a long three-week Lunar New Year break that had all seven clubs around the league well rested, no one is more ready to hit the floor than the Distillers, who were humbled by the Builders in a 95-81 decision on Feb. 3 — both teams’ last game before the break. Leading the way for the best of Kinmen will be hired gun Taylor King, who will put his league-best 24.9 points-per-game average to the test as they look to spoil the Builders’ new year opener with an upset win.
In addition to a big game from King, skipper Luo Tien-jin will also need a solid effort from his outside scoring threat Lin Guan-luen, who led the league in scoring earlier in the season with several monstrous games, before tapering off in their last two weeks of play in what many would call a “mini slump.” The versatile point man did not play in the Distillers’ final game before the Lunar New Year break against the Builders because of an unspecified injury, but should be ready to hit the floor hard tonight.
Also attracting much attention this weekend will be the highly anticipated return of Dacin Tiger team icon Tien Lei, who is finally at full strength after suffering a foot injury in December last year that sidelined him for nearly two months. His speedy recovery to top form will be critical for the Cats in the final three weeks of regular season as they look to cling on to the No. 2 spot in the standings with a narrow half-game lead over the third-placed Leopards, who would love to trade places with the Tigers in the standings with a win over the Tigers in tomorrow afternoon’s standoff between the two squads.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later