Clarence Seedorf maintained his unbeaten start as AC Milan coach with an entertaining 1-1 Serie A draw against a flamboyant Torino at the San Siro on Saturday.
Milan came back from a poor start to draw level through Adil Rami’s deflected long-range strike five minutes into the second half, but failed to snatch a winner to stay in ninth place on 29 points, four behind city rivals Inter in fifth.
“I’m very happy because it’s come at a pretty complicated time for me, after four or five months without playing,” Rami told reporters after scoring his first goal in Italy.
Photo: EPA
France international Rami agreed in October to sign for Milan on loan from Valencia in last month’s transfer window, but asked to be immediately allowed to train with the Italian club.
Giampiero Ventura’s Torino stayed sixth, level on 33 points with Inter, who were traveling to Juventus for the Derby of Italy yesterday.
“From the first day I said our objective was neither safety nor Europe. We wanted to become a player in Serie A and we are growing game by game,” Ventura said.
They will be disappointed they missed the chance to leapfrog Inter into the European places after a thrilling first-half display in which Ciro Immobile give the away side the lead with a brilliant breakaway goal after 17 minutes.
Immobile broke the offside trap before leaving defender Daniele Bonera on the floor with an expert shimmy and coolly slipping his 11th goal of an impressive season past Milan goalkeeper Christian Abbiati.
ACF Fiorentina missed the chance to draw level on points with third-placed SSC Napoli after losing 1-0 at Cagliari, for whom Mauricio Pinilla converted a first-half penalty.
Fourth-placed ACF Fiorentina stayed on 41 points, three behind Napoli after a lackluster display in which they created little as hosts Cagliari climbed to 13th on 24 points.
Udinese are a point and a place behind Cagliari after a 2-0 win at Bologna, Antonio di Natale grabbing his fifth goal of the season from the penalty spot after 15 minutes and Nicolas Lopez scoring on the counterattack in stoppage-time to leave their hosts one point and one place above the relegation zone.
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