AS Saint-Etienne and Girondins de Bordeaux missed the chance to go level on points with French league leaders Olympique de Marseille after drawing 1-1 on Thursday.
In front of their buoyant fans, Saint-Etienne extended their unbeaten home record to 16 matches, but should rue their lack of efficiency.
Christophe Galtier’s side missed too many chances in the first half, although Ricky van Wolfswinkel, on loan from Norwich City, opened the scoring with a left-footed shot after connecting with a fine cross from Franck Tabanou in the 29th minute.
Photo: AFP
Defender Tiago Ilori, an English Premier League player on loan from Liverpool, headed home the equalizer eight minutes later against the run of play after some confusion in the penalty area following a corner.
“We wouldn’t have deserved the three points,” said Bordeaux coach Willy Sagnol, a former Saint-Etienne and France player. “We showed determination, but in terms of quality of play we did not show much.”
Saint-Etienne and Bordeaux both trail Marseille by two points after seven matches.
Saint-Etienne, who travel to Marseille tomorrow, got off to a bright start and created a first opportunity after four minutes when Francois Clerc unleashed a long-range strike that forced goalkeeper Cedric Carrasso to a two-fisted save.
The hosts kept pushing throughout the first half and Van Wolfswinkel should have scored in the 16th minute from Allan Saint-Maximin’s low cross, but he missed the target from close range as Carrasso looked well beaten.
Saint-Etienne’s best chance of the second half came in the 58th minute when Renaud Cohade volleyed from long range, only to be denied by Carrasso.
Bordeaux players vented their anger at the referee in stoppage-time after he ignored their penalty claims when Saint-Etienne goalkeeper Stephane Ruffier rushed to the ball in the penalty area with Nicolas Maurice-Belay hitting the ground.
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