Neymar made the three-man Ballon D’Or shortlist for the first time on Monday, alongside Barcelona teammate Lionel Messi and title holder Cristiano Ronaldo.
The 30-year-old Ronaldo has won two consecutive world player of the year titles since ending Messi’s four-year winning streak and is nominated despite failing to win any trophies with Real Madrid in 2015.
The 23-year-old Neymar, though, won a treble with Messi at Barcelona, ensuring he became the first Brazilian finalist since 2007 winner Kaka.
Photo: AFP
Neymar has 41 goals across the calendar year for Barcelona — three fewer than the 28-year-old Messi — but one blot is the four-match ban from Brazil games imposed at the Copa America following a red card.
The winner is announced at a FIFA gala in Zurich on Jan. 11, when a series of other awards are handed out.
Chile’s Jorge Sampaoli is a finalist for men’s coach of the year after winning the Copa America title. Barcelona’s Luis Enrique, who led his team to the Champions League title, also is a finalist along with Bayern Munich’s Pep Guardiola.
US forward Carli Lloyd is among the finalists for FIFA’s women’s award after scoring a hat-trick that led the US to victory over Japan in the World Cup final. Japan’s Aya Miyama and Germany’s Celia Sasic are the other finalists.
Jill Ellis of the US is a finalist for women’s team coach award, along with Mark Sampson, who led England to third place, and Norio Sasak of Japan.
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