■ Handball
Croatia beat Morocco
Two-time Olympic champion Croatia beat Morocco 35-22 in its opening game on Saturday at the handball World Championship. Croatia, the 2003 world champion, played without injured goalkeeper Vlado Sola and defender Davor Dominikovic, whose "A" sample tested positive for an unspecified banned substance after a game with his Spanish club Portland San Antonio. But Morocco was no match for the handball powerhouse in the Group F game in Stuttgart. In Magdeburg, Gudjon Sigurdsson scored 15 goals to pace Iceland's 45-20 rout of Australia in a Group B game. The Czech Republic got seven goals apiece from Jan Filip and Filip Jicha in a 37-23 win over Qatar in a Group D game in Bremen. Ahmed Al-Saad led Qatar, also with seven goals.
■ Motorsport
Sebastien Loeb leads
Citroen driver Sebastien Loeb held the lead of the season-opening Monte Carlo Rally after Saturday's third leg. The Frenchman, the defending three-time world rally champion, finished on Saturday about 31 seconds ahead of Spain's Daniel Sordo, a fellow Citroen rider. Marcus Gronholm of Finland, a Ford driver, was more than 1 minute and 23 seconds back. Saturday's leg covered 460.23km, of which 128.72km were timed. The race began on Thursday and was to end yesterday. Loeb, 32, won last year's title despite missing the final four races after breaking his arm in a cycling accident. He is looking to equal the record set by Finland's Tommi Makinen, who won four straight overall titles from 1996-1999. Most of the Monte Carlo rally has been moved three hours away to Valence, after road closures along the usual course made access too difficult for competitors.
■ Athletics
Koskela, Friesinger lead
Pekka Koskela and Anni Friesinger took the lead at the halfway stage of the ISU world sprint speed skating championship in Norway's Hamar Olympic Hall on Saturday. Race favorite Koskela of Finland won the men's 500m sprint and finished seventh in the 1,000m. He was timed at 34.80 seconds and 1 minute, 9.03 seconds to score a total 69.315 points. South Korea's Lee Kyou-hyuk was in second place, just 0.08 points behind after coming in fourth in the 500 and second in the 1,000m. Dutch sprinter Erben Wennemars was third, with 0.22 points fewer than the winning Finn. Germany's double Olympic champion Friesinger edged her Dutch runner-up Ireen Wust by 0.63 points in the women's race with a total 75.980 points. She was fifth in the 500m and first in the 1,000m, clocking 38.42 and 1:15.12. Wust finished 14th in the 500m, but climbed up to second in the 1,000m, putting her ahead of third-place Chiara Simionato of Italy.
■ Motorsport
Sainz wins 14th stage
Carlos Sainz of Spain won the penultimate 14th stage of the Dakar Rally on Saturday, with the cross-continental race marred by the death of a French motorcyclist. Yamaha motorcyclist Eric Aubijoux had a heart attack, rally director Etienne Lavigne said. A statement issued by race organizers said Aubijoux, 42, had already completed Saturday's stage and was finishing an untimed section near Dakar. He stopped his bike "feeling faint" before collapsing, the statement said. The death was the second of this year's race. South African motorcyclist Elmer Symons, 29, died on Jan. 9 in a crash during the fourth stage from Er Rachidia to Ouarzazate in Morocco.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to
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