■ENGLAND
Preston shock Wolves
Wolverhampton’s dominance of the Championship was shaken on Saturday as Preston stunned the leaders 3-1 at Molineux. Mick McCarthy’s team are now four points clear of second placed Reading, who hammered Watford 4-0 on Friday, following their meltdown to play-off chasing North End. The hosts squandered the lead given to them in the 20th minute when Sylvan Ebanks-Blake pounced on a mistake by Preston goalkeeper Andy Lonergan. Preston equalized four minutes later through former Wolves striker Stephen Elliott and defender Sean St Ledger nudged the visitors ahead four minutes before the interval. Elliott, who left Wolves in September, sealed Preston’s best win of the season when he slotted home in the 61st minute to hand McCarthy’s men only their second defeat in 14 matches. “Preston gifted us one goal and we gifted them three,” McCarthy said. “When we cock up, we do it big style.”
■GULF CUP
Kuwait send Iraq packing
Asian Cup champions Iraq drew 1-1 with Kuwait on Saturday to confirm their shock exit from the eight-nation Gulf Cup where they finished at the bottom of Group A with just a single point. Iraq had already lost 4-0 to hosts Oman and 3-1 against Bahrain and had no hope of making the semi-finals leaving just pride at stake against the nine-time winners. Kuwait made it to the semi-finals as runners-up behind Oman who finished the group on top with seven points from three matches. Oman beat Bahrain 2-0. Badr al Maymani scored from a 15th minute free-kick with Fawzi Basheer adding the second after the interval.
■FRANCE
Wintry weather hits games
Wintry weather meant three league matches were postponed on Saturday following a week-long controversy over the kick-off time of 8pm on a weekend where temperatures plunged below freezing. Nancy versus Nice and Le Mans against Lille were called off on Saturday while Valenciennes versus Caen was postponed on Friday. Half of the 10 second division matches were postponed and nine of 10 in the third-flight were cancelled as low temperatures caused havoc with the schedules. Valenciennes coach Antoine Kombouare said the 8pm kick-off time on Friday was the reason the match had to be called off. “Perhaps we could have played at 3pm,” Kombouare had said. Football League president Frederic Thiriez said on Thursday, referring to Valenciennes: “Certain people have discovered it’s cold in winter. What amateurism.” The Auxerre versus Marseille fixture started as scheduled but not before the visiting club’s president Pape Diouf told Auxerre president Jean-Claude Hamel that he did not want to play on a frozen pitch. “You can’t play on this pitch. If you want the three points, I give them to you,” Diouf told Hamel in front of TV cameras. Marseille went on to win 2-0.
■PORTUGAL
Sporting sink Maritimo
Simon Vukcevic and Liedson scored to lead Sporting to a 2-0 victory over Maritimo on Saturday. Montenegro forward Vukcevic opened in the 11th minute before Brazilian striker Liedson confirmed the victory in the 82nd after pouncing to score from a rebound. Sporting, unbeaten in six with only one goal conceded in that span, head the Liga Sagres with 29 points from 14 games. FC Porto, which had 27 points from 13 games, were looking to reclaim top spot yesterday with a victory against Trofense. In Saturday’s other match, Guimaraes and Amadora drew 0-0.
INJURY TURMOIL: Despite stunning French Open champions Paolini and Errani to advance, Chan was forced to pull out after her partner’s tearful women’s singles defeat Last year’s mixed doubles champions Hsieh Su-wei of Taiwan and Poland’s Jan Zielinski on Monday crashed out of the quarter-finals at Wimbledon, leaving the Taiwanese star focused on pursuing a fifth women’s doubles title in London, while a partner injury forced compatriot Chan Hao-ching to give up on her doubles campaign. Hsieh and Zielinksi, who last year also won the Australia Open title, narrowly lost their opening set 7-6 (9/7), before Britain’s Joe Salisbury and Brazil’s Luisa Stefani stunned the former champions 6-3 at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. The Taiwanese-Polish duo had been dominant in the first two
Real Madrid’s FIFA Club World Cup quarter-final against Borussia Dortmund had taken three crazy turns during nine minutes of second-half stoppage time when Marcel Sabitzer chested the ball and sent a right-footed volley toward Thibaut Courtois’ post. Courtois leapt to his right, extended the long arm on his 2m frame and just managed to get his gloved fingertips on the ball, knocking it down. Courtois hit the ground as the ball bounded up. He looked skyward, planted his right hand to regain his balance, grabbed the ball with both hands on the second bounce and fell onto it with his chest. Sabitzer turned
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) has overturned French Olympic fencer Ysaora Thibus’ four-year suspension for doping, ruling that her positive test for a banned substance was caused by kissing her then-boyfriend, American fencer Race Imboden. Thibus, a silver medalist in team foil at the Tokyo Games, had tested positive for ostarine, a prohibited muscle-building substance, during a competition in Paris in January last year. However, CAS concluded there was no intentional wrongdoing, finding it scientifically plausible that repeated kissing over several days with Olympic medalist Imboden — who was taking ostarine at the time — led to accidental contamination. The court
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