Emma Moffatt of Australia successfully defended her triathlon world championship title on Sunday, finishing second behind compatriot Emma Snowsill in the last race of the season.
Snowsill won in a time of 1 hour, 49 minutes, 43 seconds, with Moffatt 1:42 behind.
Nicola Spirig of Switzerland was third, ahead of Sweden’s Lisa Norden. In the overall rankings, Spirig finished second and Norden third.
PHOTO: AFP
Moffatt, a bronze medalist at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, led Andrea Hewitt of New Zealand by 52 points before the final race, but Hewitt dropped out of contention with a poor swim and finished 22nd, falling to sixth in the championship.
“I think the second title definitely means more than the first,” Moffatt said. “I’m really happy about my finish and also really happy to see another Aussie get the win today.”
Snowsill secured her victory with a fast run, leaving Moffatt, Spirig, Norden and Paula Findlay of Canada to battle for second place.
“When [Snowsill] took off I really wanted to go with her, but there was no way,” Moffatt said. “She was going way too fast for me.”
It was a memorable ending to a frustrating season for Snowsill, the Beijing gold medalist, who battled injuries early on.
“Missing five months of training during the beginning of the season makes the season tough,” Snowsill said. “I always knew my speed was there, I just needed to take the time to tap back into it and get everything back in order. Now I know what I need to do to be consistent throughout next year.”
After swimming 1,500m in the chilly Danube River, the triathletes rode 40km and ran 10km on a course centered on the Chain Bridge, Budapest’s oldest span across the river.
South Korean giants T1, led by “Faker,” won their fifth League of Legends (LoL) world championship crown in London on Saturday, beating China’s Bilibili Gaming (BLG) in a thrilling final. The teams were locked at 2-2 at a packed O2 arena, but T1 clinched game five to make it back-to-back titles after nearly four hours of tense action. China’s BLG started strongly, taking the first game before T1 struck back to level. The Chinese team pulled ahead again at 2-1 only for their opponents to hit back again and go on to take the decider. Faker, who won the Most
Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Belgian partner Elise Mertens on Monday notched up their first win in the doubles group stage of the WTA Finals in Riyadh to keep their semi-final hopes alive, while Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russian partner Veronika Kudermetova were aiming to record their first victory after press time last night. Third seeds Hsieh and Mertens came back from a disheartening opening-day loss to Australia’s Ellen Perez and Nicole Melichar-Martinez to defeat top seeds Ukraine’s Lyudmyla Kichenok and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, the women’s doubles world No. 3 and 4 respectively. The 6-1, 6-3 victory at King Saud University Indoor Arena
Amber Glenn overcame a fall and her own doubts to win a maiden Grand Prix figure skating title on Saturday at the Grand Prix de France. The American skater had the lead from Friday’s short program. That and the support of the crowd got her through a tough free skate in which she fell on a triple flip and put a hand onto the ice to steady herself on two other jumps. “I didn’t feel that great out there today, but I really tried, and the audience really got me through that last half when I was doubting myself,” Glenn
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re