SOCCER
Mechelen fall to defeat
Taiwan international Xavier Chen played the full 90 minutes as KV Mechelen fell to 10th in the Belgian Jupiler League after a 1-0 away defeat to Cercle Bruge KSV at the Jan Breydel Stadium on Saturday. Substitute Amido Balde scored for the hosts in the 70th minute to put them in sixth position on 40 points, while Mechelen remain on 31 points, still 14 points clear of the relegation places. RSC Anderlecht lead the league by seven points with a game in hand.
SOCCER
Mali finish third
Mali finished third at the Africa Cup of Nations after two goals from Cheick Tidiane Diabate delivered a 2-0 win over 10-man Ghana on Saturday in Malabo. The giant France-based striker scored both from close range as Mali ensured a second successive crushing defeat for Ghana, upset by Zambia in Wednesday’s semi-finals, in four days. Ghana’s misery included the dismissal of central defender Isaac Vorsah for a second yellow card just past the hour mark. Diabate put Mali ahead when he was first to react after goalkeeper Adam Kwarasey could only palm out a long-range shot in the 23rd minute, sliding the ball into the net. He added the second with 10 minutes left after a breakaway ended with a pinpoint cross from fullback Adama Tamboura. A dispirited Ghana saw Vorsah become their third player to be sent off at this year’s finals. Ghana, who had beaten Mali 2-0 in the group phase last month, thought they had scored just after halftime, but Sulley Muntari’s effort was ruled offside.
SOCCER
Milan defeat Udinese
AC Milan produced a storming comeback with goals by Maxi Lopez and Stephan El Shaarawy to win 2-1 at title rivals Udinese on Saturday and move top of Serie A as their strikers made light of Zlatan Ibrahimovic’s absence. Lopez, signed from Catania last month after Milan failed to land Carlos Tevez from Manchester City, netted his first goal for the champions when he scored on the rebound 12 minutes from time after coming on as a substitute. Teenager El Shaarawy, starting in place of the suspended Ibrahimovic, had a hand in Lopez’s goal and then sealed the win himself when he combined with the Argentine again five minutes from time. “I’m not just content, I’m really happy because scoring for this team has always been my dream,” Lopez told reporters. “El Shaarawy is young, but he’s growing a lot. This group is strong. Everyone gives their all when they get on the pitch.” Cagliari beat fellow mid-table side Palermo 2-1 in Saturday’s other game in Sardinia.
ALPINE SKIING
Kostelic defends title
Croatia’s Ivica Kostelic won the last men’s super-combined race of the season to defend his World Cup title in the discipline on the 2014 Sochi Olympic course yesterday. Kostelic, who was 1.52 seconds behind downhill section winner Beat Feuz, produced a flawless performance in the deciding slalom to eventually finish 1.16 seconds ahead of the Swiss. Frenchman Thomas Mermillod Blondin was third, finishing 1.77 seconds behind.
ALPINE SKIING
Worley wins giant slalom
France’s Tessa Worley won the women’s World Cup giant slalom event yesterday in Soldeu, Andorra. Slovenia’s Tina Maze was 0.16 seconds to finish second, while Germany’s Maria Hoefl-Riesch was third at 0.75 back.
TENNIS
Bartoli beats Zakopalova
Marion Bartoli beat Klara Zakopalova of the Czech Republic 7-6 (3), 6-0 to reach the Open GDF Suez final against Angelique Kerber of Germany in Paris on Saturday. Kerber edged Yanina Wickmayer of Belgium 6-7 (2), 6-3, 6-4 in the other semi-final. Zakopalova took a 4-2 lead in the first set, but the second-seeded Bartoli saved two set points in the eighth game and broke back in the ninth with a forehand return winner to force a tiebreaker. The second set was all one way. Bartoli reached her first WTA final since winning the Japan Open in October last year. In the second semi-final, Kerber broke for a 4-3 lead in the last set on an unforced error from Wickmayer. Wickmayer saved four match points at 5-3, but Kerber clinched victory in the next game when the Belgian netted a backhand return.
ATHLETICS
Kiplagat runs fastest mile
World silver medalist Silas Kiplagat ran the fastest indoor mile in three years as he edged Kenyan compatriot Caleb Ndiku at the USA Track and Field Classic in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on Saturday. Kiplagat sprinted home to nip Ndiku by three-hundredths of a second, clocking three minutes, 52.63 seconds on the fast University of Arkansas track. Former world long jump champion Tianna Madison defeated Jamaican Olympic 200m gold medalist Veronica Campbell-Brown to win the featured women’s 60m as three other season’s best for this year were set at the meeting. American Madison, the 2005 world outdoor long jump champion, raced to a lifetime best of 7.02 seconds for a six-hundredths of a second win over Campbell-Brown. Former world 200m champion Allyson Felix finished fourth in 7.11. Madison also had the fastest time in the preliminaries, a then-world leading 7.05 seconds.
ATHLETICS
Blake sets personal best
World 100m champion Yohan Blake opened his season with a 400m personal best on Saturday at the Camperdown Classic in Kingston, while 100m world-record holder Usain Bolt skipped the Jamaican meet. Blake’s time of 46.49 seconds was 0.2 of a second behind winner Allodin Fothergill, a member of Jamaica’s third-place 4x400m team at last year’s World Championships in Daegu, South Korea. Blake, who ran very easily for the first 200m, faded in the homestretch, with Fothergill moving past in the last 10m for the victory. Blake warned his sprint rivals that he is “much, much stronger this year and faster. Running 46.4 in my first outing is wonderful.” Just as Blake skipped the 100m, training partner and reigning Olympic champion Bolt passed on the entire meet after saying for more than a month that he planned to compete.
FIGURE SKATING
Wagner skates top numbers
American Ashley Wagner performed the best free skate of her career in Colorado Springs, Colorado, on Saturday night to win the Four Continents Figure Skating Championships for her first international title. The US champion skated an elegant, clean program to finish with 128.34-point score that left her with a career-high total of 192.41. That was enough to edge two-time world champion Mao Asada of Japan, who settled for second at 188.62 after touching a hand to the ice while attempting to land a triple lutz and having a triple axel downgraded by judges. Earlier, US champions Meryl Davis and Charlie White won the ice dancing short program, and China’s Sui Wenjing and Han Cong topped the pairs field after the short program.
RECORD DEFEAT: The Shanghai-based ‘Oriental Sports Daily’ said the drubbing was so disastrous, and taste so bitter, that all that is left is ‘numbness’ Chinese soccer fans and media rounded on the national team yesterday after they experienced fresh humiliation in a 7-0 thrashing to rivals Japan in their opening Group C match in the third phase of Asian qualifying for the 2026 World Cup. The humiliation in Saitama on Thursday against Asia’s top-ranked team was China’s worst defeat in World Cup qualifying and only a goal short of their record 8-0 loss to Brazil in 2012. Chinese President Xi Jinping once said he wanted China to host and even win the World Cup one day, but that ambition looked further away than ever after a
‘KHELIFMANIA’: In the weeks since the Algerian boxer won gold in Paris, national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women In the weeks since Algeria’s Imane Khelif won an Olympic gold medal in women’s boxing, athletes and coaches in the North African nation say national enthusiasm is inspiring newfound interest in the sport, particularly among women. Khelif’s image is practically everywhere, featured in advertisements at airports, on highway billboards and in boxing gyms. The 25-year-old welterweight’s success in Paris has vaulted her to national hero status, especially after Algerians rallied behind her in the face of uninformed speculation about her gender and eligibility to compete. Amateur boxer Zougar Amina, a medical student who has been practicing for a year, called Khelif an
Crowds descended on the home of 17-year-old Chinese diver Quan Hongchan after she won two golds at the Paris Olympics while gymnast Zhang Boheng hid in a Beijing airport toilet to escape overzealous throngs of fans. They are just two recent examples of what state media are calling “toxic fandom” and Chinese authorities have vowed to crack down on it. Some of the adulation toward China’s sports stars has been more sinister — fans obsessing over athletes’ personal lives, cyberbullying opponents or slamming supposedly crooked judges. Experts say it mirrors the kind of behavior once reserved for entertainment celebrities before
GOING GLOBAL: The regular season fixture is part of the football league’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the sport to international destinations The US National Football League (NFL) breaks new ground in its global expansion strategy tomorrow when the Philadelphia Eagles and Green Bay Packers face off in the first-ever grid-iron game staged in Brazil. For one night only, the land of Pele and ‘The Beautiful Game’ will get a rare glimpse into the bone-crunching world of American football as the Packers and Eagles collide at Sao Paulo’s Neo Quimica Arena, the 46,000-seat home of soccer club Corinthians. The regular season fixture is part of the NFL’s increasingly ambitious plans to spread the US’ most popular sport to new territories following previous international fixtures
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