Russia underlined their total dominance in the synchronized swimming program at the world championships on Saturday by completing a sweep of all seven gold medals with victory in the free combination team event.
After winning all seven titles at the previous world championships in Shanghai two years ago and six out of seven at both Montreal in 2007 and Rome in 2009, the 10-strong Russian team wowed spectators at the Palau Sant Jordi with a typically acrobatic routine to amass a points total of 97.060.
Spain got the home supporters rocking with a rousing Elvis Presley-themed routine to take silver with 94.620 and Ukraine clinched bronze ahead of Japan with 92.020.
“We did here our maximum,” Svetlana Kolesnichenko, who teamed up with double solo gold medalist Svetlana Romashina to win both duet events, told reporters.
“We did everything that we wanted to do, so it’s a big mix of emotions,” she added.
Alba Cabello, at 27 one of the senior members of the Spanish team, said she and her teammates were now looking ahead to the next Olympics in Rio de Janeiro in 2016.
With China competing in Barcelona in the solo and duet events only, Spain held off the best of the rest to take three silvers behind the Russians in the team competition.
“If someone doubted that our team could win a medal in each event, they can look at the result and see that we’ve reached our target,” Cabello said. “We will continue to fight for medals.”
SSC Napoli’s Italian Serie A title hopes suffered a late setback on Sunday when they were held to a 2-2 draw at home against Genoa, setting up a thrilling season finale with closest rivals Inter just one point behind. The hosts remain top with 78 points, holding a slim lead over Inter, who won 2-0 at Torino earlier on Sunday, with two rounds remaining. To make matters worse for Napoli, midfielder Stanislav Lobotka, struggling with an ankle injury, was forced off just minutes after the match began. Scott McTominay delivered a perfect pass into the box where Romelu Lukaku got
Harry Kane opened the scoring ahead of lifting his first career silverware as Bayern Munich beat Borussia Moenchengladbach 2-0, with veteran Thomas Mueller playing his last home game for the club. Bayern officially won the title on May 4 when defending champions Bayer Leverkusen were held to a 2-2 draw at Freiburg, but were presented with the Bundesliga shield in front of their home fans at full-time. Dripping wet after being showered with beer by teammates, Kane said the title win was “an incredible feeling,” and hoped it would be “the first of many.” “It’s been lot of hard work, a lot of
INTER AWAIT: Superb saves by PSG ’keeper Gianluigi Donnarumma inspired the victory, as Arsenal were punished for misses, including one by Bukayo Saka Arsenal on Wednesday fell short on the big stage again as their painful UEFA Champions League semi-final exit against Paris Saint-Germain left Mikel Arteta to rue his club’s failure to provide him with enough attacking options. Arteta’s side were unable to reach the Champions League final for the first time in 19 years as PSG clinched a tense 2-1 win at Parc des Princes. Trailing 1-0 from last week’s first leg in London, the Gunners made a blistering start to the second leg, but could not convert their chances as Gianluigi Donnarumma’s superb saves inspired PSG’s 3-1 aggregate victory. Arsenal were punished for
Taiwanese e-sports veteran Lin “ET” Chia-hung yesterday successfully defended his King of Fighters XV title at this year’s Evolution Championship Series: Japan (EVO Japan), securing his second consecutive championship. Lin claimed victory with a 3-1 win over Japanese pro gamer “mok” in the grand final, repeating his earlier 3-1 win against the same opponent in the winners’ final. The 40-year-old earned a ￥1 million (US$6,897) cash prize at the two-day tournament, which drew 294 competitors. Mok, Lin’s toughest rival in the bracket, took home ￥400,000 as runner-up. Lin remains undefeated in match sets against mok in King of Fighters XV, holding a 10-0 record,
RSS