BASKETBALL
Cousins tossed in civvies
NBA bad boy DeMarcus Cousins was ejected on Friday from the Golden State Warriors’ game while wearing his street clothes. Cousins has yet to suit up for the Warriors in a game this season, but that is not stopping him from causing problems for NBA game officials. He was ejected in the first quarter against the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden for arguing with referee Scott Foster. It was announced that Cousins had been slapped with a technical foul while sitting near the end of the Warriors’ bench. He was then thrown out of the game.
SOCCER
Wembley shelters Spurs
Tottenham Hotspur are to play their remaining home games this season at Wembley Stadium, the Premier League club announced on Friday. Spurs had been hoping to move into a new 62,000-seat stadium near their old White Hart Lane home in north London last month, but chairman Daniel Levy said that “factors completely outside of our control” meant that Spurs would not play at their new ground until next year at the earliest. “There isn’t an hour that goes by when I am not asked when we will be able to stage our first game at our new home,” Levy said.
SOCCER
Clasico fraudsters arrested
Spanish police on Friday announced the arrest of seven suspects in a fake tickets scam that cost the Barcelona soccer club 1.5 million euros (US$1.7 million). Fraudsters sold more than 2,800 fake tickets for a match between Barcelona and Real Madrid last May at Barcelona’s Camp Nou. At least eight businesses were involved in the fraud, a statement from the Guardia Civil police said. They got hold of Barcelona club supporters’ Quick Response codes to create the fake tickets and sell them at inflated prices, the statement said. Barcelona suspended the accounts of the subscribers involved and 33 of them found to have used this practice in the past had their subscription canceled.
GYMNASTICS
Biles in ER before worlds
Simone Biles was in an emergency room in Doha with kidney stone problems less than 24 hours before she was to compete to qualify for the world gymnastics championships, the Olympic champion said on Twitter on Friday. However, the problem was not going to keep her out of the championships, she said. “Nothing like a late night ER visit less than 24 hrs before world championships,” Biles tweeted, adding pictures of her in the emergency room. “This kidney stone can wait ... doing it for my team!... I’ll be gucci girls!” USA Gymnastics was not immediately available for comment, but an hour after Biles’ comments, the federation said in a tweet of its own that “@Simone_Biles and the rest of the team are amped to get things rolling.”
TENNIS
Nadal healed, set for Paris
Rafael Nadal on Friday arrived in France ahead of his expected return at the Paris Masters next week from the knee injury that flared up at the US Open. The 17-time Grand Slam champion was forced to withdraw from his US Open semi-final against Juan Martin del Potro early last month. The injury sidelined him for Spain’s Davis Cup semi-final against France, and also from the tournaments in Beijing and Shanghai. Nadal “has arrived in Paris,” Paris Masters director Guy Forget confirmed at Friday’s draw. In his absence, Novak Djokovic has moved to within 215 points of world No. 1 Nadal in the ATP rankings.
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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