PREMIER LEAGUE
Burnley defeat Norwich City
Burnley kept their bid for Europa League qualification alive as striker Chris Wood inspired a 2-0 win over nine-man Norwich City on Saturday. Wood struck in first-half stoppage-time at Carrow Road after Emiliano Buendia and Josip Drmic of relegated Norwich had been sent off. Ben Godfrey’s late own-goal extended Burnley’s unbeaten Premier League run to seven games as they climbed to ninth. They are one point behind seventh-placed Tottenham Hotspur in the race for a spot in next season’s Europa League. The odds are still against Sean Dyche’s side, as they have just one game left, while Tottenham, Sheffield United and Wolverhampton Wanderers all have two games to ensure that they finish above the Clarets. “I don’t think I’ve played against a team with two sendings off. It was a bizarre game! We’ll take the clean sheet and the win,” Dyche said. “To have 15 clean-sheets and the wins on the table is very pleasing, so I’m delighted for the players.” Daniel Farke’s bottom-of-the-table team have lost their past 10 games in all competitions and this was an embarrassment. “We walked into the trap and got two red cards. Naive, inexperienced, stupid, all the words are right. It’s not acceptable,” Farke said. Norwich were reduced to 10 men in the 35th minute as midfielder Buendia clashed with Ashley Westwood. Buendia elbowed the Burnley midfielder in the back of the head after a collision between the pair. In first-half stoppage-time, Drmic was sent off after lunging into a reckless studs-up foul on Erik Pieters.
SERIE A
Atalanta’s hunt hampered
Atalanta BC’s push for second spot was hampered by a 1-1 draw against Hellas Verona in Serie A on Saturday. Duvan Zapata took advantage of a mistake to give Atalanta the lead in the 50th minute, but Matteo Pessina — who is on loan from Atalanta — leveled nine minutes later. The result left Atalanta level on 71 points with second-place Inter, who were to play AS Roma after press time last night. League leaders Juventus have a six-point advantage and host fourth-place SS Lazio today. Elsehwhere, AC Milan humiliated Bologna 5-1 to strengthen their chances of qualifying for the Europa League and US Sassuolo drew 1-1 with 10-man Cagliari.
LIGUE 1
Lille players test positive
Lille OSC midfielders Renato Sanches, Jonathan Ikone and Jonathan Bamba have tested positive for COVID-19, coach Christophe Galtier said on Saturday, calling for more firmness in enforcing social distancing. All three tested positive on Monday last week, Galtier said after a 2-1 friendly win against Belgian club Royal Excel Mouscron. Sanches had returned to Portugal during a week off and there shown symptoms and tested positive, Galtier said. “Renato is still in Portugal and he cannot travel yet because he has to pass two negative tests,” he said. Ikone and Bamba had been confined to their homes, but “should come back to training on Monday [today],” he said. Galtier urged people to follow the rules on social distancing. “I’ve had eight days off and I’ve seen how we behave,” he said. “Let’s continue like this and we’ll all be reconfined and it’ll be a mess. It’s up to the state to be firm. If we continue like this, we won’t be able to avoid a second wave.”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier