SOCCER
Players booed for kneeling
Players from FC Dallas and Nashville SC on Wednesday night faced a smattering of boos when they collectively took a knee during the US national anthem before their Major League Soccer game in Frisco, Texas. Dallas defender Reggie Cannon said he was disgusted by the boos at Toyota Stadium when players and officials knelt to call attention to racial injustice. He said teammate Ryan Hollingshead turned to him afterward and said he was sorry. “You can’t even have support from your own fans in your own stadium. It’s baffling to me,” Cannon said. “As a team we try to give the best possible product on the field and these last six months have been absolute hell for us. Absolute hell.”
ATHLETICS
Russia pays US$6m fine
Russia on Wednesday paid US$6.3 million to World Athletics to escape expulsion from track and field’s world governing body. The Russian Athletics Federation (RusAF) had a Saturday deadline to pay a US$5 million fine and US$1.3 million in costs to World Athletics. That followed the alleged use of forged medical documents to give an athlete an alibi for being unavailable for drug testing. RusAF was threatened with expulsion after it missed an initial July 1 deadline to pay. The Russian Sports Ministry put up the funds after RusAF said it could not pay. RusAF is still serving a suspension imposed in 2015 by World Athletics over widespread doping.
ATHLETICS
Swiss sports delayed again
Switzerland on Wednesday announced that with COVID-19 cases rising again, it was prolonging its ban on gatherings of more than 1,000 people until Oct. 1, triggering an upheaval for major sports. The decision to extend the ban by a further month caused the immediate cancelation of the world cycling championships, while the ice hockey and football championships, desperate for spectator income, were forced to rethink the start of the season. The Swiss government “intends to ensure that the epidemiological situation in Switzerland does not deteriorate,” it said in a statement.
SOCCER
Atalanta’s run ends
Just like that, Atalanta BC’s Champions League dream was over. Two late goals three minutes apart on Wednesday ended their remarkable run and crushed the hopes of their fans in Bergamo, the small Italian city hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic. The team’s chances of bringing home the European trophy ended with a 2-1 loss to Paris Saint-Germain in the quarterfinals in Lisbon. “I can only thank my players. We were so close, really close,” Atalanta coach Gian Piero Gasperini said. Atalanta took the lead at the Stadium of Light thanks to Mario Pasalic’s first-half goal, but Marquinhos equalized in the 90th and Eric Choupo-Moting scored the winner in the third minute of stoppage time. It was a heartbreaking finish to Atalanta’s first appearance in Europe’s top club competition, one that had grown bigger than sports after COVID-19 killed more than 6,000 in Bergamo. “At this moment, it’s quite painful,” Atalanta midfielder Marten de Roon said. “Tomorrow, I will be proud of our team and club, but at this moment I feel disappointment.”
SS Lazio on Monday fired the far-right sympathizer who handles their eagle mascot after he posted online a series of videos and pictures of his erect penis. Falconer Juan Bernabe, who has been present at Lazio home matches with Olimpia the eagle since the 2010-2011 season, posted the footage on social media after having surgery on Saturday to implant a penile prosthesis to improve his sexual performance. Lazio said that they had “terminated, with immediate effect” their relationship with Bernabe “due to the seriousness of his conduct,” adding that they were “shocked” by the images. The Serie A club added that Bernabe’s dismissal
‘TOUGH TO BREATHE’: Tunisian three-time Grand Slam finalist Ons Jabeur suffered an asthma attack in her 7-5, 6-3 victory over Colombia’s Camila Osorio Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei yesterday cruised into the second round of the women’s doubles at the Australian Open, while Iga Swiatek romped into a third-round women’s singles showdown with Emma Raducanu and Taylor Fritz was just as emphatic in his pursuit of a maiden Grand Slam title. Hsieh and Jelena Ostapenko of Latvia, the third seeds, defeated Slovakia’s Tereza Mihalikova and Olivia Nicholls of Britain 7-5, 6-2 in 90 minutes in Melbourne. Ostapenko and Hsieh — who won the women’s doubles and mixed doubles at the Australian Open last year — hit 25 winners and converted five of nine break points to set
Doping fears prevented former US Open champion Emma Raducanu from treating insect bites on the eve of the Australian Open, she said, with players increasingly wary about ingesting contaminated substances. The British player was speaking in the wake of high-profile doping cases involving Iga Swiatak and Jannik Sinner. “I would say all of us are probably quite sensitive to what we take on board, what we use,” the 22-year-old said, recalling an incident on Friday. “I got really badly bitten by, I don’t know what, like ants, mosquitoes, something. I’m allergic, I guess,” she added. The bites “flared up and swelled up really a
Dubbed a “motorway for cyclists” where avid amateurs can chase Tadej Pogacar up mountains teeming with the highest concentration of professional cyclists per square kilometer in the world, Spain’s Costa Blanca has forged a new reputation for itself in the past few years. Long known as the ideal summer destination for those in search of sun, sea and sand, the stretch of coast between Valencia and Alicante now has a winter vocation too. During the season break in December and January, the region experiences an invasion of cyclists. Star names such as three-time Tour de France winner Pogacar, Remco Evenepoel and Julian Alaphilippe
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