SOCCER
Arsenal exit brings ‘clarity’
Arsenal’s Europa League exit has brought “clarity” to their season and the squad must now focus on the Premier League, manager Mikel Arteta said on Thursday. Arsenal and Sporting drew 1-1 in London and finished 3-3 on aggregate in the tie before the Portuguese club advanced to the quarter-finals with a 5-3 shoot-out victory. Others to advance were Juventus, Feyenoord, Manchester United, Fenerbahce, Bayer 04 Leverkusen, AS Roma and Union Saint-Gilloise. Arsenal have been eliminated from all three cup competitions they were involved in, but are five points clear in the league and in position to win a first English title since 2003-2004. “It’s a huge blow, but it brings clarity to the season,” Arteta told Arsenal’s Web site. “It’s 11 games to play for, 11 Premier League games, and a big final against Crystal Palace. The focus has to be there, the energy has to be there and learn from tonight.”
TENNIS
Alcaraz, Swiatek advance
Top-seeded Carlos Alcaraz on Thursday beat Felix Auger-Aliassime for the first time in his career to book a semi-final clash with Jannik Sinner at the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, California, while women’s top seed Iga Swiatek had a last-four match against Elena Rybakina. Alcaraz posted his first victory over Auger-Aliassime in four meetings with a 6-4, 6-4 win to keep his bid to regain the world No. 1 ranking on track. “It’s wonderful to beat Felix finally, and the way I did it, playing at a great level,” Alcaraz said. Sinner reached the final four with a 6-4, 4-6, 6-4 win over Taylor Fritz. Swiatek swept past Romanian Sorana Cirstea 6-2, 6-3, while Rybakina outlasted 76th-ranked Czech Karolina Muchova 7-6 (7/4), 2-6, 6-4.
CRICKET
Capitals buy US franchise
The Indian Premier League’s Delhi Capitals have bought a stake in the Seattle franchise of a new T20 tournament in the US. Capitals co-owner GMR Group has partnered with a investors including Microsoft Corp chief executive officer Satya Nadella to run the Seattle Orcas in Major League Cricket, which is to begin in July. “We see America as the new frontier for cricket’s growth globally and the Pacific Northwest provides an incredible opportunity for us to bring the resources of GMR Sports to the region,” GMR Group CEO Kiran Kumar Grandhi said in a statement on Thursday.
FENCING
Event in Germany canceled
Germany’s fencing federation on Thursday canceled a women’s foil world cup event after the sport’s global governing body reversed a ban on athletes from Russia and Belarus. Athletes from the two countries were banned from international competition after Russia invaded Ukraine in February last year. More than 60 percent of nations last week voted to allow Russians and Belarusians to resume competing. German federation president Claudia Bokel said that the decision had triggered “heated discussions,” adding: “Our solidarity goes to the people of Ukraine who are suffering from the war of aggression. The German Fencing Federation accepts last Friday’s decision. We now want to give a clear signal that we would have liked a different result and that we still see a large number of open implementation questions from the world federation, which make it impossible to carry out the tournament.”
Taiwan’s participation in the Olympic Games has been a story of politics as much as sports, with the name it has competed under since 1984 — Chinese Taipei — drawing as much attention as its athletes. However, with the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad set to begin in Paris on Friday, the exploits of Taiwan’s athletes past and present who have won 36 medals since the country’s debut in Melbourne in 1956 deserve a nod. Many of Taiwan’s medal winners have gained considerable name recognition, but only two have achieved legendary status — Maysang Kalimud and Chi Cheng, the only medal winners
Shohei Ohtani on Sunday hit a 473-foot (144m) home run as the Los Angeles Dodgers went deep six times in a 9-6 victory over the Boston Red Sox. Freddie Freeman, Teoscar Hernandez, Gavin Lux, Austin Barnes and Jason Heyward also connected as Los Angeles swept the three-game series. “Going into the break, we weren’t playing good baseball, and then to come out fresh against a really good ball club and to play the way we did — the offense came to life,” Los Angeles manager Dave Roberts said. It was the 25th time the Dodgers launched at least six homers in a game
Canada women’s soccer coach Bev Priestman on Wednesday said she would step away from the team’s opening game against New Zealand at the Paris Olympics in the wake of a drone scandal. New Zealand complained to the International Olympic Committee’s integrity unit after it said drones were flown over closed practice sessions earlier in the week. As of press time last night, Canada, the defending Olympic champions, were set to open the Paris Games against New Zealand in Saint-Etienne. In the fallout of the complaint, two staff members — assistant coach Jasmine Mander and analyst Joseph Lombardi — were sent home, the
Conventional wisdom dictates that the average retirement age for elite female players in the intense and physically demanding sport of badminton is well under 30 years old. Five female shuttlers are set to turn that on its head when they make their fourth Olympic appearances at the Paris Games, a feat never accomplished before. Taiwan’s Tai Tzu-ying, 30, Thailand’s Ratchanok Intanon, 29, Belgium’s Lianne Tan, 33, and Hong Kong’s Tse Ying Suet and Canada’s Michelle Li, both 32, are to compete for Olympic glory at Porte de La Chapelle Arena from Saturday to Aug. 5. “These achievements get missed because they’re women,” said