Page 956 - Sports
Bolt not giving up hope on football career
Superstar sprinter Usain Bolt is adamant he can become a professional footballer despite his trial with an Australian club ending, insisting Saturday: "I still have it". The eight-time Olympic champion's "indefinite" try-out period with the A-League's Central Coast Mariners collapsed on Friday after contract talks failed. The club reportedly offered him only a fraction of the AUD 3 million (USD 2.1 million) his managers were seeking, and the outside sponsors needed to make the deal viable could not be found. "It's sad that it didn't work out," the Jamaican 100m and 200m world record holder told Melbourne's Herald Sun newspaper at the Derby Day horse races in Melbourne, where he arrived in a suit, sunglasses and with a gold-handled cane. "But we parted on good terms, and that's a good thing. "I had a great experience with them. The guys were great -- we just couldn't work out things with the contract, but hopefully I get another chance with another team." Bolt, who retired from ...
Langer vows to put smile back into Australian cricket
Australia coach Justin Langer vowed Saturday to put a smile back into cricket as South African skipper Faf Du Plessis said he expects the sledging to be toned down in their one-day series. The two sides meet in Perth on Sunday for the first time since the Test series in South Africa this year boiled over with Australian players attempting to alter the ball with sandpaper. The cheating saw Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft banned, while David Lehmann quit as coach. Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland has since left and chairman David Peever fell on his sword on Thursday. Langer, Lehmann's replacement, has pledged to change the win-at-all-costs culture and said he hoped the first game of the summer at home would be a step in winning back fans. "It's sad, isn't it. Everyone seems to be at each other. There's lots of criticism," he said of the atmosphere surrounding Australian cricket. "What we can do is we can prepare well, we can play good cricket, and be ...
Khachanov upsets Zverev in Paris Masters quarter-finals
Russia's Karen Khachanov trounced fellow rising star Alexander Zverev 6-1, 6-2 at the Paris Masters to secure his second career berth in the semi-finals of an Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) World Tour Masters 1000 event.
Left knee injury sidelines De Bruyne for 5-6 weeks
Manchester City's Belgian midfielder Kevin de Bruyne is to be sidelined for nearly a month and a half with a left knee injury, the Premier League defending champion has announced.
India aim to continue dominance over Windies in T20 series (Preview)
Sans the towering presence of Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Rohit Sharma will lead an Indian team brimming with confidence against the West Indies in the first of the three T20 Internationals here at the Eden Gardens on Sunday.
India beat Nepal at SAFF U-15 football
India defeated hosts Nepal 1-0 to secure victory in the third-place play-off at the 2018 SAFF U-15 Championship football tournament here on Saturday.
India clinch SAFF U-15 bronze with 1-0 win over Nepal
India registered a 1-0 win over hosts Nepal in a third-place playoff to return with a bronze medal from the SAFF U-15 Championship here Saturday. A first-half strike from Thlacheu Vanlalruatfela eventually proved to be enough. The first half of the game was a rather quiet affair, with both teams not creating many chances and India entering the dressing room with a one-goal cushion. The two teams got locked in a battle for possession and territory in the middle of the pitch, with the away side having an upper hand. The goal came in the 18th minute through Vanlalruatfela, who scored after some nice build-up by his teammates. After exchanging a few passes in the final third, the forward was played in on goal and found himself one-on-one against the opposition goalkeeper. Pushed wide, Vanlalruatfela showed great composure and poise to turn and aim for goal. Without wasting any time, he slammed the ball past the keeper and into the roof of the net to give the Indians the lead. Nepal looked
India face T20 test sans MSD the colossus, WI seek redemption
The 'end of Dhoni era' notion has been dismissed unequivocally but then India, for the first time, will still be without the figure with a monumental body of work when they face West Indies in the opening T20 International Sunday. Less than a week after two-time World Cup-winning skipper Mahendra Singh Dhoni was left out of India's T20I squad, captain Virat Kohli has said he remains an integral part of India's plans. Chief selector MSK Prasad also said that it was not the end of the road for Dhoni in T20Is. With Kohli rested for the three matches, Rohit Sharma will lead the side against the reigning T20 champions. Under Jason Holder, West Indies were mauled 0-2 in the Test series in six days' of action. In the following five-match ODI series, they posed some challenge before being thrashed 1-3 with a nine-wicket loss in Thiruvananthapuram in the final one-dayer. But it will not be an easy task for India against the Carlos Brathwaite-led team as the two-month long series begin its ...
Defender Mondal battles personal tragedy, poverty to earn PKL success
Hailing from a region known for its love and passion for football, Bengal Warriors defender Amaresh Mondal took a slightly different path. Currently warming the bench in his second season of the cash-rich Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), Mondal, like most children in his native West Bengal, initially started out as a footballer before switching sports.
Mbappe, Neymar unlock Lille as PSG lay claim to new win record
Kylian Mbappe and Neymar scored late goals to give Paris Saint-Germain a 2-1 win over nearest challengers Lille as the French champions extended to 12 games their perfect start to the season at the end of a troubled day for the club. The Qatari-owned club were forced to release a statement shortly before kick-off to deny allegations made by a Football Leaks investigation that they had worked with UEFA to cover up breaches of the organisation's Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules. However Mbappe restored smiles at the Parc des Princes with a magnificent strike from just outside the box 20 minutes from time after getting the break of the ball, and Neymar then gave PSG a two-goal buffer before Nicolas Pepe pulled one back for the away side from the penalty spot. PSG extend their lead at the top of Ligue 1 to 11 points after a 12th straight league win that means they have now beaten Tottenham Hotspur's old record for consecutive wins at the start of a season. Spurs emerged victorious from ...
Mertens hat-trick as Napoli back to second in Serie A
Dries Mertens scored a hat-trick as Napoli warmed up for next week's crucial Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain with a 5-1 thrashing of Empoli to go back to second place in Serie A and put the pressure on champions Juventus. Napoli, with 25 points from 11 games, move three points behind champions Juventus who host Cagliari on Saturday with Inter Milan a further three points back before their game against Genoa. Lorenzo Insigne opened the scoring for the hosts after nine minutes in the San Paolo Stadium with Belgian Mertens also scoring in the first half. Mertens added two more after the break in the 64th minute and in stoppage time with Poland's Arkadiusz Milik also getting on the scoresheet in the last minute. It got Carlo Ancelotti's side back winning after consecutive draws against Paris Saint-Germain (2-2) and AS Roma (1-1). Francesco Caputo, who scored the opener against Juventus last weekend, pulled a goal back for Empoli, but it failed to spark a revival for the .
Mourinho hopes Martial will sign new Man Utd deal
Jose Mourinho is keen for Anthony Martial to commit his long-term future to Manchester United by signing a new contract, with the French forward emerging as one of the key players at Old Trafford. Martial has been one of the most impressive performers in a disappointing season for the club, with five goals from five Premier League starts, and four in his past three appearances. He has a contract until the end of the season, on terms that give the club an option to extend it for a further year, with discussions under way to agree a deal beyond that. The 22-year-old's future at Old Trafford looked uncertain during the summer, with his agent Philippe Lamboley indicating in June that the forward wanted to leave the club, having missed out on a place in France's World Cup squad. Mourinho, at the time, was apparently willing to consider a sale, although executive vice-chairman Ed Woodward made clear he wanted to keep him. Martial's recent form, including two goals against Chelsea in a 2-2 ..
UEFA, PSG, Man City targeted in Football Leaks revelations
UEFA helped Paris Saint-Germain and Manchester City get around their own Financial Fair Play (FFP) rules, according to a Football Leaks investigation published. According to the investigation of "more than 70 million documents" analysed "over eight months by 80 journalists" from members of European Investigative Collaborations (EIC), UEFA "knowingly helped the clubs to cover up their own irregularities for 'political reasons'" under the leadership of Michel Platini and Gianni Infantino. Both clubs, owned and bankrolled by wealth from Qatar and Abu Dhabi respectively, have avoided the most severe FFP punishment of being excluded from the UEFA Champions League. Football Leaks claims that between them Qatar and Abu Dhabi have injected some 4.5 billion euros (USD 5.1 billion) over the last seven years to increase the budgets of the clubs they own. Of that figure, 2.7 billion euros has been invested in City via their Abu-Dhabi owners and from allegedly "overestimated" sponsorship ...
Bernardo Silva ready to shine for City after De Bruyne injury
Kevin De Bruyne's wretched luck with injury has given Bernardo Silva the chance to continue his superb start to the season in Sunday's Premier League visit of Southampton to the Etihad. Playmaker De Bruyne injured ligaments in his left knee during Thursday's League Cup win against Fulham -- just his second start of the season -- sidelining him for five to six weeks. And that has all but assured Bernardo Silva's spot in the City first team for as many as the next seven games as he continues to shine in De Bruyne's absence. The Portuguese's form will soften the blow of having to do without De Bruyne next week's Manchester derby for coach Pep Guardiola, who said that he will not rush the Belgian back into action when he does recover. "It's not about the derby, that's three points, like Southampton. The Manchester derby will not be a final, it's another game," said Guardiola on Friday. "When you come back you cannot expect him to be the player we know he is in one day. He needs time to ...
Uihlein stretches Las Vegas lead
Peter Uihlein shook off an early bogey to card a five-under par 66 and stretch his lead to two strokes midway through the US PGA Tour Shriners for Children Open. Uihlein, whose first-round 63 on Thursday was fueled by birdies at three of his first six holes, bogeyed the par-four second at TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas, Nevada. A birdie at the fourth saw him make the turn even for the day, but he produced five birdies on the back nine to build a 36-hole total of 13-under par 129 -- two shots clear of fellow American Robert Streb and South Korean Kim Whee. "I just kept trying to hit fairways and greens, get a bit more stable with it, I guess," said Uihlein, who has hit 32 of 36 greens over the first two rounds. "Made an unbelievable par on six, which kind of righted the ship, and then after that I was pretty efficient, hit a lot of fairways, lot of greens. I felt like if I just did that I'd give myself a lot of chances the hole would eventually open up and the ball would start going ...
Chelsea's Loftus-Cheek left behind and to ponder his future
Chelsea's unbeaten start to the season under Maurizio Sarri has surpassed all expectations, but the visit of Crystal Palace on Sunday is a reminder of how again one of the club's brightest prospects has fallen out of favour. Ruben Loftus-Cheek made four appearances in England's run to the World Cup semi-finals in the summer on the back of a loan spell at Selhurst Park last season that offered him the competitive Premier League minutes he needed to convince Gareth Southgate he was worth taking to Russia. However, the 22-year-old is yet to start a league game this season and didn't even make Southgate's squad for last month's Nations League clashes as England took an impressive four points from trips to Croatia and Spain. Southgate has repeatedly expressed his concern at the lack of opportunities handed to young English players. The summer signings of Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic forced Loftus-Cheek further down the pecking order in an over-subscribed Chelsea midfield. However, ...
Tamil Thalaivas beat UP Yoddha in PKL tie
Tamil Thalaivas stopped their losing streak with a 46-24 victory over the host UP Yoddha in Pro Kabaddi League here on Friday.
Subhankar in semis, Kashyap bows out
India's Subhankar Dey entered the semi-final while senior pro Parupalli Kashyap lost his last eight encounter at the SaarLorLux Open Badminton Championship on Friday. World No 64 Subhankar, who beat Lin Dan in the second round beat seventh seeded Englishman Toby Penty 21-16 21-9 in only 32 minutes. However Kashyap lost his quarter-final against France's Toma Junior Popov 16-21 18-21 inside 38 minutes. In the women's singles quarer-final, Sayali Rane lost her match against Denmark's Line Hjmark Kjaersfeldt 14-21 9-21.
Croatia coach names squad to meet for Spain, England
Croatia coach Zlatko Dalic on Friday named a 25-man squad for upcoming UEFA Nations League games against Spain and England, voicing confidence that his World Cup runners-up could achieve their first victory in the tournament. Croatia face Spain at Zagreb's Maksimir stadium on November 15, and England three days later at Wembley. "We are facing excellent and difficult games but Croatia can answer to such challenges," Dalic told reporters in Zagreb. "We are concentrated on Spain, we want to try to win in front of home fans to stay in the game for the final tournament." Croatia reached the 2018 World Cup final in Moscow on July 15, a historic moment of glory for the team despite losing 4-2 to France. But they suffered a humiliating 6-0 defeat against Spain their first Nations League match in September. It was followed by a 0-0 draw with England, a World Cup semi-final rematch, played last month at an empty stadium in Rijeka. Fans were banned from the match because of a UEFA sanction ...
Simone Biles claims record 13th world gold medal
Superstar Simone Biles became the first-ever gymnast to win 13 world championship gold medals with victory in the individual vault competition here on Friday. The 21-year-old American broke the all-time record set by Belarusian male gymnast Vitaly Scherbo in 1996, a year before Biles was born. It was Biles' third gold medal of the week so far in Doha and she is halfway to a possible sweep of six gold medals at these championships. This was also her 17th world championship medal overall, which means she is just three shy of the all-time record of 20, held by Russia's Svetlana Khorkina. Favourite to take gold in the event, she received a mark of 15.366, well ahead of second-placed Shallon Olsen from Canada, who finished on 14.516. Bronze went to Mexico's Alexa Moreno, with 43-year-old Oksana Chusovitina in fourth. Biles has another chance of a gold medal later on Friday in the uneven bars event. Earlier, all-around gold medal winner Artur Dalaloyan won the men's floor exercise gold ...