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Wednesday June 27, 2018

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GLORY, the world’s premier kickboxing league, will stage its fi rst major combat sports event in Shenzhen on Aug. 25, orga-nizers said at a press conference Monday.

Sports and leisure company Mission Hills Group signed a strategic cooperation agreement with the stand-up combat league at the news conference.

“Globally, over a billion sport fans are attracted to GLORY kickboxing, I think it’s another way to engage with different sporting interests and athletes to be involved,” said Tenniel Chu, vice chairman of Mission Hills Group.

GLORY co-founder Scott Rudmann announced that

Shenzhen’s main event would be Sitthichai Sitsongpeenong of Thailand taking on Marat Grigo-rian of Belgium for a fourth time, once again for the GLORY Light-weight Championship.

Fans inside Shenzhen Bay Sports Center, site of GLORY 57 Shenzhen, will also witness a one-night qualifi cation tourna-ment, featuring eight of China’s top lightweights all competing for a spot in the GLORY rankings.

“Guangdong has a profound martial arts tradition and we have lots of martial arts heroes in history. It’s a milestone step that GLORY joins hands with Chinese martial arts,” said Zhang Ping, an offi cial from Nanshan District.

GLORY fi rst entered China last year, staging GLORY 46 in Guangzhou.

GLORY 57 Shenzhen is part of

the kickboxing league’s fi ve-city summer campaign, which also features events in New York, Denver, Chicago and Amster-dam.

GLORY is now a major player in the international market, with media rights deals in nearly every country, but inroads into China represents a huge step forward.

Rudmann has said in an ear-lier report: “The Chinese market for combat sports is going to be the largest market in the world. They have a billion people who have combat and martial arts in their DNA.

“The Chinese invented mar-tial arts. It traveled from China and also Japan to the rest of the world. All this stuff we have now, the Brazilian jiu jitsu and everything else, are derivates of what was invented in China.

The Chinese people grow up understanding this and they have martial arts heroes as part of their culture.”

GLORY, formerly Glory World Series, is an international

kickboxing promotion company founded in 2012. The company has its headquarters in Singa-pore and international offi ces in Denver, United States, and Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

GLORY kickboxing to debut in Shenzhen

Iran’s Majid Hosseini in action against Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo (R) during their match in Saransk, Russia, on Monday. SD-Agencies

Organizers and fi ghters pose for a picture at the GLORY 57 press conference Monday. Windy Shao

CRISTIANO RONALDO’S missed penalty cost Portugal fi rst place in its World Cup group.

Portugal fi nished second in Group B after a 1-1 draw with Iran on Monday. The 2016 European champions will next face Uruguay on Saturday in the round of 16.

Instead of Ronaldo, it was Ricardo Quaresma who scored for the Portuguese. The 34-year-old midfi elder responded to his fi rst start of the tournament by producing one of the more aesthetically pleasing goals of group play.

Quaresma became Portugal’s oldest scorer in World Cup play by hitting a curling shot from the edge of the penalty area that went beyond the reach of diving Iran goalkeeper Ali Beiranvand.

Quaresma’s goal came on a night when Ronaldo — who had scored all four Portugal goals in its fi rst two games of Group B play — was denied on a penalty by Beiranvand.

Karim Ansarifard scored a late penalty for Iran, which need to win to advance but couldn’t break through a second time despite a furious charge in the waning minutes.

Spain won the group after its 2-2 draw with Morocco. Both Spain and Portugal had a goal

Ronaldo, Portugal survive Iran scare

LUIS SUAREZ has been on his best behavior in Russia, scoring twice as Uruguay swept through the group stage with three straight victories — sending the two-time champion to the knock-out round for the third straight World Cup.

Edinson Cavani also scored Monday against the host nation, which dropped its fi rst match of the tournament. Both teams were already assured of spots in the knockout round, but Uruguay’s 3-0 victory over Russia put it at the top of Group A.

Uruguay, which also benefi ted from an own-goal in the fi rst half, had its third straight shutout of the tournament after consecu-tive 1-0 victories over Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Uruguayans and goalkeeper Fernando Muslera have not allowed a goal in any of the team’s six matches this year.

“After winning the fi rst two matches 1-0, our goal was to get another,” Suarez said. “We wanted to play the same we had before, only better.”

By advancing to the round of 16

with victories over Saudi Arabia and Egypt, Russia secured its best World Cup showing in the post-Soviet era. But Uruguay — ranked No. 14 in the world — posed a far greater challenge to the hosts.

Suarez, who seems to have put past World Cup controversies behind him, scored with a low shot from just outside the box that sailed past the wall of Rus-sian players and into the right corner of the goal. The striker then blew a kiss to the national team’s fans. (SD-Agencies)

Uruguay’s Luis Suarez celebrates scoring their fi rst goal against Russia in Samara, Russia, on Monday. SD-Agencies

Suarez scores again, Uruguay beats Russia 3-0

difference of plus-1, but Spain scored six goals in its three group matches while Portugal had fi ve.

Spain will next face host Russia on Sunday in Moscow.

Quaresma had never scored in a World Cup game; he had nine international goals in 78 previous appearances. But his goal had all the fl are of a Ron-aldo strike. He sent the shot

with the outside of his right foot right into the far corner near the end of the fi rst half.

Not bad for someone who had played little more than 20 min-utes as a substitute in Portugal’s fi rst two games. Ronaldo certainly looked impressed, wrapping his right arm around Quaresma’s shoulders as he roared and raised his left fi st into the air.

Ronaldo has now missed six of

his last 14 penalty kicks, but he wasn’t the only big star to miss one in this tournament. Argen-tina forward Lionel Messi also was denied in his team’s open-ing draw against Iceland.

Ronaldo’s penalty was awarded after the use of video review fol-lowing an apparent takedown of the Portugal forward by Saeid Ezatolahi in the area.

(SD-Agencies)

AFTER averaging 30.4 points, 8.8 assists and 5.4 rebounds in 2017-18 and leading the Rockets to the No. 1 seed in the Western Conference and a 65-17 record, James Harden was named the NBA’s Most Valuable Player (MVP) on Monday.

“Shout out to all the youngest, man, y’all got a dream, a vision out there, go chase that dream,” Harden said after winning his award. “I’ll see y’all next year.”

This is Harden’s second straight year to be in the top 3 of the voting for the MVP award. The 28-year-old fi nished second to Russell Westbrook last season. He fi nished ninth in 2015-16.

Following Harden in the voting was LeBron James in second, who averaged 27.5 points, 9.1 assists and 8.6 rebounds, and Anthony Davis in third who put up 28.1 points, 11.1 rebounds and 2.1 blocks per game.

Harden fi nished this season averaging 30.4 points per game, a career- and NBA-best. He is the fi rst Rocket to lead the NBA in points per game in a season, and the second player in franchise history to average 30+ PPG in a season (Moses Malone – 31.1 in 1981/82).

Harden became the fi fth indi-vidual player to average 30 or more points and eight or more assists per game over the course of a season, and the second player in the last two years to do so.

(SD-Agencies)

Harden wins first career MVP award

James Harden