By Sports ReporterDoha

The second round of the Qatar Touring Car Championship held last weekend saw Qa-tari Toyota driver Abdulla al-

Khelaifi notching up another double victory.

In this round, there were four new drivers in the championship, Qataris — Abdulrahman Tolefat, Hamad al-Asam and Mahmoud al-Khalafat and Leba-non’s Nadim Ziade. A total of twelve competitors took part in this round.

In the fi rst race, Mansour al-Hajri, who started on pole position, lead the race only for three laps, as al-Khelaifi overtook him and kept the fi rst posi-tion until the chequered fl ag.

“I had a long fi ght with my friend and competitor Mansour. As I said be-fore he is getting faster and faster and now I can’t get him out of my rear view mirror. He was pushing me throughout the race and I am glad that I have such

a strong competitor to make the cham-pionship more challenging and to give the audience an exciting race to watch,” said al-Khelaifi after the win.

Mansour had a suspension set up is-sue but he managed to secure the pole position before ending the session. Al-Hajri fi nished in second place as he did in the previous round.

“I had a good start from pole posi-tion. As in round one Abdulla was there behind me. We battled the entire race but Abdulla managed to pass me after a couple of laps. Due to confusion in the number of laps in the race I didn’t get the chance to overtake Abdulla,” com-mented al-Hajri.

The newcomer driver in the cham-pionship, al-Khalafat, also driving a Toyota, started in fourth place in the grid and managed to step into the po-dium in third place.

“My fi rst race and I am on the po-dium. Those guys have to watch out in the next round. In the beginning of the race I had a good battle with Hamad until he spun out and then I focused on

catching up with the top two cars,” said al-Khalafat.

Fourth place went to George Cole-man and Omran al-Karama fi nished

fi fth. In the second race, with the reverse

grid, the competition was more chal-lenging. Al-Hajri, starting from the

ninth position, took the lead in the second lap. He had a clear track in front of him and he wanted to get into his rhythm but al-Khelaifi didn’t let him run away.

Al-Hajri made a mistake in the cal-culation of the laps, and at the last corner of the last lap, al-Hajri saw al-Khelaifi braking late and he let him pass, thinking that he still had another lap to overtake but it was the last one.

“As in the previous races, I was faster in some parts of the track and Abdulla in other. I let Abdulla pass me thinking that I still have another lap to over-take me, but as in the fi rst race, I had a confusion regarding the track signal. I have discussed it with the Clerk of the Course about this, so hopefully next round we will have clearer information on the fi nish line board,” said al-Hajri.

At the end, al-Khelaifi again took the victory in the last corner of the race. “I will have to work very hard not to make any mistakes if I want to win this championship. Mansour is a very hard competitor and he is improving

every race. Never before I thought that I will be battling for the fi rst position the entire race. It was great to see new competitors join us and I hope that our grid gets bigger and bigger,” added the double winner.

The third position was again for al-Khalafat. “It was fun and scary as it was my fi rst reverse grid race and there were so many cars to watch out for. I had a battle with Hamad for three laps but I managed to overtake him on the straight and kept that position till the end of the race. Very happy with my two podiums today,” said al-Khalafat.

Adham al-Dib fi nished fourth and al-Karama again ended up fi fth.

Trophies were presented by QMMF President Abdulrahman al-Mannai, LCSC General Manager & Vice-Pres-ident Khalid al-Remaihi and QMMF General Secretary Abdulrazaq al-Kuwari.

Al-Khelaifi is leading the champi-onship with 57 points, only one point ahead of al-Hajri who has 56 points. Al-Karama is third with 45 points.

Monday, February 6, 2017Jumada I 9, 1438 AH

SPORTGULF TIMES

Garcia seals dominant win at Dubai Desert Classic

Ancelotti unhappy, but Bayern extend lead

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Kings topple Warriors, James hits milestone in Cavs winPage 7

Another double win for al-Khelaifi QATAR TOURING CARS CHAMPIONSHIP

Podium ceremony for the first race of the Qatar Touring Cars Championship.

‘Mansour was pushing me throughout the race. I am glad that I have such a strong competitor to make the championship more challenging’

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Monday, February 6, 2017

Jesus and Mkhitaryan star as Manchester rises

PREMIER LEAGUE

Leicester’s 13th defeat of the campaign keeps them a slender point above the relegation zone

AFPLondon

Gabriel Jesus and Henrikh Mkhitaryan stole the head-lines as Manchester City and Manchester United made up

important ground in the race for Cham-pions League qualifi cation with wins yesterday.

Jesus, 19, marked his full home debut for City by scoring twice, including a 92nd-minute winner, to give Pep Guar-diola’s side a 2-1 win over Swansea City that lifted them up to third.

Mkhitaryan scored one goal and made another in a 3-0 victory at relegation-threatened champions Leicester City that took United to within two points of the top four. Jose Mourinho’s side remain sixth, a position they have oc-cupied since November, but Arsenal, beaten 3-1 by leaders Chelsea on Satur-day, and Liverpool, stunned 2-0 by Hull City, are now within reach.

City are 10 points behind Chelsea and a point below second-place Tottenham Hotspur, with Arsenal two points back, one point above fi fth-place Liverpool and two above United.

After three successive league draws, Mourinho changed tactics for the trip to the King Power Stadium, bringing in Juan Mata for Michael Carrick and ditching his usual 4-1-4-1 system for a 4-4-2. But United, who were missing Wayne Rooney through illness, looked off their game until a switch to a 4-2-3-1 formation mid-way through the fi rst half. The move brought Mkhitaryan into the number 10 role and he put United ahead in the 42nd minute, beating Rob-ert Huth to Chris Smalling’s header on halfway and sprinting clear to score.

Less than 90 seconds later it was 2-0 as Zlatan Ibrahimovic expertly steered Antonio Valencia’s cross past Kasper Schmeichel for his 20th goal of the season. Mkhitaryan turned creator as United put the game to bed fi ve minutes into the second half, facilitating a one-two with Mata that freed the Spaniard to beat Schmeichel at his near post. It was Leicester’s 13th defeat of the cam-paign and kept Claudio Ranieri’s men a slender point above the relegation zone.

"It's easy to play anywhere," Mkhi-

taryan said, after Mourinho's tactical shift to deploy him behind Ibrahimovic saw United take control. "When we are playing football, one-two passes are very easy no matter which position. We tried to change the formation during the game and that's not something that is new for us. In this game the manager thought it was better I play behind the striker. It was his decision and I agreed and I was trying to do my best."

Jesus needed just 11 minutes to crown his full home debut for Manchester City with a goal as he put Guardiola’s men in front against Paul Clement’s improving Swansea. Martin Olsson prevented Ra-heem Sterling from applying the fi nish-ing touch to David Silva’s low cross, but Jesus pounced to volley the loose ball past Lukasz Fabianski.

City completely dominated the fi rst half, but took their foot off the pedal after the break and were punished when Gylfi Sigurdsson swept in a low, left-foot equaliser in the 81st minute. But Jesus had the fi nal say, tucking the ball into the net at the second attempt after his header from Silva’s right-wing cross had been parried by Fabianski.

“Gabriel Jesus is strong, fast and has really good movement,” Guardiola said. “He has arrived really, really, well. We are happy to have him. Many times this season in the last minute we have con-ceded. It is the fi rst time we have won a game in the last minute.”

Swansea remain a point above the relegation zone, below Leicester and Middlesbrough on goal diff erence, and

Clement felt his side had been unfor-tunate not to come away with a point. “We deserved more,” he said. “If we can build on that we will have some more wins not far away.”

RESULTSLeicester 0 Manchester United 3

(Mkhitaryan 42, Ibrahimovic 44, Mata 49)

Manchester City 2 (Jesus 11, 90+2) Swansea

1 (Sigurdsson 81)

Played Saturday:Chelsea 3 (Alonso 13, Hazard 53, Fabregas

85) Arsenal 1 (Giroud 90+1); Crystal Palace

0 Sunderland 4 (Kone 10, Ndong 43, Defoe

45+1, 45+3); Everton 6 (Lukaku 1, 29, 83, 84,

McCarthy 23, Barkley 90+4) Bournemouth

3 (King 59, 70, Arter 90); Hull 2 (N’Diaye

44, Niasse 84) Liverpool 0; Southampton

1 (Gabbiadini 12) West Ham 3 (Carroll 14,

Obiang 44, Noble 52); Watford 2 (Deeney

10, Niang 45+2) Burnley 1 (Barnes 78-pen);

West Brom 1 (Morrison 6) Stoke 0; Totten-

ham 1 (Kane 58-pen) Middlesbrough 0

Moyes wants more of the same aft er Sunderland goal spreeAFPLondon

David Moyes insists Sunder-land’s emphatic 4-0 win over fellow strugglers Crystal Palace must be the founda-

tion for their climb away from the foot of the table. As delighted as he was by the manner of Saturday’s victory, Moyes knows Sunderland cannot af-ford to keep lurching from good results to poor ones if they are to stay in the Premier League. This win, secured by fi rst-half goals from Lamine Kone, Di-dier N’Dong and two from Jermain De-foe, added to the momentum gained by the encouraging midweek home draw against Tottenham.

Sunderland remain bottom but they are now level on points with Palace and only two points from safety. “It’s vital we build on this. We had a good run at the start of the season when we won four games in a row and it gave us a real lift,” Moyes said.

“I feel we need to do something sim-ilar in the second half of the season and hope that this is the start of it. We were

resilient against Tottenham but I don’t think we played well. Today we played well.

“I’m confi dent that we have a really good chance to stay up. We are in fi ght-ing with a few teams. You don’t know who you can pull into it. We will prob-ably have to win the odd really big game against one of the big teams. But I be-lieve we can do it, I really do.

“You can imagine that getting beaten all the time as a manager aff ects you. So it’s good when you win — and in a dif-fi cult game for us. I thought we did a really good job. We scored goals at the right moments.”

Moyes paid tribute to former Eng-land star Defoe, who took his season’s tally to 14. “Predator is probably the word that has been used many times in relation to Jermain,” he said.

“I thought we had to provide more opportunities for him, but I want us to pass the ball better and get it to him at the right time, not just any time. He is always on the edge and always able to pull something out. And we need him because his goals are so crucial to us.”

For Palace manager Sam Allardyce, the future is about making sure his

players are not scared going forward from this defeat.

“It was all about fear from the play-ers when the fi rst goal went in. Fear overtook them and they lost control. And you have to keep control mentally in this game, particularly when you go a goal down,” Allardyce said.

“Once fear takes over, the mind gets confused and we saw the players doing a lot of stuff we didn’t envisage or want them doing. The frailty showed in their defending in the fi rst half and the four goals that were scored. It’s apparent for me that the players are struggling in their home form. I’ve got to get rid of that fear, turn it into a positive and get them playing much, much better than they are now.

“I think we’re bottom of the league in home points gained and ninth in the league from points gained away from home. We have to overcome the fears we have playing here.

“The fans don’t place them under a huge amount of pressure compared to other clubs I’ve managed. They want to support and get behind them. I apolo-gise to them for coming and seeing what they saw in that fi rst half.”

FOCUS

Manchester City's Gabriel Jesus scored twice, including a 92nd-minute winner, to give Pep Guardiola’s side a 2-1 win over Swansea City yesterday. (Reuters)

(played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points):Chelsea 24 19 2 3 51 17 59

Tottenham 24 14 8 2 46 16 50

Man City 24 15 4 5 49 29 49

Arsenal 24 14 5 5 52 28 47

Liverpool 24 13 7 4 52 30 46

Man Utd 24 12 9 3 36 21 45

Everton 24 11 7 6 40 27 40

West Brom 24 10 6 8 32 29 36

West Ham 24 9 4 11 32 41 31

Watford 24 8 6 10 29 40 30

Stoke 24 7 8 9 29 36 29

Burnley 24 9 2 13 26 35 29

S'mpton 24 7 6 11 24 31 27

B'mouth 24 7 5 12 35 47 26

M'brough 24 4 9 11 19 27 21

Leicester 24 5 6 13 24 41 21

Swansea 24 6 3 15 29 54 21

Hull 24 5 5 14 22 47 20

C Palace 24 5 4 15 32 45 19

Sunderland 24 5 4 15 24 42 19

POINTS TABLE

Aguero uncertain about Man City futureAFPManchester

Manchester City strik-er Sergio Aguero ad-mitted yesterday he does not know if he

has a future under Pep Guardiola after losing his place to teenager Gabriel Jesus.

A talismanic fi gure in City’s two Premier League title wins, Aguero was left out of the start-ing line-up for this week’s Pre-mier League wins over West Ham United and Swansea City as Jesus scored three times. While he was keen to insist he wants to see out a contract at the Etihad Stadium that runs until 2020, the 28-year-old conceded the decision is out of his hands.

“I will work hard for the re-maining three months and then we’ll see if the club wants me,” Aguero told reporters after yesterday’s 2-1 home win over Swansea.

“I want to stay. I am fi ne. It is normal. Sometimes this hap-pens. When you’re on the bench, you have to wait for your oppor-tunity. I have to help the team as much as I can in these three months. Afterwards we’ll see what the club wants to do with me,” he added.

Guardiola has already held one meeting with Aguero and his agent, which followed the arrival of £27mn new recruit Je-sus in the January transfer win-dow. Asked about the contents of that meeting, Aguero replied: “Things to do with the club, nothing strange. Private things that have to stay inside those walls. In three years my contract is up. That’s why I say I’m happy at the club.”

Guardiola has insisted that Jesus and Aguero could partner each other in the same team and the more senior of the two play-ers admitted he has been im-pressed by what he has seen so far. “He’s a great player,” Aguero said. “He’s a very young player, but he will learn a lot at City and he will have a great future at the club. At the moment I have to watch what he does, to learn. It could be a little bit. I am how I am. I have spent a lot of years in Europe playing the same way.

“Sometimes this happens. When you’re on the bench you have to wait for your opportu-nity. I have three months to do my best and try to help the team and we’ll see what happens with my future.”

Guardiola said he had been pleased by Aguero’s response to being left out of the team. “His reaction was perfect. Don’t worry about that,” said the City manager, whose side have climbed to third place in the table, 10 points behind leaders Chelsea. “Of course he wants to play and it mustn’t be easy. I understand that. Sergio remains one of the most important play-ers in our squad and with what we have to do in the next period, he will be so, so important.”

SPOTLIGHT

Manchester United’s Henrikh Mkhitaryan (left) celebrates with teammate Juan Mata after scoring a goal against Leicester City during the English Premier League match at King Power Stadium in Leicester, central England yesterday. (AFP)

Sunderland manager David Moyes. (AFP)

Lazio sink Pescara, Milan suff er third straight defeat

SERIE A

Napoli, three behind Juventus on 48 points, thrash Bologna 7-1, with Hamsik and Mertens both scoring hat-tricks

AFPRome

Marco Parolo scored four times, three wiith his head, as Lazio hammered Serie A bottom side Pescara 6-2 yesterday to maintain their Cham-

pions League challenge. Parolo’s rare headed hat-trick was the fi rst in Italy since Joaquin Lar-rivey achieved the feat for Cagliari in a 6-3 loss against Napoli in March 2012.

All eyes in Italy were fi rmly fi xed on Turin however where champions and current lead-ers Juventus hostingt resurgent Inter Milan late last night. Second placed Napoli, three behind Juventus on 48 points, thrashed Bologna 7-1 on Saturday in a game where Marek Hamsik and Dries Mertens ran riot with hat-tricks. Strug-gling AC Milan suff ered a fresh blow with a 1-0 home defeat to Sampdoria yesterday, their third straight league defeat, that made a return to the Champions League more distant.

The once mighty Milan sit 10 points behind Roma in the third and last Champions League qualifying spot and are now 14 points behind Ju-ventus, who have two games in hand. Roma can also stretch their lead with a win over Fiorentina tomorrow.

It was Sampdoria’s fi rst win over Milan since 2012 but the Genoa side have now claimed two major scalps in succession having edged Roma 3-2 last week when Luis Muriel — who scored

yesterday — also hit the winner.AC Milan coach Vincenzo Montella had raised

hopes this season that the seven-time European champions could battle for a Champions League spot. Milan last graced the competition in 2014 when they lost 5-1 on aggregate to Atletico Ma-drid in the last 16.

But injuries to midfi elder Giacomo Bonaven-

tura, who is out for the season, and defend-ers Mattia Di Sciglio and Luca Antonelli forced Montella into deploying a largely makeshift back four. Alessio Romagnoli and Juraj Kucka were hauled back into defence from midfi eld and for the fi rst half Milan’s defence held fi rm against incursions by Muriel and Andrea Bertolacci.

Former Everton striker Gerard Deulofeu

spurned a great chance to break the deadlock after the restart when he fi red on to the far post from seven yards out. Milan striker Carlos Bacca had desperate penalty appeals waved away when he tumbled after a nudge by Matias Silvestre in the area.

But when Gabriel Paletta hauled dwn Fabio Quagliarella on the counter, the referee pointed

immediately to the spot. Muriel sent goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma the wrong way to give Samp a 70th minute lead. Milan should have levelled in the fi nal minutes but late substitute Gianluca Lapadula fi red straght at Emiliano Viviano after being sent clear.

On Saturday, Slovakian international Hamsik and Belgian star Martens both hit hat-tricks as Napoli routed Bologna. Napoli have now hit 55 goals in 23 league games this season although Maurizio Sarri’s men are still outsiders to pip Juve for the title with the defending champi-ons having two games in hand. Hamsik’s goals included a fi ne diving header and a sublime long-distance drive as he took his Napoli career total to 108 goals, passing Attila Sallustro, a star of the 1930s. Only Diego Maradona has scored more goals for Napoli than Hamsik.

Hamsik believes victory will be a huge boost for his side who face Real Madrid in the Cham-pions League later this month. “Real Madrid will think we are a strong side and if we play like this, we can fi ght it out with anyone,” he said. “We are all players who focus on movement and that can hurt opposition defences.”

Mertens, meanwhile, took his season total to a league leading 16 goals with 12 of those com-ing in the last eight matches. He has scored a remarkable three hat-tricks this term.

Napoli’s other goal on Saturday came from Lorenzo Insigne who hit the target from the penalty spot.

“We have scored many goals, yes, but in the last 12 games it’s 10 wins and two draws. This is why we have to focus only on what we do and ig-nore the other results,” Sarri said. “After a game like this I feel a little angry, as we created per-haps fewer scoring opportunities tonight than against Palermo, but then we scored one and tonight seven.”

The only drawback for Napoli was a red card for Jose Callejon while Bologna’s Adam Masina was also dismissed. Bologna coach Roberto Do-nadoni said he knew it would not be his night when his team were 2-0 down within six min-utes at the Stadio Dall’Ara.

His mood did not improve when Mattia Destro had a penalty saved. “Our evening start-ed badly and it was all downhill from there,” Do-nadoni said.

RESULTSAtalanta 2 (Gomez 4, 17) Cagliari 0; Empoli 1 (Puc-

ciarelli 45+2) Torino 1 (Belotti 11); Pescara 2 (Benali

29, Brugman 41) Lazio 6 (Parolo 10, 14, 49, 77, Keita

57, Immobile 69); Chievo 0 Udinese 0; Genoa 0

Sassuolo 1 (Pellegrini 26); AC Milan 0 Sampdoria 1

(Muriel 70-pen)

Played Saturday: Bologna 1 (Torosidis 36) Napoli 7

(Hamsik 4, 70, 74, Insigne 6, Mertens 33, 43, 90)

FOOTBALL3Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

PSG climb second aft er easy win over Dijon

LIGUE 1

AFPParis

Radamel Falcao scored a second-half brace as Monaco defeated Nice 3-0 on Saturday to carve open a three-point lead ahead of their Cote d’Azur rivals at

the top of Ligue 1.Valere Germain headed in the opening goal on

47 minutes at the Stade Louis II before Falcao turned in Monaco’s second with an hour gone. The Colombian stroked home a third for the hosts nine minutes from time as Monaco avenged a 4-0 thrashing from the reverse fi xture in September. Falcao has 14 goals now, behind only Edinson Cavani (22) and Alexandre Lacazette (18) in Ligue 1 this season. Nice suff ered just their second loss of the season, while reigning champions Paris Saint-Germain climbed above them into second on goal diff erence after winning 3-1 at Dijon.

In Dijon, PSG struck twice in the fi nal 10 min-utes through captain Thiago Silva and leading scorer Cavani to keep pace with Monaco. Lucas rifl ed in at the second attempt to put Unai Em-ery’s men ahead on 29 minutes at the Stade Gas-

ton Gerard, but Dijon were level just two minutes later when Julio Tavares buried a fi rst-time shot past Alphonse Areola.

Silva bundled in from a corner on 81 minutes after Dijon keeper Baptiste Reynet made a fan-tastic save to tip Thiago Motta’s header onto the post, while Cavani grabbed his 22nd goal this term by getting a touch on substitute Goncalo Guedes’ goal-bound shot.

“I’m pleased because we’ve had problems win-ning away from home. It’s the type of match we might not have won earlier in the season,” said Emery. “It wasn’t an enjoyable match for the fans to watch but doing things well in the diffi cult mo-ments was enough to make the diff erence.”

RESULTSToulouse 4 (Delort 47, Braithwaite 56-pen, Trejo 69,

Toivonen 89) Angers 0

Played Saturday: Monaco 3 (Germain 47, Falcao 60,

81) Nice 0; Bordeaux 1 (Menez 56) Rennes 1 (Gourcuff

69); Guingamp 0 Caen 1 (Karamoh 90+3); Lille 0

Lorient 1 (Aliadiere 49); Montpellier 2 (Mounie 17, 64)

Bastia 1 (Crivelli 34); Dijon 1 (Tavares 31) Paris SG 3

(Lucas 29, Silva 81, Cavani 84)

On Friday: Metz 1 (Jouff re 82) Marseille 0

Nasri penalty miss costs Sevilla in Villarreal stalemateAFPMadrid

Samir Nasri missed a second-half pen-alty as Sevilla squandered the chance to close to within a point of La Liga leaders Real Madrid with a 0-0 draw

home to Villarreal yesterday.The Frenchman’s low spot-kick was well

saved by Sergio Asenjo, who then made a spectacular stop from Vicente Iborra’s late header as La Liga’s best defence held out for a point at the Sanchez Pizjuan stadium. Sevilla trail Madrid by three points, but the European champions have two games in hand.

Real were due to be in action yesterday, but their clash at Celta Vigo was postponed after bad weather damaged Celta’s Balaidos stadi-um. Sevilla dominated throughout, but had to wait until the second half to enjoy their best openings as they were generously awarded a penalty just three minutes after the break when Vitolo went down in the area under pressure from Mario Gaspar.

Nasri confi dently stepped up, but the on-loan Manchester City midfi elder’s strike lacked the power or accuracy to beat Asenjo, who saved low to his left. Villarreal then had a huge chance of their own to go in front on the counter-attack as Adrian Lopez rounded Sevilla goalkeeper Sergio Rico, but could only fi re into the side-netting with the goal gap-ing. The visitors were rescued by the off side fl ag moments later when Wissam Ben Yedder fi red into the roof of the net. And it was Asen-jo who proved the Villarreal hero once more seven minutes from time with a remarkable save to his right to prevent Sevilla captain Iborra’s header from close range fl ying into the far corner.

A point moves Villarreal above Real Socie-dad on goal diff erence into fi fth, four points off Atletico Madrid in the fi nal Champions League spot. Sevilla remain third, four points ahead of Atletico, but now trail second-placed Barcelona by two points.

Earlier on Saturday, the mayor of Vigo stat-ed Celta’s Balaidos stadium wasn’t in a safe condition to host the game, but both clubs

and the league waited on a security report be-fore a fi nal decision was made.

“According to the report from the Vigo town hall, this organisation believes the Balaidos stadium will not be secure for play-ers and fans to attend the match tomorrow Sunday, February 5, 2017, for Week 21 of La Liga Santander between Celta Vigo and Real Madrid,” La Liga said in a statement.

“La Liga will propose possible dates to dis-pute said match listening to the opinion of the clubs and television operators, so that the president of the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) can decide to fi x a date for a postponed match.”

Celta’s Galician rivals Deportivo la Coruna saw their clash with Real Betis on Friday also postponed due to weather damage to Depor-tivo’s Riazor ground.

“Firemen, the town hall and Celta’s secu-

rity staff looked at the conditions and (the game) can’t go ahead,” Vigo mayor, Abel Ca-ballero, said. “The game will be played at an-other time, in better conditions, because we can’t guarantee the safety of the people that go there.”

The news could prove a big blow to Real’s title hopes as Celta were set to rest a host of fi rst-team players with the second leg of their Copa del Rey semi-fi nal against Alaves to come on Wednesday. The tie is fi nely bal-anced at 0-0.

Zinedine Zidane’s men face a packed fi x-ture schedule in the next few months with a return to Champions League action also to come against Napoli on February 15. Due to Madrid’s Champions League campaign and Celta’s involvement in the Copa del Rey and Europa League, a date for any rearranged fi x-ture could be put back until May.

SERIE A

(played, won, drawn, lost, goals for, goals against, points):Juventus 21 17 0 4 44 16 51

Napoli 23 14 6 3 55 26 48

Roma 22 15 2 5 44 21 47

lazio 23 13 4 6 41 27 43

Inter Milan 22 13 3 6 37 23 42

Atalanta 23 13 3 7 36 25 42

Fiorentina 22 10 7 5 38 29 37

AC Milan 22 11 4 7 32 27 37

Torino 23 8 8 7 40 33 32

Sampdoria 23 8 6 9 26 29 30

Udinese 23 8 5 10 27 29 29

Chievo 23 8 5 10 22 30 29

Sassuolo 23 8 3 12 32 37 27

Bologna 22 7 6 9 22 33 27

Cagliari 23 8 3 12 32 48 27

Genoa 23 6 7 10 27 33 25

Empoli 23 5 7 11 14 31 22

Crotone 21 3 4 14 20 37 13

Palermo 22 2 5 15 18 42 11

Pescara 23 1 6 16 19 50 9

POINTS TABLE

Sampdoria’s midfielder Karol Linetty (left) fights for the ball with AC Milan’s forward Gerard Deulofeu during the Serie A match in Milan (AFP)

Sevilla’s Wissam Ben Yedder (left) and Villarreal’s Victor Ruiz go for a header during the Spanish league match at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan stadium in Sevilla yesterday. (AFP)

Paris St Germain players celebrate after Edinson Cavani scored the third goal for the team. (Reuters)

FOOTBALL4 Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

Women and children attacked by hardcore Dortmund fans

SPOTLIGHT

Borussia Dortmund said they “deeply regretted the riots” and wished the injured Leipzig fans a speedy recovery

AFPBerlin

Hardcore Borussia Dortmund fans attacked terrifi ed RB Leip-zig supporters, including chil-dren and women, in football

battles that led to 28 arrests, German au-thorities said.

A crowd of 81,360 saw Dortmund’s 1-0 home win over second-placed RB Leipzig on Saturday, but there were ugly scenes outside Borussia’s Signal Iduna Park sta-dium before kick-off when some of the 8,500 visiting fans were targeted.

“In the build-up to the match, in the Strobelallee area (outside the ground), RB Leipzig supporters were bombarded with

stones and cans from Borussia Dortmund fans,” police said in a statement.

RB Leipzig were unable to tell SID, an AFP subsidiary, how many of their fans were hurt, but German daily Bild claim at least 10 visiting supporters were hospi-talised. After a group of around 500 hard-core ‘Ultra’ Dortmund fans went on the rampage, police weighed in with pepper spray and batons.

Arrests were made for off ences includ-ing assault, grievous bodily harm, breach of the peace, insulting behaviour and resisting arrest. “All in all, there was ex-treme aggressiveness and violence from Dortmund supporters, which was di-rected against any person recognised as a Leipzig fan, regardless of whether they were small children, women or families,”

said Dortmund police. “In connection with this, four offi cers and a police dog were injured.”

Borussia Dortmund said they “deeply regretted the riots” and wished the in-jured Leipzig fans a speedy recovery. Leizpig, who are in their fi rst season in Germany’s top fl ight, have demanded an explanation from Dortmund’s CEO Hans-Joachim Watzke and president Re-inhard Rauball.

“The attacks of Dortmund fans against opposing spectators and the police, plus insults and off enses against women and children, are not acceptable and are em-barrassing for the whole of football in Germany,” said RB Leipzig in a statement.

“The fact that people were confronted with violence at a football match is un-

acceptable. We expect from Mr Watzke and Mr Rauball that these scenes, which were committed by several perpetrators, will be fully explained in the interests of the entire Bundesliga. We are glad that, according to our information, the in-jured RB Leipzig fans were able to return home.”

RB Leipzig, who are backed by energy drinks giant Red Bull, are unpopular amongst German fans for the commer-cialism the club is perceived to represent, but Dortmund fans were particularly un-welcoming. There were several off ensive banners in the Dortmund stadium aimed at RB, including “Burnout Ralph, go hang yourself!” after Leipzig’s sports director Ralf Rangnick resigned from Schalke in 2011 with burnout.

Dembele gets Celtic off hookTraore snatches third place for Burkina Faso AFP

Glasgow

Substitute Moussa Dembele grabbed a second-half hat-trick as Scottish Premiership leaders Celtic came from behind to claim a 5-2 win over

St Johnstone at McDairmid Park yesterday. Liam Henderson opened the scoring for

the Hoops before Keith Watson and a De-dryck Boyata own goal had St Johnstone in front at the break. French forward Dembele converted a controversial penalty to level matters a minute after coming on in the sec-ond half before fi ring home a second from the edge of the box. Scott Sinclair added a fourth before Dembele struck late on to seal Celtic’s 19th victory in a row and extend their unbeaten domestic run to 29 matches.

“We gave away two poor goals but I al-ways felt we would win the game,” said Celt-ic manager Brendan Rodgers, whose side are now 27 points clear of Aberdeen at the top of the Scottish Premiership. “It obviously helps when you have got Moussa Dembele to come off the bench, but it was a great vic-tory for us.”

St Johnstone manager Tommy Wright was furious with the performance of the match offi cials. “I am extremely disappointed for my players as I thought they were magnifi -cent,” Wright said. “They deserved a better performance from the referee.”

Celtic got off to the perfect start as Hend-erson gave them the lead in the sixth minute. Zander Clark could only parry Patrick Rob-erts’s shot and the ball fell for Henderson, who sent a strike curling into the corner of the net. However, the home side grew in confi dence and deservedly equalised in the 31st minute.

Danny Swanson’s corner found Watson at the back post and the defender’s bul-let header took a slight defl ection off Celtic captain Scott Brown on its way into the net.

The Celtic defence seemed unable to cope with Swanson and the midfi elder had a big hand in putting St Johnstone in front two minutes before half-time. The former Dun-dee United player’s cross from the left just evaded David Wotherspoon, but smashed off the head of Belgian defender Boyata and fl ew past Craig Gordon into his own net.

St Johnstone had a penalty appeal turned down when Brown appeared to bring down Swanson in the box before the Hoops won a controversial decision at the other end on the hour mark. Kieran Tierney’s cross ap-peared to hit the hip of Watson, but referee

Craig Thomson adjudged it had hit his hand and pointed to the spot.

Dembele sent the penalty high into the net past the outstretched hand of Clark. Dem-bele, linked with a move to Chelsea during the January transfer window, fi red Celtic in front in the 75th minute as he slammed home Mikel Lustig’s pass from 16 yards.

Celtic then punished St Johnstone on the break as Roberts set up fellow winger Sin-clair to slot past Clark for his 16th goal of the season in the 81st minute. Dembele then rubbed salt in the wound as he blasted a shot home from close range after some skilful

build-up play involving Lustig and Callum McGregor.

RESULTSSt Johnstone 2 (Watson 31, Boyata 43-og) Celtic

5 (Henderson 6, Dembele 61-pen, 75, 85, Sinclair

81)

Played Saturday: Motherwell 0 Hearts 3 (Tzi-

olis 59, Goncalves 84, 88); Aberdeen 2 (Stockley

72, Christie 90+2) Partick 0 ; Hamilton 1 (Brophy

43) Kilmarnock 1 (Longstaff 7); Inverness CT 2

(McKay 53-pen, Tansey 79) Dundee 2 (Haber 37,

O’Dea 43); Rangers 1 (Wallace 71) Ross County

1 (Schalk 18

AFPPort-Gentil, Gabon

Alain Traore scored with one minute left to give Burkina Faso a 1-0 win over Ghana on Saturday and third place in the Africa Cup of Nations. The Turkey-based attacker

thumped an angled free-kick over goalkeeper Rich-ard Ofori and into the net in Gabonese coastal city Port-Gentil.

It was the second highest fi nish in the biennial African football showcase for the Burkinabe Stal-lions, who fi nished runners-up four years ago. The Black Stars of Ghana have played in fi ve third-place play-off s, losing four. Ghana could have been sev-eral goals ahead by half-time as they dominated possession only to be let down by poor fi nishing and bad luck. New Swansea City signing Jordan Ayew handled when poised to shoot from close range with the play-off less than a minute old.

Stand-in captain Emmanuel Agyemang Badu headed just wide in the third minute and Bernard Tekpetey struck the crossbar during a goalmouth scramble. The best Burkina Faso chance of the open-ing half fell to Prejuce Nakoulma near half-time as he sprinted with the ball from the halfway line only

to fi re wide. Tekpetey, one of the six changes after a semi-fi nal loss to Cameroon two days ago, headed just over on the hour mark after a free-kick. Ofori, the lone Ghana-based player in the squad and get-ting a fi rst start of the tournament, rescued his team several times before Traore struck.

Late Last night, Traditional continental giants who had fallen on hard times, Egypt and Cameroon were looking to cap remarkable revivals when they met in the fi nal. The fi rst winners of the trophy 60 years ago, Egypt have been African champions a record seven times but were making their come-back in the competition here after missing the last three editions of the Cup of Nations amid political upheaval in the country.

Behind them Cameroon are, alongside Ghana, the next most successful side in the history of the tournament with four victories, the last in 2002. While Egypt were seen as dark horses on their re-turn to the Cup of Nations for the fi rst time since their run of three straight triumphs in 2006, 2008 and 2010, Cameroon were dismissed as outsiders.

Apparently handicapped by the refusal of sev-eral leading players to accept call-ups from Belgian coach Hugo Broos, instead a team lacking in stars has eliminated hosts Gabon and fancied duo Sen-egal and Ghana to make it this far.

AFRICA CUP OF NATIONS SCOTTISH PREMIERSHIP

ANCELOTTI UNHAPPY, BUT BAYERN EXTEND LEAD

Berlin: Carlo Ancelotti was un-happy with Bayern Munich’s lack of control in Saturday’s 1-1 draw against Schalke before Leipzig’s defeat at Dortmund left the Bun-desliga leaders four points clear.

Robert Lewandowski’s deft chip gave Bayern an early lead in Munich before Schalke defender Naldo drilled home a free-kick on 13 minutes to level the scores. Both sides had clear chances to grab the winner as both Schalke striker Guido Burgstaller, then Lewandowski, hit the crossbar in the first half.

“It was a tough game, because Schalke played well,” said Ance-lotti. “We had a good start, but af-ter that we were not so compact, even in the midfield. The two lines, between the defence and midfield, were too far apart. We have to work together to improve that, it is not a question of quality (within the squad). We didn’t man-age to dominate possession, so we had no control and overall it was not enough.”

This was a tight, bruising encounter as Schalke fought hard for the point which left them 11th. “Our plan would have worked out 100% if we’d won, but we can be very happy and can live with the point,” said delighted Schalke coach, Markus Weinzierl.

The draw later proved to be enough for Ancelotti’s Bayern to extend their lead to four points after second-placed Leipzig’s 1-0 defeat at Borussia Dortmund, who climbed from seventh to third. Dortmund did Bayern a huge favour as Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang netted his 17th Bundesliga goal of the season to beat flu-hit RB Leipzig.

Aubameyang remains two goals ahead of Lewandowski in the race to be the German league’s top scorer thanks to his superb first-half winner. The Gabon striker headed home after teenage French winger Ousmane Dembele ghosted past two RB de-fenders down the right wing and crossed for Aubameyang to head home unmarked on 35 minutes.

Leipzig made Dortmund work for the win as Germany winger Marco Reus squandered two of Dortmund’s four clear second-half chances. “That was a 4-0 victory dressed as a 1-0 win,” quipped Dortmund coach Thomas Tuchel. “We defended at a high level, but we forgot to put the lid on it, but it feels great to get the win.”

There was drama in added time as Leipzig sub Federico Palacios Martinez, making his Bundesliga debut, put the ball in Dortmund’s net, but was flagged for a mar-ginal off side. “We won the game, that’s what counts,” Dortmund’s Reus said. “We put up a good fight, it was a very aggressive game and the win is okay.”

Leipzig struggled without top-scorer Timo Werner, midfielder Diego Demme and striker Marcel Sabitzer, who all have flu, while playmaker Emil Forsberg was sus-pended. “Dortmund deserved the win, that (disallowed goal) would have been a lucky punch from us at the end,” said Leipzig’s coach Ralph Hasenhuettl.

“But I have to pay my team a big compliment, who played for the first time in this formation. We sold ourselves well and the fans wanted to see how we’d fight, which we did, and I’m proud of the team.”

Borussia Dortmund fans display anti-RB Leipzig banners prior to the Bundesliga match, in Dortmund, western Germany, on Saturday. (AFP)

Burkina Faso’s players celebrate with their bronze medals after winning the third-place playoff match against Ghana a the Africa Cup of Nations in Port-Gentil, Gabon on Saturday night. (AFP)

Substitute Moussa Dembele scored three goals in a 24-minute spell as Celtic came from behind to beat St Johnstone and go 27 points clear at the top of the Premiership.

RUGBY5Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

Halfpenny shines bright as Wales late show stuns Italians

AFPRome

Leigh Halfpenny kicked 18 points while Jonathan Davies, Liam Williams and George North touched

down in a far improved second half as Wales got their Six Nations campaign underway with a 33-7 win over Italy in Rome yesterday.

Wales travelled to the Stadio Olimpico expected to coast against an Azzurri side they had beaten 22 times in 24 encounters. But Italy’s shock 20-18 upset of South Africa in the November tests was a re-minder of their marked improve-ment under Irish coach Conor O’Shea and for nearly an hour Wales were on the back foot.

Italy took a 7-3 half-time lead into the dressing room thanks to a battling defensive display that was shorn of many of the errors routinely produced under former coach Jacques Brunel.

But a superb second-half display saw Warren Gatland’s men score 30 unanswered points as Italy were handicapped by Andrea Lovotti be-ing sent to the sin bin on the hour.

At the start Wales didn’t do themselves any favours. Halfpen-ny missed a second-minute pen-alty from distance and the visitors suff ered another setback when captain Alun Wyn Jones was tem-porarily forced off for treatment.

When Williams collected Dan Biggar’s cross-fi eld ball wide on the left on the quarter-hour, he was brought to heel by Carlo Canna.

Wales had Italy’s defence pushed to the max yards from the tryline as they went through 10 phases, a solid defensive display from Italy that was matched by a huge performance form captain Sergio Parisse.

Parisse, claiming his 122nd cap, was inspirational in the opening half, producing a great offl oad to Abraham Steyn just outside the tryline that allowed Edoardo Gori to drive under the posts for their opening try on the half hour.

Carlo Canna hit the conver-sion for a 7-0 lead and the hosts fi nished the half buoyed after setting up camp deep in Welsh territory for the fi nal two minutes of the half.

Sam Davies replaced Biggar at fl y-half for the start of the second half but it resumed in ominous

fashion, lock Jake Ball requiring treatment for a head wound follow-ing a clash in the opening minutes.

But three penalties in quick suc-cession from Halfpenny, including one awarded after a dangerous tip tackle by Steyn on Ross Moriarty, soon had Wales back in contention. By the 56th minute, Wales were 12-7 to the good and were soon in command as Italy lost all hope fol-lowing Lovotti’s sanction.

Wales had the Italians stretched along the try line and when Webb spotted a a gap on the blindside the ball was spun right, Scott Wil-liams collecting possession and taking out two players with a feint to set up Jonathan Davies for his 13th try in 60 matches.

Halfpenny hit the conversion to give Wales a 19-7 lead on 62 min-

utes but the visitors were far from fi nished. Minutes later Webb, Wil-liams and Davies combined again as the ball was spun out to the left for Williams to touch down with ease. Halfpenny’s conversion took the score to 26-7 on 69 minutes.

Italy pushed hard in a fi nal, desperate bid to fi ght their way back into the match but Lovotti’s absence had done the damage.

The hosts were already exposed and strung out along the Welsh 22 when North collected possession, burst down the right fl ank and cut inside full-back Luke McLean to touch down in the 78th minute.

Halfpenny added the extras for a 33-7 lead but a fi nal push for a fourth try, and a bonus point, was thwarted when Liam Williams lost possession next to the try line.

SIX NATIONS

Halfpenny kicks 18 points while Davies, Williams and North touch down in a far improved second half as Wales get their campaign underway with a 33-7 win over Italy in Rome

AFPEdinburgh

Scotland head coach Vern Cotter believes his team’s thrill-ing 27-22 opening day win at home to Ireland has “changed the

dynamics” of their Six Nations campaign. Having let slip a 21-5 lead to trail Ire-

land 22-21 midway through the second half, two penalties in the last eight min-utes by captain Greig Laidlaw secured Scotland’s fi rst victory in an opening Six Nations fi xture since they beat France at Murrayfi eld in 2006 — potentially putting them in contention for their fi rst Championship title in 18 years.

“It certainly changes the dynamic,” said Cotter, who is aiming to fi nish his three-year tenure on a high before making way for Glasgow coach Gregor Townsend in June. “You can feel it. You start the Six Nations with a win and everybody speaks about it. But it’s only one game. I know the feet will be on the ground very quickly come Monday morning, just to make sure we back this up with another good performance.”

Next up for Cotter’s side are France away next Sunday and Scotland have not won in Paris since 1999, when Townsend inspired them to their last

Championship success, in the fi nal year of the Five Nations.

They will certainly travel with re-newed confi dence, having rocked Ire-land, who beat the All Blacks in No-vember, with a dynamic fi rst-half performance that yielded two tries for the brilliant full-back Stuart Hogg and a cunning score directly from a line out by centre Alex Dunbar.

“The last time we were in Paris we were close to winning,” said Laidlaw, referring to a 19-16 loss in a World Cup warm-up in September 2015. “We can take heart out of that and I think we’ve moved forward even since then. We’ll enjoy this tonight and we’ll get our feet back on the ground tomorrow morning. We’ll not get ahead of ourselves.”

Asked if Scotland’s target for the championship had been changed by the victory, Laidlaw (who returned a per-fect place-kicking record, with three conversions and two penalties) replied: “We want to win the next game. If we win the next game, we’ll be in a good position.”

Laidlaw will head to the Stade de France with added personal incentive — he moves from Gloucester to Clermont at the end of the season.

Cotter will also join a French Top 14 side — Montpellier — but for the time

being the New Zealander is savour-ing his fi rst win over Ireland coach Joe Schmidt, his former assistant at Bay of Plenty and Clermont.

Asked whether the victory was the best of his international stint with Scotland, Cotter said: “It has to be.”

In contrast, Schmidt was lamenting a false start that might cost his team dearly in the Championship race.

“We arrived 15 minutes late and we were late for all things in that fi rst half,” said Schmidt. “We were sluggish. The key thing is we’ve got to start better in Rome next week.

“Defeat is tough to take but it was al-ways potentially a reality coming here. The Championship looks tough to win but we’re not out of it. We backed up with a bonus point and we’ve got to go to Italy and make it six points and make sure we’ve got some momentum in this Championship.”

Although a try and conversion by stand-in stand-off Paddy Jackson put Ireland ahead — following tries by winger Keith Earls and lock Iain Hend-erson — Schmidt’s side sorely missed the orchestrating of the injured Jonath-an Sexton. “Jonny could come into it for next week but the more time Paddy gets in the Six Nations the better he’ll be,” said Schmidt.

Scots dream of end to 18-year wait aft er Irish winBOTTOMLINE

Wales’ Leigh Halfpenny kicks a penalty during his side’s 33-7 win over Italy. (Reuters)

France played better but seem to have forgotten how to win againBy Michael AylwinThe Guardian

France now look stuck in that seemingly eternal Scotland rut — play-ing some great stuff ,

deserving of victory, yet not achieving it. And thus, the hard-bitten among us will insist, not deserving of victory at all.

The good teams find a way to win when they’re not playing well; the hopeful, promising ones find a way to lose even when they are. It is not fair, but it is the way of the world.

Last time England were on a run of 14 wins, it was France who denied them, back in 2003 when England were a great team and France a good one. It was an England second team who lost by a point in Marseille, but it was a momen-tary slip they were apparently indiff erent towards, as they resumed their campaign to win the World Cup without so much as a shrug.

This England team, very much as first choice as it could be, were not indiff erent about registering this record 15th consecutive victory.

How France would have loved to deny them another grand slam at the first at-tempt, but this will have to go down, like the ones to Australia and New Zealand in the autumn, as a match they coulda-shoulda won — but did not. And if those keep happen-ing, you are just not there yet. Ask Scotland.

Scotland turned the coulda-shouldas into something tangible at last against France in round four of last season’s Six Nations. Now they appear to be soaring. So the consola-tion for France is that a win can be all it takes. They will wonder how that win was not registered here.

It was one of those bewilder-ing matches where all the eye-catching performances were put in by the side who ended up losing. Scott Sped-ding, Virimi Vakatawa, Kevin Gourdon and Louis Picamoles were fabulous from start to finish, galloping free across

Twickenham’s greensward. England looked all over the place again and again.

Picamoles, in particular, is blossoming at the moment, but he must be sick of this brilliance in vain. He has lit up the Premiership in this, his first season in Northampton colours. And yet the Saints keep losing as well.

They had four starting forwards on the field here, in a full-blown international, which makes a mockery of their problems with the scoreboard. At least, Dylan Hartley, Court-ney Lawes and Tom Wood find themselves on the winning side when they’re pulling to-gether in England colours. For Picamoles, the pain goes on.

And who is next up for France? Scotland. Next weekend’s visitors to Paris are not yet so established in the winning business as to be expected to prevail over there, but that is just the kind of assignment that a team low on confidence dread. Ideally, France would have someone they are not expected to beat. They need a proper scalp to take the next step in their development.

Are they a team low on confidence? They did not look it at Twickenham — until the inevitable tide started to wash towards them. Like Scotland, their mettle was tested in the second half, when a more fancied, albeit labouring team came back at them. Unlike Scotland they were unable to respond with the stuff that matters — points.

When it comes to that deeply ingrained confidence, the kind that takes you beyond the superficial abil-ity to “play well”, France are undoubtedly still lacking. It is that confidence that mobilises when the call comes to win at all costs. England have it at the moment; France do not.

The good news is that just getting that scoreboard read-ing in your favour can change all that quite suddenly. The bad news is it can take years to make it happen. Just ask Scotland. And, for that matter, England.

France’s Louis Picamoles (right) was the standout performer of the evening but it was in vain as his team lost to England in their Six Nations opener on Saturday. (AFP)

RUGBY

Gulf Times Monday, February 6, 20176

AFPTwickenham, United Kingdom

England coach Eddie Jones promised to do a better job after his “awful” Grand Slam cham-pions launched the defence of

their Six Nations title with a scrappy 19-16 win over France at Twickenham.

France had much the better of the play but England, yet to lose under Aus-tralian boss Jones, were able to grind out an ‘ugly’ win as they secured a national record 15th consecutive Test victory.

The visitors were 16-12 up on the hour when replacement prop Rabah Slimani went over for a try France had long threatened. But in the end it was England’s bench strength that proved decisive, with replacement back Ben Te’o’s try nine minutes from time giv-ing England a lead extended by Owen Farrell’s conversion.

“It is always good to win when you do not play well, and we did not play

well,” Jones said. “I take full responsi-bility for the performance.”

The former Australia and Japan coach added: “I thought we were aw-ful, but I thought we were always go-ing to win the game and that is what I like about these boys. They have got a never-say-die attitude.”

Jones sent on several replacements after Slimani’s try, with back-row James Haskell, returning after a broken toe, and Auckland-born Te’o, whose maiden Test try came just moments after he took the fi eld, making the biggest impact

“The bench defi nitely made a dif-ference,” Jones said. “Haskell, for a guy that has played 35 minutes and 35 sec-onds this year was brilliant, and Ben Te’o did really well for us, too.”

As for France, Jones said: “I think they are selecting right, they’ve got a big physical team and they are start-ing to understand how to make modern French fl air.”

Next up for England is a February 11 clash in Cardiff against Wales, who

opened their Six Nations with a win away to Italy in Rome yesterday.

“I did not prepare the team well enough,” said Jones. “I have got a lot of homework to do over the weekend.”

He added: “England versus Wales in Wales, can you believe the Test record? Sixty% of the Tests have been won by Wales, and 40% have been won by Eng-land. I’ve been to the Principality Sta-dium and it’s just another ground. So I need to work out why the English don’t play well in Wales.”

Victory maintained England’s bid for back-to-back Grand Slams did and saw them top the previous Red Rose record of 14 straight wins they had shared with Clive Woodward’s celebrated 2003 side, who went on to win that year’s World Cup by beating an Australia team coached by Jones in the fi nal.

But cricket buff Jones insisted: “Records don’t mean anything. You score a hundred in a Test and next day get out for a duck. We want to be Six Nations champions and that starts now

by beating Wales next week and that is the only thing that matters. If we win the Six Nations I will stand up here and do handstands. I will be that happy.”

For Guy Noves, the France coach, there was renewed frustration at once again seeing his side fail to claim a ma-jor scalp after narrow November home defeats by Australia (25-23) and world champions New Zealand (24-19).

“We had opportunities, you’re right, we need to work to have a better result,” said Noves. “But, undoubtedly, we’re on the right path,” he added ahead of France’s next match at home to Scot-land who upset Ireland 27-22 at Mur-rayfi eld on Saturday.

Noves said a France side captained by hooker Guilhem Guirado had been “pol-luted by quite a few individuals mistakes” as he lamented their inability to close out the match. “It lacks rigour, it lacks matu-rity,” explained Noves. “We’ve got a very young team. We’re ahead by four points 10 minutes before the end, we shouldn’t have lost this game.”

Coach Jones vows to improve ‘awful’ EnglandFOCUS

Argentina outplay Canada, Americans overpower Uruguay

AFPLos Angeles

Second-half tries by Santiago Me-drano and Segundo Tuclet powered defending champions Argentina over Canada 20-6 while the United

States edged Uruguay 29-23 in Americas Rugby Championship openers yesterday.

The Americans and Argentina joined Brazil, a 17-3 winner over Chile in Friday’s fi rst match of the Six Nations-styled tour-nament, atop the table.

Snow frustrated scoring for Argentina and Canada in the fi rst half at suburban Victoria, Canadian captain Gordon McRo-rie and Argentina’s Domingo Miotti ex-changing early penalty kicks for a 3-3 half-time deadlock.

But Medrano put Argentina ahead to stay with his 50th-minute try, grabbing and touching down a grubber kick from Miotti. “The team was very excited,” Ar-gentina captain Lautaro Bavaro said of the match played in frigid, snowy weather.

McRorie, a 28-year-old Hong Kong-born scrum half, hit another penalty kick in the 62nd minute.

But second-half substitute Tuclet, who made an appearance for Argentina’s Super Rugby Jaguares last season, boosted the visitors’ lead to 17-6 with a 67th-minute try

and Miotti added another penalty kick with fi ve minutes remaining to fi nish the scoring.

At San Antonio, US captain Blaine Scully scored the go-ahead try in the 61st minute and the Americans held off Uruguay. Scul-ly, a 28-year-old winger for the Pro 12 Car-diff Blues, collected a kick from Will Magie out of a US maul in the corner of the try zone and the hosts never trailed again.

Scully’s try put the Eagles ahead 26-23 and Irish-born AJ MacGinty added a fi nal penalty kick in the 66th minute to give the Americans their fi nal victory margin.

But it didn’t come easily. MacGinty, a fl y-half for English Premiership side Sale Sharks, missed penalty kick attempts in the 69th and 78th minutes and the Eagles had to stop a late driving maul by the South Americans to complete the triumph.

“We knew it would be tough, tight and physical, which is about what it was,” Scully said. “It was pretty inaccurate from us at times, but I’m really proud of the guys for dig-ging in and stopping the driving maul, which we really struggled with for the 80 minutes.”

The Eagles play host to Brazil next Sat-urday while Chile visit Canada and Argen-tina entertain Uruguay.

Uruguay opened the scoring in the fourth minute on German Albanell’s pen-alty kick but Ben Cima answered for the Eagles in the next minute to level at 3-3. In the 16th minute, Uruguay’s Facundo Gattas

dove into the corner for a try that put the South American side up 10-3.

Cima responded with penalty kicks in the 22nd and 31st minutes and the Ameri-cans seized the lead in the 38th when MacGinty ran through a gap and offl oaded to Bryce Campbell, who scored the try to put the Eagles on top 16-10.

Albanell added a late penalty kick to pull Uruguay within 16-13 at halftime and the Los Teros moved back into the lead in the 46th minute on Uruguay captain Alejandro Nieto’s try. Albanell and MacGinty then exchanged penalty kicks, setting the stage for Scully’s late heroics.

Blitzboks down England for third Sevens series winIn Sydney, South Africa’s Blitzboks won their third World Rugby Sevens Series of the season with a dominant 29-14 victory over England in the fi nal yesterday.

Led by man-of-the-match Seabelo Sen-atla, South Africa scored fi ve tries to Eng-land’s two. Neil Powell’s Blitzboks have now won three of this season’s four world series fi nals and stretched their lead to 17 points over England in the championship standings.

It was the second consecutive week that Senatla had been crowned player of the fi nal after the Blitzboks’ 26-5 win over Rio Olym-pic champions Fiji in Wellington last week.

“It is incredible. The guys are just magi-cians. Hats off to them, I am just the fi nish-er of the moves,” said Senatla, whose try in the fi nal was his eighth of the tournament and the 189th in his world series career.

Senatla leaves the Blitzboks at this event to play in the 15-man Super Rugby with the Western Stormers. “It is bitter-sweet. We play here with family so it is a pity to be leaving the family but it’s a new challenge I am excited for,” he said.

It was South Africa’s fi rst Sevens win in Australia since their back-to-back ti-tles in Adelaide in 2008 and 2009. “The team stuck to the structure and well done to them. It is extra-special because it’s our fi rst back-to-back in Australasia so hats off to all in the system,” said South Africa cap-tain Philip Snyman.

England, who upset defending champi-ons New Zealand 12-5 in the semi-fi nals, beat the Blitzboks in the Cape Town fi nal in December and were bidding for their fi rst victory in Australia since 2003.

New Zealand staged one of their great-est escapes to knock out mighty Fiji 24-21 in the quarter-fi nals with a last-ditch try by Sione Molia, who started from behind their own try-line with time up. A total of 75,000 fans braved searing heat over the three days of the tournament.

The fi fth leg of the World Rugby Sevens Se-ries takes place in Las Vegas from March 3-5.

AMERICAS CHAMPIONSHIP

‘We knew it would be tough, tight and physical, which is about what it was. It was pretty inaccurate from us at times, but I’m really proud of the guys for digging in and stopping the driving maul, which we really struggled with for the 80 minutes’

Action from yesterday's Americas Rugby Championship game between Argentina and Canada (red). Argentina won 20-6. (AFP)

All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu tests positive, says ‘shocked’ at resultReutersWellington

All Blacks lock Patrick Tuipulotu tested positive for a banned

substance last year and was “shocked” at the result, New Zealand Rugby (NZR) said yesterday.

Tuipulotu was sent home from the All Blacks end of season tour last November after testing positive for an unspeci-fied banned substance. The team said at the time he had departed for “personal reasons”.

NZR and the New Zealand Rugby Players’ Association (NZRPA) issued a statement yesterday confirming the posi-tive test after a report in the local media. “NZR and NZRPA can confirm that, in November 2016, they were notified that a doping control sample pro-vided by Patrick Tuipulotu had, reportedly, revealed the pres-ence of a specified substance listed on (WADA)’s prohibited list,” the statement said.

“Patrick was shocked by the test result and is working hard to identify the source of the specified substance. In accord-ance with WADA regulations, Patrick remains provisionally suspended pending resolu-tion of this matter. Further to these regulations, NZR and NZPRA are bound by strict confidentiality obligations,” the statement added.

The 24-year-old Tuipulotu made his All Blacks debut in 2014 and was in contention for the 2015 World Cup squad but underwent surgery for a congenital hip problem and missed most of the season.

He returned to the national team last year but returned home early after he played his

12th test in the 68-10 victory over Italy in November.

Tuipulotu has not reported to his Super Rugby side for pre-season training due to the provisional ban, the Auckland Blues also blaming an “ongo-ing personal matter” for his absence.

World Rugby are signatories to the World Anti-Doping Agen-cy Code and, as a first-time of-fender, he could face sanctions ranging from a warning to a two-year ban.

Former women’s sevens player Lavinia Gould was the first New Zealand international to receive a ban for doping in 2013 after she tested positive for methylhexaneamine.

Two lower-level club players were also suspended last year for possession and use of banned anabolic agents.

According to WADA statistics for 2015, anti-doping agen-cies conducted 8,451 urine and blood tests worldwide on rugby players, with 80 adverse analytical findings. More than half of those were for anabolic agents. Drug Free Sport New Zealand (DFSNZ) conducted 355 tests on rugby players in New Zealand in 2015, with just two adverse findings.

Former WADA director gener-al David Howman however has warned that testing probably did not extend far enough, with the possibility of secondary school players using anabolic agents or banned supplements to add muscle bulk.

“Kids are doing it. That’s the part that scares the hell out of me,” New Zealander Howman said last year before he left WADA. “We don’t do a lot of testing of kids in that region, 15 to 16, First XV... and that prob-ably is the area which is most vulnerable.”

AFPLos Angeles

The Sacramento Kings stunned the Golden State Warriors 109-106 in overtime on Saturday

to snap a 13-game skid against their league-leading Western Conference rivals.

Kings forward DeMarcus Cousins scored six of his 32 points in overtime and also con-tributed 12 rebounds and nine assists. Matt Barnes produced a double-double of 11 points and 14 rebounds as Sacramento handed the Warriors their eighth defeat of the season against 43 victories. Stephen Curry led the Warriors with 35 points and nine assists.

He made eight three-pointers, but in the waning seconds of overtime missed two contested layups that could have given the Warriors the lead. After Darren Collison’s two free-throws with 2.5 seconds left gave the Kings a 109-106 lead, the Warriors had one more chance.

Draymond Green, wide open for a three-pointer at the top of the arc, bounced one off the rim.

Warriors coach Steve Kerr wasn’t around to see it. He erupted in anger in the third quarter when Green was handed a technical on the heels of a per-sonal foul call against teammate Kevon Looney.

Kerr stormed toward mid-court, where assistant coach Mike Brown held him back, but he was thrown out of the game.

The episode ratcheted up the intensity, but the Warriors couldn’t fi nd their usual off en-sive fl ow. All-Star Kevin Durant endured a diffi cult shooting night, connecting on just two of 10 from the fl oor and fi nishing with only 10 points.

Klay Thompson scored 26 and Green, who left the game briefl y with a right knee contusion, fi n-ished with 16 points, eight re-bounds and six assists.

“We got what we deserved, before I was tossed and after,” Kerr said. “It was one of the worse games we’ve played all season. We had no purpose, the ball didn’t move... I didn’t even recognise our team out there to-night. “Maybe we were due for one.”

‘King’ James reigns

LeBron James scored 32 points

and handed out 10 assists to lead the reigning champion Cleve-land Cavaliers to a 111-104 vic-tory over the New York Knicks at Madison Square Garden.

James, 32, took his career total points to 28,020, becoming the youngest player to score 28,000.

James connected on 12 of 20 shots and directed the off ense with teammate Kyrie Irving sidelined by a sore quadriceps.

Stand-in DeAndre Liggins scored fi ve points without any assists, while Kay Felder added four points and three assists backing him up.

“It’s hard (playing without Ir-ving), but guys have to step up,” James said. “Kyrie is more than

just a playmaker or a scorer. He is one of our leaders.

“D Ligs (Liggins) and Kay (Felder) did as good as they could do,” James added. “They made some mistakes, but as veterans we have to pick them up.”

‘Pop’ on top

It was a milestone night for San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich as well.

Manu Ginobili and Tony Park-er scored 18 points each, com-bining to make 13 of 14 of their shots from the fl oor in a 121-97 victory over the Denver Nuggets that put Popovich atop the list of coaching wins with one club.

Popovich, in his 21st sea-

son at the helm in San Antonio, notched his 1,128th win, mov-ing past former Utah coach Jerry Sloan. Legendary Boston Celtics coach Red Auerbach is third on the list with 795.

“Growing up, Jerry Sloan was one of the big names, watching the (NBA) Finals and stuff like that,” Parker said. “To have Pop up there, he’s going to keep it go-ing. It looks like he’s not getting tired at all. He’s not going to stop anytime soon.”

Parker and Ginobili are dis-playing some impressive longev-ity themselves.

Popovich wasn’t surprised at the energy provided off the bench by 39-year-old Ginobili.

“You can’t make someone that’s competitive non-compet-itive,” Popovich said. “You can’t extract that juice from them.” Parker, 34, said staying produc-tive was a matter of adjusting. “It’s a diff erent stage in your ca-reer,” he said. “I try to do the best I can with the guys around me.”

RESULTSCavaliers 111 Knicks 104Wizards 105 Pelicans 91Heat 125 76ers 102Spurs 121 Nuggets 97Pacers 105 Pistons 84Hawks 113 Magic 86Jazz 105 Hornets 98Bucks 137 Suns 112Grizzlies 107 Timberwolves 99

‘It was one of the worse games we’ve played all season. We had no purpose’

Kings beat Warriors, James hits milestone in Cavaliers victory

NBA

Carter delivers the winner as Kings blank FlyersNHL

By Jesse DoughertyLos Angeles Times

The day, once quiet and sleepy, now brimmed with all that was fl ashier than the bearded 34-year-old in net.

The Los Angeles Kings’ 1-0 overtime win over the Philadelphia Flyers was their fi fth consecutive victory, matching their best streak of the season. Jeff Carter scored his NHL-leading ninth game-winning goal of the season, 2 minutes 35 seconds into the extra period, past an otherwise unbeatable Michal Neuvirth. The Kings improved to 10-1 in overtime games. Forward Tyler Toff oli, who had not played since Dec. 20, made an en-couraging return. Defenseman Drew Doughty stretched his career-long assist streak to seven games.

But the win was anchored, in no small part, by goaltender Peter Budaj. His sec-ond consecutive shutout gave him seven, a career high and the most in the league. He has not given up a goal in more than 144 minutes. He faced only 17 shots across 62:35 seconds Saturday.

All that mattered was that he saved them all. “I feel pretty good out there. Thank God I feel healthy and strong,” Budaj said. “But most of all I think the

team is playing really good in front of me. Like today, I know it was a 1-0 game, but I think we had more shots and more scor-ing chances. You know Philly had some but they weren’t able to shoot the puck, our guys did a good job blocking them and getting sticks in the lanes.”

When Kings goaltender Jonathan Quick injured his groin in a season-opening loss to the San Jose Sharks, Budaj was play-ing for the Ontario Reign in the American Hockey League. The Kings recalled him to back up Jeff Zatkoff , but Budaj quickly took hold of the starting spot.

Nearly four months later, Quick is still out and Budaj is having his best season since 2006-07, when he was 24 and won 31 games for the Colorado Avalanche. Two seasons later he was 20-29 before slowly fading away. He made only 11 starts in 2009-10, went to the Montreal Canadiens before the 2011-12 season and looked as if he would never reach 20 vic-tories again. The low number of appear-ances wouldn’t allow it.

Yet, there he was in the Wells Fargo Center on Saturday, grabbing his 25th win in his 45th game.

The Flyers were kept in the game by a handful of acrobatic saves by Neuvirth, who shined in a loss. With nine min-utes left in regulation, a booming “Let’s go, Flyers!” sounded more like a restless

prayer. It grew fainter as the two teams stumbled toward overtime, where Coach Darryl Sutter turned to Carter, Doughty and Anze Kopitar to fi nish it off .

They sent those fans stalking toward the exits, their heads shaking at an unan-swered request.

“(Budaj) has been playing awesome for us, I’ve said it all along,” Doughty said. “He’s playing great. Making the big saves when we need them, making the easy saves when we need them too.

“Obviously, along with how well he’s playing, it’s a big testament to how well our team is playing in general, just de-fensively, off ensively, our whole team is working hard to keep the puck out of the net and that’s why we’re putting up ze-roes.”

ResultsCapitals 3 Canadiens 2Kings 1 Flyers 0 (overtime)Avalanche 5 Jets 2Penguins 4 Blues 1Maple Leafs 6 Bruins 5Wild 6 Canucks 3Blackhawks 5 Stars 3Devils 5 Blue Jackets 1Lightning 3 Ducks 2 (overtime)Coyotes 3 Sharks 2 (shootout)Red Wings 1 Predators 0Sabres 4 Senators 0

SPORT7Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

Cleveland Cavaliers forward LeBron James (R) drives to the basket past New York Knicks forward Carmelo Anthony during the first quarter of their NBA game at Madison Square Garden. PICTURE: USA TODAY Sports

No ponytail as Vonn targets world podiums

AFPSt. Moritz, Switzerland

Lindsey Vonn admitted yesterday to struggling to sign autographs and not even being able to

tie her hair into a ponytail — the fall-out from another inju-ry-wracked season.

But the American speed queen insists that while not skiing at full confi dence, she was ready to claim some med-als at the World Ski Champion-ships that get under way in St Moritz, Switzerland today.

“It’s still a work in progress,” Vonn said of an injured hand. “It’s not at 100% by any means, but it’s getting better. I can hold a ski pole and I can shake people’s hands.

“But I can’t quite put my hair in a ponytail. I can’t do too many autographs because my hand gets tired.”

Turning to the world cham-pionships, Vonn confi rmed she would compete in the two speed events of the downhill and super-G as well as the al-pine combined.

“At world championships the only thing that matters is the medals, there’s no World Cup points, fourth place is probably the worst place to be,” said the 32-year-old, with her dog Lucy sat on her lap.

“I’m going for medals, I’m going to ski my best: either I’m going to win or go out, that’s my mentality going in.

“I hope I can come away with some medals. Even though I’m not at my most confi dent, I still think I can win.”

Vonn broke an arm in train-ing late last year and has had only fi ve World Cup races since then, including topping the podium in Garmisch, Germany.

“I’m defi nitely in a better spot after winning in Garmisch than I was before. Crashing twice in Cortina was a bit of a setback and skiing safe and conservatively in the super-G didn’t really help,” she said.

“I’m going in excited, con-fi dent, not at my most confi -dent but pretty confi dent, and I think after downhill training runs I’ll build my way into it.

“This is a great course for me, it’s a great hill for me, I’ve won a lot of World Cups here.

“I’m also excited because I didn’t make the 2003 world championship team (also for St Moritz) because my coach-es didn’t think I was good enough!”

‘Bigger than worlds’

Vonn insisted, however, that the world champs were ranked third in her list of career pri-orities given her charge on In-gemar Stenmark’s World Cup record of 86 career victories.

Vonn is currently on 77, with a 16-episode Eurosport series launching later Sunday based on the American’s quest.

“Ingemar’s record would be the highest priority of my goals, the Olympics next and the world championships and more discipline titles after that. Ingemar’s record is something that would be remembered more in the history of skiing rather than anything else.

“I never in a million years would have guessed that I’d come this far in my career that I’d even be close to breaking In-gemar’s record. He’s the legend in ski racing, everyone believes he’s the greatest of all time,” she said. “Being this close to breaking his record is a dream come true.”

Vonn also reiterated her long-expressed hope that skiing’s governing body, the FIS, would sanction her to compete against men at Lake Louise. “I love training with the men,” she said. “They push me to ski better, to push my limits even more.

“One of my biggest goals in the future is to be able to race against them in Lake Louise. That’s my best chance to have the most success and be closer to them because that’s the only course that’s pretty much ex-actly the same.”

Vonn’s coach will present a plan to FIS in the hope of her taking part in December 2018.

Asked about whether male skiers wanted her participa-tion, Vonn’s answer summed up some of the concerns sur-rounding any potential soften-ing of existing rules: “That’s a mixed bag!”

ALPINE SKIING

The Philadelphia Flyers Jakub Voracek skates with the puck past the Los Angeles Kings Drew Doughty (right) as the net tips on goalie Peter Budaj during the third period of their NHL game in Philadelphia. (Philadelphia Daily News/TNS)

AFPHouston

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan was named the National Football League’s Most Valuable Player on

Saturday, 24 hours before he at-tempts to crown a superb season with Super Bowl glory.

The 31-year-old scooped the award after collecting 25 of the votes polled, while his opposite number in Sunday’s showpiece, the New Eng-land Patriots’ Tom Brady, fi nished with 10 votes.

Ryan’s award came after a daz-zling season at the heart of Atlanta’s free-scoring off ense that saw the quarterback fi nish with 4,944 yards, 38 touchdowns and only seven in-terceptions.

Brady, who is chasing a record fi fth Super Bowl on Sunday, fi n-ished the season with 3,554 yards, 28 touchdowns and only two intercep-tions but played four games fewer because of his “Defl ategate” sus-pension.

Unsurprisingly, Ryan also picked up the Off ensive Player of the Year award.

The Falcons quarterback enjoyed comfortably the best season of his career after spending last summer working intensively on his throw-ing motion at a Los Angeles training camp. Ryan averaged just over nine yards per pass, the highest rate ever for a quarterback with more than 400 completions in a season.

Defensive Player of the Year went to Khalil Mack of the Oakland Raid-ers. Mack’s season included 11 sacks, fi ve forced fumbles, three fumble re-coveries and a pick-six as the Raid-ers reached the playoff s.

Elsewhere, Dallas Cowboys quar-terback Dak Prescott was a surprise pick ahead of teammate Ezekiel Elli-ott for Off ensive Rookie Player of the Year. Prescott, who played the entire season for Dallas after starter Tony Romo suff ered a back injury in pre-season, won 28 of 50 votes, beating out Elliott, who fi nished runner-up with 21 votes.

The Cowboys, who were beaten in their opening playoff game by the Green Bay Packers after fi nish-ing the regular season 13-3, also saw coach Jason Garrett pick up Coach of the Year honours. The 2017 class of the Pro Football Hall of Fame was also announced in the ceremony on the eve of the Super Bowl.

Cowboys owner Jerry Jones and Danish-born kicking great Morten Andersen were selected along with long-time Seattle Seahawks safety Kenny Easley, LaDainian Tomlin-son, Terrell Davis, Jason Taylor and Kurt Warner.

Owens snubbed again

Notable absentees included

former NFL commissioner Paul Ta-gliabue and mercurial wide receiver Terrell Owens, who called the proc-ess “fl awed” after learning that he’d been snubbed again in his second year of eligibility.

Jones bought the Cowboys in 1989 and became the fi rst owner whose team went to the Super Bowl four

times in his fi rst seven years with the franchise. Jones is widely involved in NFL ownership committees, in-cluding marketing, sponsorship, television, stadium management, labour negotiations and television.

Warner played in three Super Bowls — two with the St. Louis Rams and another with the Arizona Car-

dinals — and has the three highest passing yardage totals in the game’s history. In a rags-to-riches story, he was bagging groceries and playing for the Arena Football League’s Iowa Barnstormers before he caught on with the Rams as a free agent in 1998.

Andersen entered the NFL in 1982 and retired in 2004. He set the

record for career points (2,544), fi eld goals (565) and game played (382) in a career that included stints with the New Orleans Saints, Falcons, New York Giants, Kansas City Chiefs and Minnesota Vikings.

Tomlinson, the league’s number fi ve all-time rusher, made the Hall of Fame on the fi rst ballot.

Raiders Mack wins defensive player of the year award, Cowboys Prescott declared best off ensive rookie

Falcons’ Ryan named most valuable player

NFL

Pain-racked McMahon still waiting for compensationFOCUS

ReutersHouston

Super Bowl memories are meant to last forever and former Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon clings through the pain and haze

to his as the ravages of a cranium-rattling National Football League career take a toll.

At the 2011 NFL championship game in Dallas, McMahon, the quirky and feisty quarterback who helped the Bears to vic-tory in Super Bowl XX in 1986, talked to Reuters about his fading football memo-ries and the damage done over punishing a career.

A bitter McMahon was back in Texas this week ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl showdown between the New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons, still trying to bring attention to a concussion crisis that remains far from resolved despite an estimated $1bn settlement between the league and players.

McMahon believes today’s players are not doing enough to help their predeces-sors.

The concussion debate, once the league’s hot-button issue, has quieted to the point where league commissioner Roger Goodell did not receive a single question about head injuries during his

hour-long state of the league press con-ference on Wednesday.

The US Supreme Court in December cleared the way for the NFL settlement of concussion-related lawsuits with thou-sands of retired players to take eff ect, rejecting a challenge brought by a small group of dissenters.

The settlement enables the NFL to avoid litigation that could have led to huge sums in damages and provided em-barrassing details about how it has dealt with the dangers posed by head trauma in the violent sport.

But so far, McMahon says, he and oth-er former players have received no bene-fi ts from a deal that has left them tangled in red tape and “jumping through hoops”.

“I don’t know if anyone has benefi ted yet. I haven’t,” McMahon told Reuters. “I was trying to discuss this with my lawyer a couple of weeks ago and now I have to go do something else, see another doctor and fi ll out more damn paperwork.

“They just keep this damn red tape rolling along.”

In Dallas, McMahon was working with the Sport Legacy Institute (SLI), a non-profi t organization whose mission is to help advance the study, treatment and prevention of head trauma in athletes.

This year McMahon was in Houston participating in the Cannabis in Profes-sional Sports forum as part of an ongoing

eff ort to push the league and NFL Play-ers Association towards a new policy on marijuana.

McMahon, who travels to New York every couple of months to have fl uid drained from his neck and head, said he has replaced opioid painkillers and other medications for marijuana to help deal with concussion related symptoms.

“I got all the pills and the stuff they had us on for years and this is much bet-ter,” said McMahon, who lives in Arizona where medical marijuana is legally avail-able to him.

McMahon, who won a second Super Bowl ring as Brett Favre’s backup with the Packers in 1997, remains hopeful that he and his lawyers will eventually navi-gate their way through settlement red tape and recover some of the thousands of dollars he has spent on concussion re-lated problems.

Even though the lawsuit has been set-tled, McMahon, who has been informed he suff ered a broken neck at some time during his career and was not told about it, believes more can be done, particu-larly by the players.

“I went through two strikes as a player so these guys can make all the money they are making now but they won’t take care of the guys who did all that,” he said.

“It’s all about what is happening now for them.”

Women comprise nearly half of audience, but more wanted

NFL FAN BASE

ReutersHouston

Women comprise 45% of the Na-tional Football League fan base, says an NFL spokeswoman as the league focuses on attracting more

young women to the sport.A league that a few years ago was completely

male dominated now has two female coaches, two female offi cials, three female (100%) own-ers and a female chief security offi cer, a small number to be sure but at least an improvement from the old days.

“We want to make sure we’re giving our fans an enriching experience and thinking about the biggest platform there is as an opportunity to bring in teen girl fans,” NFL vice-president of marketing Johanna Faries said at the second NFL Women’s Summit, dubbed Plays for

Life, in Houston ahead of today’s Super Bowl.

Women currently make up 45% of the league’s fan base”, said Faries.

Female viewership of the NFL grew by 26% from 2009 to 2013, according to Athletic Busi-ness, an online resource for sports profession-als, which also says that 53mn women in the US watched the 2015 Super Bowl, almost half the total audience of 114mn.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans have the biggest female fan base.

And high school girls are also playing the game in increasing though still small numbers.While last year’s inaugural NFL Women’s

Summit focused on how participation in sports can lead to success both on and off

the fi eld, this year the event focused on the importance of mentorship and chasing after goals.

“It went even bigger into the conversation of pursuing your dreams and how leaders of today can share insights, and what challenges they’ve overcome personally and profession-ally,” Faries said.

Professional athletes, astronauts and busi-ness leaders from Houston and across the United States took the stage in front of about 300 Houston-area girls to share inspirational stories of personal and professional obstacles they had overcome to achieve their goals.

Cathy Lanier, chief security offi cer for the NFL, spoke of her transformation from a teen-age runaway who dropped out of high school to the fi rst woman ever to head the Metropolitan Police Department for the District of Columbia.

Olympic gymnastics gold medallists Gabby Douglas, Simone Biles and Aly Raisman, crowd favourites, were featured on a panel discus-sion discussing everything from the gruelling schedule of an Olympic athlete to celebrity crushes.

In his opening remarks, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell spoke of the importance of men-toring. The program is just one way the NFL is attempting to reach its younger fan base.

The league soon will launch an Experience-ship programme, which will bring young girls and boys into NFL offi ces around the draft to see what goes on behind the scenes.

“It’s an opportunity to see what it’s like in the NFL.... so you can discover, is there an op-portunity for me in the NFL?” Goodell said.

SPORT

Gulf Times Monday, February 6, 20178

Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan.

Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon.

The Pittsburgh Steelers, Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots, Dallas Cowboys and Houston Texans have the biggest female fan base

SPORT9Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

Sergio Garcia seals dominant Dubai victory

Howson eclipses Froome to win Herald Sun Tour

Determined Quintana seals Valencia win

Bolt aims for global growth of Nitro team concept

GOLF CYCLING

FOCUS

ATHLETICS

It was Garcia’s first European Tour win since the 2014 Qatar Masters

AFPMelbourne

Usain Bolt says he is looking to spread the Nitro team ath-letics concept globally after the success of the inaugural

event in Melbourne on Saturday.The charismatic eight-time Ol-

ympic gold medallist led his Bolt All-Stars team to victory on the fi rst of three Nitro Athletic meets in Aus-tralia and said he was looking for ways to make the event more popular with fans.

Six teams of 12 male and 12 female athletes competed in a mixture of old and new events with the 30-year-old Jamaican superstar racing in the mixed 4x100m relay, which his All-Stars won.

More than 7,000 fans crammed into Melbourne’s small Lakeside Stadium to see a rare appearance of Bolt com-peting in Australia.

Bolt said he believed the track and fi eld concept, which organisers de-scribe as “revolutionary”, could catch on around the world.

“I think it could work. I think we’ll fi nd diff erent events to do,” Bolt told reporters after Saturday’s meet.

“I don’t think every event caught on, so we probably have to changeit up. A few of the events were

wonderful.“I know in time it will catch on and

will do great because it’s for the peo-ple, and I think the people really enjoy something diff erent and also the ath-letes really enjoyed it, so I’m happy about that.”

Bolt believed the meet would garner more support as fans get used to the format.

“It was a bit diff erent. It was the fi rst one so people didn’t really under-stand what was going on but over time

they’ll get it,” he said.

ENJOYMENT ‘KEY THING’“The crowd will get bigger because of people watching on TV, and see the energy and see the fun.

“We’re going to fi nd ways to make it better, so I’m excited about that.”

The world record holder for the 100m and 200m led the Bolt All-Stars — including athletes from Jamaica, the USA and Kenya — against teams representing Australia, England, New

Zealand, Japan and China.Bolt ran in the fi nal event on the

programme, the 4x100m mixed relay, featuring two male and two female athletes from each team, as did fel-low Jamaican Olympic gold medallist Asafa Powell.

He ran in the unfamiliar second leg, handing over to American Jenna Prandini.

Looking ahead to the next meet in Melbourne on Thursday, Bolt said he was planning on making further changes to the 4x100 relay event.

“I think we’re defi nitely going to change the 4x100 and we might change the medley relay,” he said.

“We’ll just fi gure out a few things. But the key thing is we’re enjoying our-selves, we’re fairly competitive, and we’re trying to get the crowd engaged.

“Even if it’s on next Saturday (and the fi nal) night I’ll anchor (the relay) for sure.

“Tonight (Saturday) we just wanted to do something diff erent.

“I haven’t run the back stretch in years, I’ve never handed over (the ba-ton) to a girl, so for me that was excit-ing. But defi nitely on the last night I’ll anchor.”

Asked if he considering oth-er events, such as the javelin, Bolt laughed: “I was telling them ‘guys, I can do javelin, and long jump I’ll try. If you guys need me, I’ll do that.”

AFPMelbourne

Young Australian Damien How-son upstaged international stars Chris Froome and Este-ban Chaves yesterday, win-

ning the overall Herald Sun Tour ahead of fellow countryman Jai Hindley.

Briton Ian Stannard (Team Sky) crossed the line fi rst on the 121-kilome-tre (75.2-mile) fourth and fi nal stage in Kinglake in Victoria state, just ahead of New Zealander Aaron Gate (Aqua Blue Sport).

Howson (Orica-Scott), 24, and 20-year-old Hindley (Australian Na-tional Team) led the overall standings since stage one on Thursday ahead of third-placed Frenchman Kenny Elis-sonde (Team Sky).

“I’m really happy to join that list of guys (of former winners including Froome and Bradley Wiggins),” How-son said.

“It’s my fi rst overall win ever. It’s also nice to break into new territory for my-self.”

Defending champion and three-time Tour de France winner Froome (Team Sky) hailed the Australian’s eff orts to become the overall winner of his coun-try’s oldest stage race.

“Damien Howson was really strong,” said the 31-year-old Briton, who fi n-ished sixth in the overall standings.

“He rode a great stage on Falls Creek and has defended the jersey really well.”

Colombian Chaves was ninth in the overall standings.

Froome’s teammate Stannard, 29, attacked following the fi nal climb, opening up a gap that his rivals could not close to take the stage.

“I knew the guys wanted to spice it up behind,” Stannard said.

“I wasn’t sure how I felt. I had a big day chasing that last 30 kilometres yesterday, I went pretty deep and felt not great early and came around to-wards the end of the race.”

Dutchman Taco Van Der Hoo-rn (Roompot-Nederlandse Loterij) crossed the fi nish line to be third for the stage.

‘CHANGE OF TACTICS’Stannard’s victory capped a successful few days for Team Sky, with Luke Rowe also winning stage two of the Tour on Friday.

“We’ve come here and wanted to have some fun and some good racing — that’s what it’s been about and it’s worked well for us,” Stannard said.

Froome said the team had experi-mented with diff erent tactics this year.

“I think tactically we made some very diff erent choices this year,” he told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper.

“Everyone came here to ride an ag-gressive race and not necessarily de-liver the typical lead-out train for me that we normally do.

“So at Falls Creek (on stage one) when Kenny went up the road we were happy to sit back and roll the dice and let them have a crack.

But he added: “It didn’t pay off for us and it went in Damien Howson’s fa-vour.”

The climbing and time-trial special-ist added that he was happy with start-ing his 2017 season in Australia, which included competing in the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race.

“The legs were good. I’m just happy to get through the week and have a good block out here,” he said.

AFPDubai

Sergio Garcia led from start to fi nish to hold off Open cham-pion Henrik Stenson and win the $2.5 million Dubai Desert

Classic yesterday for his fi rst Europe-an Tour victory in three years.

The Spaniard started the fi nal day three shots ahead of the Swede and fi nished with the margin intact on 19-under-par 269 after they carded matching 69s.

It was Garcia’s fi rst European Tour win since the 2014 Qatar Masters and will propel him up to ninth in the world rankings from his current 15th place.

Denmark’s Lasse Jensen shot the lowest round of the fi nal day, a seven-under-par 65, to climb to tied third place with England’s Tyrrell Hatton (67).

An opening-hole birdie, followed by another on the ninth, saw Garcia make the turn four ahead of Stenson and even though the Swede closed the gap to two shots with three birdies and a bogey in his next fi ve holes, the 37-year-old Garcia rarely felt seriously threatened.

The key moment of the tournament came on the par-three 15th hole when Garcia hit a superb tee shot to two feet for a birdie, while Stenson overshot the green and settled for a bogey.

“I think at that time I was two ahead. He hit a good shot on the 15th, pretty much straight over the fl ag, just left a little bit, and too much club,” said Garcia.

“When he went over the green I knew that it was going to be very dif-fi cult to get up and down from there because I’ve been there in the past and it’s very, very tricky.”

Garcia, who is yet to win a major championship, added: “Really happy

to get the win and it is always tough to win against someone like Henrik.”

Stenson, the 2007 Dubai champion, said that Garcia remained tantalis-ingly just out of reach.

“I was three shots back at the start of the day and Sergio made an early birdie so I was trailing all day. I was expecting that,” he said.

“I needed to come up with somereally solid play and even though I didn’t quite play my best, I still man-aged to sneak a couple of birdies in there in the middle of the back nine

and move closer.”Stenson admitted that the 15th was

the big moment.“That’s obviously where it all kind

of fi nished. At the same time, Sergio hit a lovely shot to about two and a half feet and it was pretty much game, set and match on the 15th green.”

England’s Matthew Fitzpatrick (67) and American Peter Uihlein were tied fi fth at 276, while South African George Coetzee, who was in conten-tion at one stage, fi nished tied seventh along with compatriot Brandon Stone.

LEADING SCORES269 - Sergio Garcia (ESP) 65-67-68-69272 - Henrik Stenson (SWE) 68-68-67-69274 - Lasse Jensen (DEN) 69-70-70-65, Tyrrell Hatton (ENG) 72-70-65-67276 - Matthew Fitzpatrick (ENG) 69-72-68-67, Peter Uihlein (USA) 69-68-69-69277 - Brandon Stone (RSA) 70-69-70-68, George Coetzee (RSA) 66-70-70-71278 - Stephen Gallacher (SCO) 72-71-69-66, Magnus A Carlsson (SWE) 71-68-71-68279 - Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP) 71-69-69-70, Nacho Elvira (ESP) 67-68-72-72

Sergio Garcia of Spain poses with the trophy following the final round of the Omega Dubai Desert Classic at the Emirates Golf Club in Dubai yesterday. (AFP)

An leads at Phoenix in search of fi rst US PGA winSouth Korea’s An Byeong-Hun fired six birdies in his six-under par 65 on Saturday to take a one-shot lead over Scotland’s Martin Laird at the USPGA Tour Phoenix Open.An, the overnight co-leader, is seeking his first USPGA Tour title, although the 25-year-old has notched a win on the European Tour, at the 2015 BMW PGA Championship, and has won as a professional on the Challenge and Korean tours.“My goal is to play bogey free and play smart,” said An, whose 16-under par total of 197 put him one stroke

in front of Laird — who snaked in an 11-foot birdie putt at TPC Scottsdale’s 18th to cap his own 65 for 198.Laird had rebounded from a bogey at the second with four birdies in a row starting at the third, and picked up three more strokes coming in.Defending champion Hideki Mat-suyama remained within striking dis-tance, carding his second straight 68 to head a group sharing third on 201.Japan’s world number five balanced three bogeys with six birdies, includ-ing a thriller at the par-three 16th where his tee shot settled less than

two feet from the pin.It drew roars of approval from the massive gallery at 16, where stadium-style seating makes for an atmos-phere more like that of a football match than a golf tournament.The course is designed for huge crowds and it was another record-set-ting day in that department. Saturday’s attendance was estimated at 204,906, breaking the record of 201,003 set on Saturday last year, which was the first time any tournament had surpassed 200,000 for a day.“It’s crazy...insane,” An said of the

crowds. “It’s pretty cool. I’d never seen people like this. I think it’s fun, as long as nobody yells at my down-swing.”Matsuyama was joined on 12-under by John Peterson, who carded a storming 63 to power up the leader-board, along with Canada’s Graham DeLaet (65) and American Michael Kim (66).Five-time major winner Phil Mickel-son, a fan favourite who attended Arizona State University and has won the Phoenix Open three times, carded a 65 that left him six adrift.

Bolt All Stars captain Usain Bolt is interviewed after his team won the Mixed 4x100metre relay at the Nitro Athletics meet in Melbourne on Saturday. (AFP)

Australia’s Damien Howson of Orica-Scott raises his arms after winning the 2017 Herald Sun Tour cycling event in Melbourne yesterday. (AFP)

AFPValencia, Spain

Nairo Quintana made the perfect start to a daunt-ing season as the

Movistar rider survived the elements to win the Tour of Valencia yesterday.

Frenchman Bryan Co-quard claimed the short-ened fi fth and fi nal stage from Paterna to Valencia ahead of compatriot Nacer Bouhanni and Dutchman Coen Vermeltfoort in 1hr 01min 23sec.

In strong winds that cur-tailed the stage, the Co-lombian Quintana fi nished safely among the peloton to stay 13 seconds ahead of Belgian Ben Hermans with his BMC Racing teammate Manuel Senni in third 19 seconds further adrift.

Defending champion Wout Poels was 52 seconds back on Quintana in fourth for Team Sky.

After winning the Vuelta a Espana last year, Quintana is targeting a Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double and showed fi ne early season form in storming to victory in Saturday’s fourth stage to move to the head of the standings.

Movistar’s Nairo Quintana celebrates after winning the Tour of Valencia yesterday. (AFP)

Belgium sinkGermany to make quarters

Zverev happy playing catch-up with kid brother

India beat New Zealand 4-1 in Davis Cup

TENNIS / DAVIS CUP

BOTTOMLINE

FOCUS

AFPMelbourne

Germany crashed to a third straight Davis Cup fi rst-round exit as Steve Darcis clinched a quarter-fi nals berth for Belgium

with victory over teenager Alexander Zverev in Frankfurt yesterday.

Darcis needed just over three hours to secure a 2-6, 6-4, 6-4, 7-6 (8) win over the 19-year-old Zverev to give Belgium an unassailable 3-1 lead before the fi nal singles rubber.

Germany face a fi ght to remain in the elite World Group after being consigned to a relegation play-off while Belgium will play either champions Argentina or Italy in the quarter-fi nals in April.

The hosts started as favourites to win the tie after Belgian number one David Goffi n dropped out to recover from his run to the quarter-fi nals of last month’s Australian Open.

Germany, who last won the title in 1993, had lost to the Czech Republic in last year’s opening round in Hanover and France in 2015.

The hosts were under pressure after going 2-1 down to Belgium in Saturday’s doubles rubber when Alexander Zverev and elder brother Mischa, 29, lost to Ru-ben Bemelmans and Joris De Loore.

On Friday, the younger Zverev sibling hauled Germany level at 1-1 by the end of the fi rst day with a straight-sets win over De Greef after Kohlschreiber lost to Dar-cis over fi ve sets.

ROOKIE THOMPSON’S DOUBLE IN AUSTRALIA’S WIN

Young rookie Jordan Thompson claimed a winning double as Australia completed a 4-1 Davis Cup World Group victory over the Czech Republic in Melbourne yester-day.

The 22-year-old, who was handed his debut by captain Lleyton Hewitt after Bernard Tomic made himself unavailable citing scheduling issues, won his second singles rubber of the tie on the Kooyong hardcourt.

Thompson, ranked 65, fought off the 157th-ranked Jan Satral 7-6 (5), 6-2 in 91 minutes to follow his 6-3, 6-3, 6-4 up-set of 54th-ranked Jiri Vesely in Friday’s opening singles.

Vesely earned the Czechs’ only point of the tie when he downed Sam Groth, who stood in for Nick Kyrgios, 3-6, 7-5, 6-3 in yesterday’s other reverse singles.

Australia will now face a home tie against the United States in the quarter-fi nals of the team competition on April 7-9.

“It’s a pretty quick turnaround, eight weeks or so, so the players get to go away and play in a few big tournaments before that,” Hewitt said.

“But I’m pretty happy with the way the boys are hitting it at the moment, so hope-fully they come back playing just as well.”

Asked if Tomic would be considered for selection to play the Americans, Hewitt said: “Ah. I don’t know. Not sure. Can’t answer that right now.”

The Australians were always in con-trol of the Kooyong tie against the hap-less Czechs, who played without world number 12 Tomas Berdych and experi-enced Radek Stepanek, who withdrew

from the doubles with injury.Doubles pair John Peers and Groth

secured the tie for Australia when they raced through the scratch Czech pairing of Vesely and Satral 6-3, 6-2, 6-2 in Sat-urday’s doubles.

World number 15 Kyrgios conceded just seven games in reeling off a 6-2, 6-3, 6-2 win over Satral on Friday.

Australia now lead the Czech Republic 8-1 in the Davis Cup competition.

Australia, 28-time winners, have not won the Davis Cup since 2003 and only returned to the competition’s top tier in 2014 after a six-year absence.

AMERICANS SWEEP OUT SWISSA United States doubles victory by Jack Sock and Steve Johnson completed a fi rst-round Davis Cup sweep of Switzer-land on Saturday.

Sock and Johnson defeated Swiss Henri Laaksonen and Adrien Bossel 7-6 (3), 6-3, 7-6 (5) after the hosts swept both Friday singles matches at Birmingham, Ala-bama.

The US duo saved a set point in the third on their way to forcing the tie-breaker.

“We were fortunate to get back there in the third and not be playing a fourth set,” Sock said. “It was a lot of fun, my fi rst doubles match in a Davis Cup tie... Stevie and I came out today and had a lot of fun together.”

Sock downed Marco Chiudinelli 6-4, 6-3, 6-1 and big-serving John Isner be-sted Laaksonen 4-6, 6-2, 6-2, 7-6 (1) in singles and the doubles victory left only dead rubbers for Sunday’s scheduled singles matchups between Isner and Chiudinelli and Sock and Laaksonen.

The big US lead helped relax Johnson, in only his second Davis Cup tie.

“Actually no nerves, which is a good thing,” Johnson said. “I was nervous my fi rst tie but having Jack and John win two singles, there was less pressure for us to-day, so it was fun.”

NOAH TARGETS FRENCH DAVIS GLORY AFTER JAPAN WIN

France captain Yannick Noah said his

team could go on to lift the Davis Cup af-ter wrapping up a 4-1 fi rst-round victory over Japan yesterday.

Entering the fi nal day’s reverse singles in Tokyo with an unassailable 3-0 lead, the nine-time champions chose to rest Richard Gasquet and Gilles Simon and split the two dead rubbers.

Doubles specialist Nicolas Mahut re-placed Gasquet and took the fi rst set off Yoshihito Nishioka 6-1 before a wrist in-jury ended the Japanese player’s hopes of a comeback.

Pierre-Hugues Herbert, the other half of the world’s top-ranked doubles pair who clinched France’s third point on Sat-urday, took Simon’s place in the abbrevi-ated singles.

However, he was beaten 6-4, 6-4 by Yasutaka Uchiyama as Japan avoided a whitewash in the absence of world number fi ve Kei Nishikori, who dropped out the World Group clash citing a busy schedule.

“If all my players are ready then we have the possibility to go all the way,” said Noah, a Davis Cup runner-up in 1982.

“That’s what we should aim for – the win the whole thing,” added the former French Open champion. “But to do that we have to be at 100 percent in the next three ties.”

Noah could have a selection headache for the quarter-fi nals in April, where France will face either Great Britain or Canada.

With their two highest-ranked singles players, Gael Monfi ls and Jo-Wilfried Tsonga, also available, Noah could be tempted to tinker with his line-up as France look to capture the Davis Cup for a fi rst time since 2001.

ReutersFrankfurt

Older brothers do not usually take too kindly to being off ered advice by younger siblings but Germa-ny’s Mischa Zverev listened to

19-year-old Alexander and it helped turn his career around.

Until a few weeks ago the only Zverev being spoken about in glowing terms was the younger version, whose swashbuckling game has already seen him tipped as a fu-ture grand slam champion.

But last month in Melbourne the 29-year-old Mischa burst from the shad-ows to fell world number one Andy Murray at the Australian Open with a serve-and-volley style that went out of fashion with fl ares.

Up to a career-high 35 in the rankings, still 13 places below his high-fl ying broth-er, Zverev has also forced his way back into Germany’s Davis Cup team which this week in Frankfurt against Belgium will fea-ture two brothers for the fi rst time.

Since his only other appearance, in 2009, the Moscow-born Zverev has been ravaged by injuries, but he said the rise of

his kid brother helped give him have a new positive outlook.

“Call it naive maybe but (Alexander) has this young positive outlook, he just kept telling me to believe in good things,” Zverev told Reuters after the draw on Thursday.

“He tells me ‘look just stop confusing yourself with facts’, just believe in yourself because dreams can come true, like we saw not so long ago in Melbourne. He has had faith in me.

“I like to think I’ve helped him too of course. Telling him about my experiences on Tour and in life.”

Family pride can be a big motivator though and watching Alex grow from the “little kid” who tried to join in with his brother’s practice sessions to the “next big thing” spurred him on to greater eff orts.

“When he started to play really well a year or two ago I was really thrilled and excited and then it was up to me to get my ranking up and improve my tennis,” he said.

“I had to catch up with him and maybe be part of the journey he is taking right now. It’s an incredible thing.”

After all the hard graft to turn his career around, Zverev, whose father played Davis Cup for the former Soviet Union, is deter-

mined not to be a one-hit wonder and only remembered as the man who produced one of the sport’s biggest shocks.

“I really did enjoy the whole experience in Australia,” he said. “Looking back on it, the off -season was very tough, but now I realise it was actually a lot of fun because it was part of such a great journey overall.

“It has sunk in now but tennis moves fast. Whatever happened last week south of the equator has to stay there.

“That’s in the past already so hopefully I can take the confi dence and all the positive experience I’ve got from that and take that into the whole of the 2017 season.”

The only problem is his crafty net-rush-ing style and volleying skills will no longer be a secret weapon.

“Players will focus on me now and try to fi gure out my game a bit better,” he said. “But I’ll accept that and keep working. You never know what’s going to happen in the next few weeks.”

Germany’s Davis Cup captain Michael Kohlmann said Zverev’s style was good for tennis.

“We were missing that style,” he said. “It was an unbelievable match against Mur-ray and I think it’s opened up tennis a bit. Hopefully he can continue his form.”

AFPPune

Ramkumar Ramanath-an and Yuki Bhambri scored back-to-back wins over New Zealand

yesterday to give India a 4-1 vic-tory on the fi nal day of the Davis Cup Asia/Oceania Group I tie in Pune.

At Pune’s Balewadi Sports Complex, New Zealand’s Finn Tearney and Jose Statham both lost their reverse singles match-es, with Ramanathan beating Tearney in the fourth match 7-5, 6-1, 6-0 followed by Bhambri’s 7-5, 3-6, 6-4 win over Statham in the dead rubber.

Ramanathan, ranked 276, faced tough moments in the opening set that clocked in at nearly 51-minutes but prevailed over his opponent to win 7-5 at Pune’s Balewadi Sports Complex before taking the next two sets in a 6-1, 6-0 rout.

India lost the doubles rubber on Saturday after New Zealand’s Artem Sitak and Michael Venus overpowered Leander Paes and Vishnu Vardhan to settle the score at 2-1.

But the Indian singles play-ers rose to the occasion on the fi nal day of the tournament after beating the visitors in the open-

ing matches on Friday 2-0.In the fi fth match Bhambri,

ranked 368, won four-straight games against Statham in the fi rst set to clinch the round 7-5.

But the Kiwi, ranked 417, made a stirring comeback in the sec-ond to level the score.

In the decider the 24-year-old Indian proved too strong, win-ning the fi nal set 6-3.

India have not lost to New Zealand in the Davis Cup since 1978 when the visitors beat them 4-1 in Delhi.

The victory sets up a show-down with Uzbekistan in April after the Uzbeks eased past South Korea 3-1 in their fi rst round tie played in Gimcheon, Korea Sunday.

In Islamabad, Iran registered back-to-back consolation vic-tories against hosts Pakistan on the fi nal day of their Davis Cup Group II Asia-Oceania zone match.

Pakistan, hosting internation-al tennis after a 12-year hiatus, had already won the tie by taking the fi rst two singles and then the doubles match on Saturday.

Iran’s Hamid Reza Nadaf beat Pakistan’s Mohamed Abid Ali Khan Akbar by 6-7 (4), 6-4- 6-3 in the fi rst match of the day and the fourth rubber in the tie. Sha-hin Khaledan defeated Mohamed Abid 7-6 (8), 6-3.

Darcis clinches a quarter-finals berth forBelgium with a win over Alexander Zverev

Germany’s Alexander Zverev (right) and Mischa Zverev attempt to return a shot during the Davis Cup World Group match against Belgium in Frankfurt on Saturday. (AFP)

SPORT

Gulf Times Monday, February 6, 201710

Mladenovic wins St Petersburg title

France’s Kristina Mladenovic won her maiden WTA singles title overcoming Kazakhstan’s Yulia Putintseva in the final of the St Petersburg Ladies Trophy here yesterday. Mladenovic, ranked 51st in the world, won a tough three-setter 6-2, 6-7 (3), 6-4 in two hours 36 minutes to earn a 3-2 lead in their head-to-head record with 22-year-old Putintseva. “It was a very diff icult week with plenty of close matches,” Mladenovic said. “Today it was also tough as Yulia (Putintseva) is such a big fighter. I couldn’t relax and couldn’t find my rhythm. All the match it was up and down and I tried really hard to stay calm and composed. Finally I did everything right to win my first title and now I’m super-glad.”

Svitolina claims Taiwan Open titleTop seed Elina Svitolina of Ukraine won the Taiwan Open yester-day after beating China’s Shuai Peng in a convincing victory. The world ranked number 13 defeated her opponent in straight sets 6-3, 6-2, clinching her fifth WTA singles title. The Ukrainian, who had been struggling with flu since arriving in Taipei, played a tough quarter-final but breezed through the semi-final Saturday, defeating Luxembourg’s Mandy Minella. Svitolina and Peng had only played each other once before Sunday in the 2014 New Haven Open, when the Chinese emerged victorious. Peng, ranked 71st, returned to tennis last March after taking a break from play-ing following an operation for a waist injury in 2015. Peng was ranked 41st in 2014 before her injury.

Belgium’s Steve Darcis celebrates after winning his Davis Cup World Group first round tennis match against Germany’s Alexander Zverev in Frankfurt yesterday. (AFP)

Jordan Thompson of Australia beat Jan Satral of the Czech Republic in the fifth rubber of the Davis Cup World Group tie in Melbourne yesterday. (AFP)

Fiery Boult knocks Aussies for a six as Kiwis take series

SPOTLIGHT

‘New Zealand bowled fantastically well and when you see Ross Taylor get a hundred, we had a couple of guys get fifties and they don’t win games at this level’

AFPHamilton

A six-wicket haul for Trent Boult and a Ross Taylor century brought New Zealand a 24-run victory over Australia in the

third one-day international yesterday to win the series 2-0.

Their masterclass saw New Zealand reclaim the Chappell-Hadlee Trophy while Australia lost their outright hold on the world number one ODI ranking.

They slipped to 118 points, equal with South Africa, who beat Sri Lanka in Jo-hannesburg on Saturday to go 3-0 up.

South Africa will overtake Australia if they win the remaining two matches in that series.

New Zealand skipper Kane William-son said the series victory was the right response to the “tough times” when the Black Caps were beaten 3-0 in Australia two months ago, and Taylor paved the way.

“The way he rotated the strike was su-perb,” he said.

“He faced hardly any dot balls, was able to build partnerships with the top order and the lower order.”

New Zealand made 281 for nine, and al-though Australian captain Aaron Finch felt the target was gettable they were bundled out for 257 with three overs remaining.

“New Zealand bowled fantastically well and when you see Ross Taylor get a hundred, we had a couple of guys get fi fties and they don’t win games at this level,” Finch said.

“The top order are there to make runs but it wasn’t to be.”

Williamson won the toss and had no hesitation in batting fi rst on the Hamil-ton wicket, correctly forecasting it would slow up as the day wore on and Boult would come into his own.

But given the prime early batting con-ditions, New Zealand appeared to have under-performed despite Taylor’s 107 off 101 balls and his century partnership with Dean Brownlie, who made 63.

With rankings and the series at stake after New Zealand won the fi rst ODI by six wickets and the second was washed out, Finch and Shaun Marsh made a fl y-ing start to Australia’s reply, averaging more than six an over.

They were particularly harsh on Tim Southee, whose opening four-over spell cost 30 runs, while new ball partner and man-of-the-match Boult had one for 10 at the time.

TAYLOR’S 16TH HUNDRED Marsh was fi rst to fall, run out for 22, and Peter Handscomb was bowled fi rst ball by Boult.

Finch and Travis Head continued the charge with a 75-run stand for the third wicket before New Zealand broke through with their second two-wicket burst.

Williamson had Finch caught by Boult

at deep midwicket for 56 and Glenn Maxwell was caught behind off Mitchell Santner without getting on the board,

leaving Australia 120 for four.Head and Marcus Stoinis looked to

have the run chase under control in a 53-

run partnership, until Boult came back for his second spell and claimed Head for 53 and James Faulkner for nought in the space of four balls.

Stoinis pressed on to 42 before Santner claimed his wicket, while Mitchell Starc, who scored 29 not out, and Pat Cum-mins’ 27 took Australia to within 32 runs of their target at 249 for seven.

But Boult broke through again to claim the last three wickets in his fi nal two overs and fi nish with six for 33.

Taylor was key to the New Zealand in-nings as he equalled Nathan Astle’s New Zealand record of 16 ODI centuries.

He went to the middle with New Zea-land 76 for two and Brownlie on 30.

By the time he reached his 50, Brown-lie, back in the side for the fi rst time in two years, had advanced only to equal his previous best 47.

While Taylor thundered along, New Zealand looked set to surpass 300 but when Brownlie went for 63 it triggered a middle-order collapse in which four wickets fell for 33 runs.

Faulkner, whose subtle changes of pace disrupted the New Zealanders, took three for 59 including the key wickets of Brownlie and Taylor.

Alfardan Premier Motors becomes offi cial transport provider for Qatar Total Open 2017

TENNIS

By Sports ReporterDoha

Alfardan Premier Motors Co., the exclusive retailer of Jag-uar Land Rover in the State of Qatar, announced that it is

the offi cial transport provider of Qa-tar Total Open 2017. This marks seven consecutive years of partnership with Qatar Total Open, which will take place this year from 11th till 18th February at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex. The event will host 32 players competing in the singles draw and 16 teams competing in the doubles draw. This partnership stems out of the company’s eagerness to support sports tournaments hosted by the State.

A fl eet of 45 luxury vehicles will ferry players and staff to and from the sta-dium in style and comfort. Jaguar Land Rover has maintained the title of ‘Offi -cial Car’ for the prestigious tournament

for seven consecutive years.The 2017 Qatar Total Open will wit-

ness participation from tennis champi-ons across the globe. Seven out of the 10 best players will be in Doha headed by the World No. 1 Angelique Kerber from Germany, the Polish Agnieszka Rad-wanska ranked 3rd, the Slovenian Do-minika Cibulkova ranked 5th, Karolína Plíšková ranked 6th from Czech Re-public, the Spanish Garbiñe Mugu-ruza ranked 7th, the Russian Svetlana Kuznetsova ranked 9th and the British Johanna Konta ranked 10th.

Samer Bou Dargham, Sales Manager for Alfardan Premier Motors, said: “We are delighted to be extending our role as offi cial transport provider for the seventh consecutive year for one of the world’s top tennis tournaments. It is a great honour to once again transport the players and offi cials. Our partner-ship for the seventh year with Qatar Tennis Federation is hugely important to Alfardan Premier Motors and we look

forward to the championship by giving guests a memorable travel.”

SUPPORTING QATAR“Alfardan Premier Motors has always placed signifi cant importance on sup-porting Qatar to become a leading desti-nation for several international sporting events and we believe that through such initiatives in sports, we will achieve our goal of contributing towards Qatar Na-tional Vision 2030,” he added.

Saad al-Mohannadi, Tournament Director of the Qatar Total Open, said: “We are excited to be working with Alfardan Premier Motors who ensures that the players and staff have a smooth and pleasant journey to and from their matches. Alfardan Premier Motors’ line up of Jaguar and Land Rover makes an incredible contribution to the Qatar Total Open and we are delighted to have them as our offi cial transport provider for the seventh year in a row. We look forward to this collaboration in the fu-

ture as well.”“We are witnessing high levels of

participation and this is due to the in-ternational recognition the tournament has received over the years. Further, our collaboration with Alfardan Pre-mier Motors and other partners will strengthen our continuous prepara-tions to attain highest sporting stand-ards,” he added.

Alfardan Premier Motors represents some of the world’s leading names in luxury car brands and has captured a signifi cant share of the Qatar market mainly due to its high attention to af-tersales customer care and satisfaction.

By Sports ReporterDoha

The Qatar Football As-sociation (QFA) held the draw of the QFA Ama-teur Cup 2016/2017

yesterday at Al Bidda Tower, QFA’s headquarters.

The draw was conducted by Ibrahim Shaheen, Chairman of the Organising Committee, and members of the Organising Committee, Khalid al-Rumaihi and Yousef al-Suqairi.

Organised by the QFA, the QFA Amateur Cup is a community competition aimed at bringing football teams from Qatar’s social, corporate and government sectors together in a tournament. This year’s fi rst edition will feature the participation of 16 teams in total.

First round of matches will see Copros United take on Al-Kabaan, Doha take on Al-Waab, Ezdan take on Al-Bidda and Al-Qalayel take on Al-Quds.

The cup will be composed of 16 teams who will be competing for the highly coveted prize. It

will follow the traditional format of 16 teams split into 4 groups where they will play group stage matches, followed with the top two teams of each group qualify-ing for the knockout stage.

The quarter-fi nals winners will get to play semi-fi nals and the winners of the semis will get the privilege to play for the tro-phy during the fi nal of the com-petition on 31 March.

The tournament will kick off on 21 February, 2017 and run un-til 31 March, 2017. Group stage matches will be played every Tuesday and Wednesday at 7 and 9pm, while quarter-fi nals will be played on Tuesday 14 March and semi-fi nals on Wednesday 21 March. The fi nal match will be played on Friday, 31 March.

DRAW RESULTS:Group A: Copros United, Doha, Al-Waab, Al-KabaanGroup B: Ezdan, Al-Qalayel, Al-Quds, Al-BidaaGroup C: Madinat Khalifa, Al-Matar, EIS Pearl CFC, Al-RifaaGroup D: Al-Udayd, Amwaj, Lusail, Al-Mamoura

Exciting results in QFA’s Amateur Cup draw

LOCAL FOOTBALL

Trent Boult (L) and Ross Taylor of New Zealand celebrate after the ODI against Australia at Seddon Park in Hamilton yesterday.

SPORT11Gulf Times

Monday, February 6, 2017

Here is a recap of QSL’s week 19 top performers over the last three days: Muhanad AdnanAl Shahaniya’s Muhanad Ad-nan produced a daring display of aggressive football in his team’s clash against mighty Al Sadd. Adnan showed extra reserves of stamina as he helped the team find the equaliser in the tense clash. Al Sadd dropped points in the 1-1 draw but Al Shahaniya were delighted with their overall of 16 points. Yasser Abu BakrEl Jaish’s left-back Yasser Abu Bakr continued to impress with his runs and timely tackles against Al Sailiyah. He scored in his team’s 1-1 draw as Al Sailiyah shared points with El Jaish in a tough game. El Jaish now have 36 points from 19 matches. Nam Tae-heeLekhwiya usually rely on Nam Tae-hee for goals and

their Korean import rarely disappoints. It was the same story in week 19 when Tae-hee smashed a timely hat-trick against Al Khor. The hat-trick was the base of Lekhwiya’s 6-0 win against a feisty side. Lekhwiya now have 49 points and lead the standings. Rodrigo TabataAl Rayyan’s go-to man is Rod-rigo Tabata, even if he doesn’t play the full 90 minutes. Taba-ta, the captain and key striker, scored for Al Rayyan against Al Ahli and he also assisted in other goals. He opened the chances for his team mates to score three other goals in a 5-1 rout of Al Ahli who were playing on home soil. Ahmed YaseenMuaither’s Ahmed Yaseen is a tireless warrior and he showed exactly this week. He assisted Minori Sato in his team’s open-ing goal against Al Arabi. He continued to make pacy moves throughout the game that ended in a 1-1 draw.

Star performers in week 19 of the Qatar Stars League

“We are delighted to be extending our role as offi cial transport provider for the seventh consecutive year for one of the world’s top tennis tournaments. It is a great honour to once again transport the players and offi cials”

The International Cricket Council (ICC) threatened to suspend a venue for two years if it accumulated 10 demerit points for substandard pitches and outfields during interna-tional matches.The ICC in its three-day meet-ing agreed to the changes made to the pitch and outfield monitoring process, which stated that venues and boards should be more accountable for the standard of pitches and outfields they present for international matches.It also stated that there should be consequences for a venue if it presents conditions that make it unsafe for an inter-

national match to proceed, without mitigating circum-stances or regularly presents substandard conditions for international cricket.“It was agreed that a system of demerit points be introduced, similar to the new Code of Conduct System as per the table below. Demerit points will remain active for a rolling five year period,” the global body said in a statement.“When a venue accumulates five demerit points its ICC ac-creditation will be suspended for a period of 12 months. Should a venue reach 10 points its accreditation will be suspended for 24 months.”

ICC threatens ban for substandard pitches

Scoreboard - New Zealand vs Australia, 3rd ODI

NEW ZEALANDD. Brownlie c Handscomb b Faulkner 63T. Latham c Hazlewood b Starc 0K. Williamson c H’scomb b Cummins 36R. Taylor c Stoinis b Faulkner 107N. Broom c Handscomb b Faulkner 8C. Munro c Starc b Hazlewood 3J. Neesham b Hazlewood 1 M. Santner not out 38T. Southee b Starc 10L. Ferguson b Starc 0T. Boult not out 1Extras: (lb6, w7, nb1) 14 Total (9 wkts, 50 overs) 281 Fall of wickets: 1-6 (Latham), 2-76 (Williamson), 3-176 (Brownlie), 4-198 (Broom), 5-205 (Munro), 6-209 (Nee-sham), 7-246 (Taylor), 8-265 (Southee), 9-265 (Ferguson) Bowling: Starc 10-1-63-3 (1w, 1nb), Hazle-wood 10-0-44-2 (1w), Stoinis 4-0-22-0, Cummins 10-0-47-1 (5w), Zampa 7-0-41-0, Faulkner 9-0-59-3

AUSTRALIAA. Finch c Boult b Williamson 56S. Marsh run out (Santner/Latham) 22P. Handscomb b Boult 0T. Head c Brownlie b Boult 53G. Maxwell c Latham b Santner 0M. Stoinis c Neesham b Santner 42J. Faulkner c Taylor b Boult 0P. Cummins c Santner b Boult 27M. Starc not out 29A. Zampa c Taylor b Boult 1J. Hazlewood b Boult 4Extras: (lb 12, w 11) 23 Total: (all out; 47.0 overs) 257 Fall of wickets: 1-44 (Marsh), 2-44 (Handscomb), 3-119 (Finch), 4-120 (Maxwell), 5-173 (Head), 6-174 (Faulkner), 7-198 (Stoinis), 8-249 (Cummins), 9-253 (Zampa), 10-257 (Hazlewood) Bowling: Southee 8-0-39-0 (2w), Boult 10-1-33-6 (1w), Ferguson 9-1-62-0 (2w), Neesham 3-0-17-0 (1w), Santner 10-0-50-2, Williamson 7-0-44-1 (1w)

Monday, February 6, 2017

GULF TIMES SPORT

Top riders to compete at CHI Al Shaqab 2017

MacLeod wins QGL tournament

EQUESTRIAN

GOLF

By Sports ReporterDoha

Top riders from all over the world will come to Al Shaqab in March to compete in the 5th edition of CHI AL SHAQAB,

which will take place from March 2–4, 2017 at its state-of-the-art facilities in Doha, Qatar.

The 5th edition of the prestigious equestrian competition will see top-ranking local, regional and interna-tional riders compete in Show Jumping CSI 3*and 5*, Dressage CDI 5*, and Para-Dressage CPEDI 3*.

The event, which is open to the public, will also include a host of en-tertainment activities aimed at inspir-ing young riders, trainers, offi cials and equestrian enthusiasts and contribut-ing to a legacy of appreciation of the sport.

This year’s event is particularly spe-cial for Al Shaqab, as it marks its 25th anniversary.

A special ceremony on the March 3 is being planned to commemorate the oc-casion, combining a world-class com-petition with a keen appreciation of Qatari heritage.

“The Arab world has a very rich equine heritage, and through events such as this, Al Shaqab preserves and perpetuates that aspect of Qatari cul-ture. CHI Al Shaqab signifi cantly con-tributes to the international equestrian and business community, demonstrat-ing Qatar’s role as a global sporting destination,’’ said Khalifa al-Attiya, Al Shaqab Executive Director.

Members of the Qatari royal family, as well as local and international VIPs within the equine sport and business world, will be in attendance.

Omar al-Mannai, Event Director, CHI Al Shaqab, said: “The fi fth edition of CHI Al Shaqab is shaping up to be the best one yet, with record participation expected. The equestrian competitions always at-tract the crowds, and this year is particu-larly special because of Al Shaqab’s 25th-anniversary celebration.”

He added: “The international inter-est in CHI Al Shaqab is very good for Qatar and the region as a whole. It cre-ates a valuable dynamic between many stakeholders, including businesses, tourism and equestrian industries, as well as an array of cultural entities.”

Top ranked riders will be competing at CHI Al Shaqab, including Sheikh Ali bin Khalid al-Thani, who represented Qatar and was placed sixth in show-

jumping at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He also carried Qatar’s fl ag in the Parade of Nations at the opening ceremony.

Other top-ranked riders who will be competing in the show-jumping events are world number one Daniel Deusser (Germany), who fi nished second in last year’s Grand Prix at CHI Al Shaqab; sec-ond-ranked Christian Ahlmann (Germa-ny), who fi nished third in the 2016 Grand Prix; and Simon Delestre (France), cur-rently ranked fi fth in the world.

Patrick Kittel (Sweden) won both the Grand Prix and the Freestyle test at Al Shaqab last year, and he’ll look to repeat the feat in 2017. Other dressage riders

to watch include Carl Hester (United Kingdom), the world’s number fi ve, and Inessa Merkulova (Russia), ranked sixth. Several riders will be defending their 2016 crowns in para-dressage, including 1b winner Nicole Den Dulk (Netherlands), II winner Rixt van der Horst (Netherlands), and Philippa Johnson-Dwyer (South Africa), who won the III.

The Spectator Plaza will off er visitors an array of food and beverage stands, in addition to a dedicated family en-tertainment zone featuring interac-tive video games, virtual reality sets, F1 and horse simulators, face painters, illusionists pony rides and a day-care

centre for toddlers. A range of cultural activities are also planned, including henna painters, falcon handlers and traditional food to enable visitors to ex-perience Qatari hospitality.

“I am very pleased to announce on behalf of ExxonMobil Qatar the fi fth year of our partnership with CHI Al Shaqab,” said Alistair Routledge, Presi-dent and General Manager for Exx-onMobil Qatar. “We are proud to sup-port this world-class equestrian event and the Al Shaqab Equine Education Center. The Center inspires students to reach their full potential helping to foster a confi dent and skilled genera-tion that will contribute to the Qatar

National Vision 2030, a vision we at ExxonMobil Qatar are committed to help fulfi l.”

“We look forward to another incred-ible CHI event at the world-class Al Shaqab equestrian center with the best national and international horses and riders battling for one of the most cov-eted titles in the equestrian calendar. CHI Al Shaqab promises entertainment to spectators from Qatar and beyond, year after year,” he added.

CHI Al Shaqab 2017 is one of only three international annual equestrian competitions that showcases three or more equestrian disciplines in one event. By hosting events such as CHI

Al Shaqab 2017, Al Shaqab supports the Qatar Foundation Vision 2030, which aims to promote Qatar as a premier in-ternational sports destination.

There are several ticketing options for interested spectators. Adult gen-eral admission is QAR35, and QAR15 for children. VIP tickets include VIP seat-ing on the second fl oor of the arena, complimentary all-day 5-star catering, exclusive entrance, and VIP valet park-ing; single-day VIP tickets start from QAR1,000 for adults and QAR500 for children. Three-day VIP packages are also available, at QAR2,500 for adults and QAR1,250 for children. For tickets, please visit www.q-tickets.com.

By Sports ReporterDoha

Ken MacLeod battled freezing weather con-ditions and stiff com-petition from other

golfers to emerge victorious in the golf tournament organised by Qatar Golf Lovers over the weekend at the Doha Golf Club. As many as 42 golfers partici-pated in the tournament but only a handful of golfers carded under par scores, weather playing the spoiled sport. The competition was played on a strokeplay for-mat.

Cliff Brenton was declared runner up while Uzma Mir se-

cured third place. Clark White won the ‘longest drive’ award, CK Krishnan won the ‘closest to rope’ award, Gavin Daley won the ‘longest putt’ award and Brian Kennedy won the ‘clos-est to pin’ award. QGL hosted a prize distribution and dinner for all golfers and gave away prizes to all winners.

Meanwhile, veteran golfer Clark White was appointed cap-tain of Qatar Golf Lovers. White takes over from Albert Dalton who has been the captain for 5 years. QGL president PK Mathew praised Dalton’s commitment and dedication and thanked him for the excellent services ren-dered to QGL during his cap-taincy.

This edition is particularlyspecial for Al Shaqab, as it marks its 25th anniversary

SCHEDULE OF EVENTSThursday, March 29:30 am: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena10:30 am: Para-Dressage CPEDI 3*, indoor arena12:30 pm: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena3 pm: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena5:45 pm: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena

Friday, March 38:45 am: Para-Dressage CPEDI 3*, indoor arena9:30 am: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena12:30 pm: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena1 pm: Dressage CDI 5* Grand Prix, indoor arena3 pm: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena6 pm: AL SHAQAB 25th Anniver-sary Celebration, outdoor arena7:30 pm: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena

Saturday, March 48:30 am: Dressage CDI 5* Grand Prix Special, indoor arena9 am: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena10:30 am: Para-Dressage CPEDI 3*, indoor arena11:30 am: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena2:15 pm: Jumping CSI 3*, outdoor arena2:45 pm: Dressage CDI 5*, indoor arena4:30 pm: Jumping CSI 5*, outdoor arena

Top ranked riders will be competing at CHI Al Shaqab, including Sheikh Ali bin Khalid al-Thani, who represented Qatar at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Al Khor’s Gary Dairese Layton (left) in action during the Qatar BasketballAssociation Men’s League match against Al Gharafa at Al Gharafa Sports Club yesterday. Layton and Al Gharafa’s Sammy Monroe Jr II scored 37 points each as Gharafa won the match 83-70.

Al Sadd’s Allen Jeff rey West Jr. (second from right) goes for the basket as Al Rayyan’sMarcus Bell (centre) defends during their match yesterday. While West top-scored in the match with 32 points, Al Rayyan won the match 81-57, with Bell topping the scoresheets for his team with 20 points.

Gharafa, Rayyan register wins