There were jubilant scenes in the Incheon velodrome yesterday as South Korea beat China to gold in the Asian Games men’s cycling team sprint, while Taiwan took bronze in the women’s team sprint.
The three-strong South Korea team — Son Je-yong, Im Chae-bin and Kang Dong-jin — qualified fastest, but China rode off to an early lead, pushing the pace in the first lap.
As the sun went down over the outdoor track, the crowd roared the home team on and South Korea rose to the challenge. Final rider Im, 22, took the race in 59.61 seconds, a third of a second ahead of the Chinese trio of Xu Chao, Hu Ke and Bao Saofei on 59.96 seconds.
Photo: AFP
China were defending their Asian Games title after winning in Guangzhou in 2010 with different riders.
The women’s team sprint was also a South Korea-China head-to-head, but the Chinese dominated.
Gong Jinjie and Zhong Tianshi beat their South Korea counterparts — Lee Hye-jin and Kim Wong-yeong — by more than a second in a convincing performance, with sprint ace Zhong leading the charge to the line to win in 43.876 seconds against South Korea’s 44.876.
Zhong, 23, already has a silver under her belt from the team sprint at this year’s World Championships, while veteran Gong, 27, took silver in the event at the London Olympics where she and Guo Shuang broke the world record. Zhong is also to race in the women’s keirin today. She is among the favorites to challenge Sarah Lee Wai-sze of Hong Kong, who is tipped for gold.
The Japanese men beat Iran for bronze in the men’s team sprint, while Taiwan took bronze in the women’s team sprint, edging out Japan. Taiwan’s Hsiao Mei-yu and Huang Ting-ying had a time of 45.389.
Additional reporting by CNA
Shaquille O’Neal is staying with TNT Sports on a new contract worth more than US$15 million per year, Front Office Sports reported on Friday. The news means the cast of Inside the NBA is staying together even as TNT is set to license out the show to ESPN starting next season. TNT was the odd network out in the NBA’s recent TV rights negotiations, as NBC and Amazon joined previous rightsholder ESPN in inking deals for basketball games. That left TNT without a need for pregame and postgame NBA shows. In a trade with ESPN, TNT is licensing Inside the NBA to the
Juventus on Sunday stopped Inter from replacing SSC Napoli at the top of Serie A by beating their fierce rivals 1-0 and moving into the UEFA Champions League positions. Francisco Conceicao made sure that Napoli would stay two points ahead of reigning champions Inter by classily tucking home the winning goal 16 minutes before the end of an entertaining contest in Turin. Portugal attacker Conceicao netted his fourth goal of the season in all competitions after brilliant work from Randal Kolo Muani to give Juve a third straight league win. Juve are in fourth place on 46 points, ahead on goal-difference from SS
BELGIANS ADVANCE: Club Brugge gave Atalanta a lesson in efficiency, as Gian Piero Gasperini’s team had 29 efforts at goal, compared with seven from the visitors Seldom has a player’s sending off had such an influence on a game. AC Milan was to left rue Theo Hernandez’s second yellow card — for diving — as Feyenoord advanced to the UEFA Champions League last 16 at the former European champion’s expense with a 1-1 draw in the second leg of their playoff on Tuesday, giving the Dutch team a 2-1 win on aggregate. Bayern Munich, Club Brugge and Benfica also won their playoffs, eliminating Celtic, UEFA Europa League winner Atalanta BC and French team AS Monaco respectively. “In soccer everything changes in a second,” said Milan forward
Eugenie Bouchard already has her own signature pickleball paddle. She is No. 17 in the pickleball rankings and constantly appears on the main court at events because she is always a big draw. However, just to be absolutely clear, she is not retired from tennis. The 2014 Wimbledon finalist still practices on the tennis court, still competes at tennis events and still has a Women’s Tennis Association ranking (No. 1,288). The Canadian standout just has a new sport that has caught her attention. Bouchard is one of several familiar tennis names — like Jack Sock and Donald Young — crossing over to
RSS