ATHLETICS
Teen bolts to finish line
Teenager Letsile Tebogo on Tuesday attracted comparisons to Usain Bolt after showboating his way to the Under-20 100m world title in a record time with a scorching run in Colombia. The 19-year-old Botswanan clocked 9.91 seconds to improve the junior world record of 9.94 seconds he set in the heats of the senior World Athletics Championships last month, but clearly could have gone even faster. Tebogo made a blistering start at Cali’s Pascual Guerrero Stadium and coasted through the final 20m, turning to gesticulate at silver medallist Bouwahjgie Nkrumie with a huge smile on his face as he cruised to the line. The early celebrations were a deliberate echo of Bolt’s when the Jamaican great won the first of his eight Olympic sprint gold medals in a world record time of 9.69 seconds at the 2008 Beijing Games. “If somebody took it as disrespect, I’m really sorry,” Tebogo told the World Athletics Web site. “[It was so] everybody watching at home can enjoy the race — to remind them a little bit about what Usain Bolt did back in the day. He’s my idol — the person I look up to.”
TENNIS
Raducanu a Slytherin fan
Emma Raducanu may be undecided on who her next permanent coach should be, but the British teen has no uncertainty when it comes to selecting which house she identifies with at the mythical Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. House Slytherin is one of the four houses at Hogwarts in J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels. “I’d be in Slytherin, for sure,” Raducanu said on Tuesday, after her 6-4, 6-2 win over qualifier Louisa Chirico at the Citi Open. “I just think that, they haven’t got a great rep, but I just think they are really, hmm, cool. But they have like super — they’re pretty, in a way, brutal, but — I don’t know. They have got a, just mysterious sort of side to them, and I like that.”
SOCCER
Four nations, one World Cup
Four South American countries on Tuesday launched an unprecedented joint bid to host the centenary 2030 FIFA World Cup in the hopes of bringing the global showpiece back to its first home. “We are in this iconic place where history began,” said Alejandro Dominguez, president of South American soccer’s governing body CONMEBOL, from the Estadio Centenario in Montevideo where the first World Cup final was held in 1930. Uruguay won that, beating Argentina 4-2, but now the neighbors have joined together — alongside Paraguay and Chile — to bid for the right to host the global showpiece under the “Juntos 2030” (Together 2030) slogan. “This is not the project of a government, but the dream of a whole continent,” Dominguez said.
SOCCER
England women crash site
An unprecedented demand for tickets to watch the England women’s team play against the US at Wembley on Oct. 7 led to the Football Association’s Web site crashing on Tuesday and fans being held in lines online of more than 45,000 people. The FA announced at 2pm that England, the newly crowned UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 champions, were in line to host the US, the FIFA World Cup holders, prompting a surge to buy tickets. Supporters able to access the Web site were given an estimated wait time of more than an hour.
The New Taipei Kings claimed the inaugural Taiwan Professional Basketball League (TPBL) championship on Sunday, defeating the Kaohsiung FamilyMart Aquas 108-89 in the final. Playing at home, the Kings pulled ahead with Jeremy Lin’s (林書豪) clutch three-pointers, securing their victory over the Aquas in the TPBL final. The Kings came out strong in the first quarter, dominating to build a 35-18 lead. By halftime, they had stretched their advantage to 61-38. In the third quarter, the Aquas narrowed the deficit to 12 points, but Lin stepped up, sinking several tough three- pointers to extend the lead. In the final quarter, the Kings pushed the
In an unlikely Ethiopian outpost of one the most French of pastimes, four men are leaning over their petanque balls, arguing over who is winning. Petanque, the bowling game also known as boules, is more readily associated with French village squares where locals launch metal balls at a jack while enjoying an afternoon drink, but for decades, it has also been a beloved pastime for members of a club near the iconic Meskel Square in the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa. It was founded in the early 20th century to cater to French railway workers, who built a line connecting Addis Ababa
Taiwanese women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei and Australian teenager Maya Joint on Tuesday eased into the Eastbourne Open quarter-finals in England as Hsieh prepares for the Wimbledon Championships next week. Four-time Wimbledon women’s doubles champion Hsieh and 19-year-old Joint fired two aces and converted five of eight break points to defeat Japan’s Shuko Aoyama and Poland’s Katarzyna Piter 6-3, 6-3 in 58 minutes on the grass court. Hsieh and Joint are today to face fourth seeds Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic and Latvia’s Jelena Ostapenko, who advanced on Monday with a 6-4, 6-3 victory over Quinn Gleason of the US and
BEAT THE HEAT: A brutal heat wave in the US has made cooling breaks standard. Dortmund’s coach said the weather could shape the destiny of the tournament Chelsea on Tuesday beat Esperance of Tunisia 3-0 to set up a FIFA Club World Cup last-16 tie against SL Benfica, who earlier defeated Bayern Munich 1-0, as furnace-link heat and the threat of thunder and lightning wreak havoc at the tournament. Elsewhere, minnows Auckland City claimed a memorable draw against Boca Juniors, while Los Angeles bowed out of the tournament with a stalemate against Flamengo. In Charlotte, Andreas Schjelderup scored the only goal for Benfica in their Group C clash with Bayern in front of 33,287 fans, finishing first-time from a cutback by his fellow Norwegian Fredrik Aursnes in the 13th
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