GOLF
Taiwan’s Chien finishes 5th
Taiwan Chien Pei-yun on Sunday ended her admirable run at the LPGA Kroger Queen City Championship with a fifth-place finish in Cincinnati, Ohio. After taking a four-stroke lead in the second round on Friday with an eight-under round of 64, Chien, who was making her 140th start on the LPGA tour and chasing her first title, lost her 36-hole lead on Saturday to finish second. She started the third round with a double bogey, answered with two straight birdies, but then lost ground with three bogeys over four holes to close out the front nine. That included a three-putt bogey on No. 9 that put her one shot behind for the first time all day. On Sunday, she recorded three bogeys and a birdie in the front nine to finish tied at fifth with an 11-under-par 277.
CYCLING
Van Aert wins 2nd UK title
Wout van Aert on Sunday won the Tour of Britain for the second time in three years as the Belgian took the title by three seconds. The Team Jumbo-Visma rider held onto his overnight advantage on the eighth and final stage to secure the title in an event he last won in 2021. Ineos Grenadiers’ Carlos Rodriguez won the eighth stage from Margam County Park to Caerphilly. The Spaniard would have needed to recover a 39-second deficit to pip Van Aert to the title, but could only finish 11 seconds ahead of his rival. Uno-X’s Tobias Halland Johannessen finished second overall, with Australian Damien Howsen of Q36.5 third in the general classification.
MOTORSPORTS
Dixon wins season finale
New Zealand’s Scott Dixon rallied to win the IndyCar season finale at central California’s Laguna Seca, but despite the victory and a season turnaround, he was unable to beat teammate Alex Palou on points for the championship. It was still good enough to affirm Dixon’s legacy as the greatest driver of his generation. Sunday’s win was the six-time IndyCar champion’s first at the permanent California road course, 56th of his career and third in the final four races of the season. His turnaround last month ensured that Dixon’s streak of 19 consecutive seasons with at least one win remaining intact. Palou became the first driver in nearly 20 years to clinch the IndyCar title before the season finale with his victory in Portland the previous week. “It’s just a shame that Palou decided to lead the championship by too many points, and it became a bit boring on the championship side,” Dixon said.
SAILING
Ainslie wins France SailGP
British star Ben Ainslie on Sunday sent his foiling catamaran flying past three-time defending champion Tom Slingsby and Team Australia halfway down the final full leg to win the France Sail Grand Prix in Saint-Tropez and end a two-and-a-half-year victory drought. Ainslie, the most decorated Olympic sailor of all time and a former America’s Cup champion, skippered Emirates Great Britain to its first win since the opening regatta of Season 2 in Bermuda in April 2021. “It’s been a long time coming, but it was great to be in one of those all-classic finals with the Aussies, who are the great champion team, and look, a huge amount of respect to them,” Ainslie said. “But for us to come out, get through them and overtake them, we’ll take that.”
North Korea’s FIFA Under-17 Women’s World Cup-winning team on Saturday received a heroes’ welcome back in the capital, Pyongyang, with hundreds of people on the streets to celebrate their success. They had defeated Spain on penalties after a 1-1 draw in the U17 World Cup final in the Dominican Republic on Nov. 3. It was the second global title in two months for secretive North Korea — largely closed off to the outside world; they also lifted the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in September. Officials and players’ families gathered at Pyongyang International Airport to wave flowers and North Korea flags as the
Taiwan’s top table tennis player Lin Yun-ju made his debut in the US professional table tennis scene by taking on a new role as a team’s co-owner. On Wednesday, Major League Table Tennis (MLTT), founded in September last year, announced on its official Web site that Lin had become part of the ownership group of the Princeton Revolution, one of the league’s eight teams. MLTT chief executive officer Flint Lane described Lin’s investment as “another great milestone for table tennis in America,” saying that the league’s “commitment to growth and innovation is drawing attention from the best in the sport, and we’re
Coco Gauff of the US on Friday defeated top-ranked Aryna Sabalenka 7-6 (7/4), 6-3 to set up a showdown with Olympic champion Zheng Qinwen in the final of the WTA Finals, while in the doubles, Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching was eliminated. Gauff generated six break points to Belarusian Sabalenka’s four and built on early momentum in the opening set’s tiebreak that she carried through to the second set. She is the youngest player at 20 to make the final at the WTA Finals since Denmark’s Caroline Wozniacki in 2010. Zheng earlier defeated Wimbledon champion Barbora Krejcikova of the Czech Republic 6-3, 7-5 to book
For King Faisal, a 20-year-old winger from Ghana, the invitation to move to Brazil to play soccer “was a dream.” “I believed when I came here, it would help me change the life of my family and many other people,” he said in Sao Paulo. For the past year and a half, he has been playing on the under-20s squad for Sao Paulo FC, one of South America’s most prominent clubs. He and a small number of other Africans are tearing across pitches in a country known as the biggest producer and exporter of soccer stars in the world, from Pele to Neymar. For
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