Devastated former Olympic champion Carolina Marin yesterday withdrew in tears from her badminton semi-final after her right knee buckled in distressing scenes.
Marin, who won women’s singles gold at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Games, was on track to reach the final, but collapsed midway through the second game against China’s He Bingjiao.
Coaches and He rushed to her side as she lay on the ground for several minutes, clutching her leg.
Photo: AFP
She eventually got up and walked off the court then resumed wearing a support, but she could barely move, losing the next two points before falling to the ground again and retiring.
Marin, the fourth seed in Paris, won the first game 21-14 and was leading 10-6 in the second before she left the court in tears and going for a medical check.
Her coach, Fernando Rivas, told reporters that he had “no words to describe what happened.”
“Carolina knows that at an Olympic Games, you win or you lose,” he said. “But not this way.”
Marin was a hot favorite for the title at the Tokyo Olympics three years ago until she sustained an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) injury just months before the event — her second ACL injury.
“She was in pain, it’s a sensation that she already knew,” Rivas said. “Now we have a lesson and we need to restart and try to understand what happened.”
Marin’s withdrawal drew a sympathetic response from Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez on social media.
“You are and always will be a champion,” he wrote on X. “All of Spain is with you.”
Her opponent He progressed to the final, where she would today play South Korean world No. 1 An Se-young.
A clearly uncomfortable He told reporters that she felt “very sad” about what had happened.
“She was playing perfectly well and I was very passive,” He said. “I wasn’t thinking about the final at all.”
An beat Indonesia’s Gregoria Mariska Tunjung 11-21, 21-13, 21-16 in the day’s earlier semi-final.
Bologna on Thursday advanced past Empoli to reach their first Coppa Italia final in more than half a century. Thijs Dallinga’s 87th-minute header earned Bologna a 2-1 win and his side advanced 5-1 on aggregate. Giovanni Fabbian opened the scoring for Bologna with a header seven minutes in. Then Viktor Kovalenko equalized for Empoli in the 30th minute by turning in a rebound to finish off a counterattack. Bologna won the first leg 3-0. In the May 14 final in Rome, Bologna are to face AC Milan, who eliminated city rivals Inter 4-1 on aggregate following a 3-0 win on Wednesday. Bologna last reached the
If the Wild finally break through and win their first playoff series in a decade, Minnesota’s top line likely will be the reason. They were all over the Golden Knights through the first two games of their NHL Western Conference quarter-finals series, which was 1-1 going back to Minnesota for Game 3 today. The Wild tied the series with a 5-2 win on Tuesday. Matt Boldy had three goals and an assist in the first two games, while Kirill Kaprizov produced two goals and three assists. Joel Eriksson Ek, who centers the line, has yet to get on the scoresheet. “I think the biggest
From a commemorative jersey to a stadium in his name, Argentine soccer organizers are planning a slew of tributes to their late “Captain” Pope Francis, eulogized as the ultimate team player. Tributes to the Argentine pontiff, a lifelong lover of the game, who died on Monday at the age of 88, have been peppered with soccer metaphors in his homeland. “Francisco. What a player,” the Argentine Football Federation (AFA) said, describing the first pope from Latin America and the southern hemisphere as a generational talent who “never hogged the ball” and who showed the world “the importance of having an Argentine captain,
Noelvi Marte on Sunday had seven RBIs and hit his first career grand slam with a drive off infielder Jorge Mateo, while Austin Wynn had a career-high six RBIs as the Cincinnati Reds scored their most runs in 26 years in a 24-2 rout of the Baltimore Orioles. Marte finished with five hits, including his eighth-inning homer off Mateo. Wynn hit a three-run homer in the ninth off catcher Gary Sanchez. Cincinnati scored its most runs since a 24-12 win against the Colorado Rockies on May 19, 1999, and finished with 25 hits. Baltimore allowed its most runs since a 30-3 loss to