 | India's Bindra wins gold beating Chinese rival Zhu DOHA WORLD and Olympic champion Abhinav Bindra of India held himself together despite having a bout of flu and edged his rival Qinan Zhu to win the 10m Air Rifle gold medal at the Asian Shooting Championship on Friday.
...
|
|
| | Afnan leads in Qatar Open | | DOHA BAHRAIN'S Hamed Mubarak Afnan led his way into the finals finishing his round at 74 on the second day of the Qatar Open Amateur Golf Championship in Doha on Friday. Having scored already 73, Afnan's total goes to 147.
Britain's William Shucksmith had led on the opening day on Thursday.
Out of eleven Qatari players, five have made it to the finals of the tournament which include yesterday's top Qatari scorer, Saleh Ali Musbah. However, leading the Qatari contingent on Friday was Ghanim al Kuwari with a score of 72. Other Qatari players who made the cut included Ali Abdulla al Mufleh, Abdulrehman al Mufleh and Abdul Aziz al Buainen.
Shucksmith had a rather bad day on the turf as he slipped from the top position to the fifth spot scoring 77.
The English golfer struggled as he could not manage to keep the ball on the green on a number of occasions. After yesterday's performance, one expected that William would be the top scorer.
... |
| | Real, Barca focus on La Liga ahead of clasicos | | MADRID REAL Madrid and Barcelona will have to try their best to overlook their upcoming cup clasicos and focus on this weekend's league matches first.
Madrid and Barcelona meet for the eighth time since April come Wednesday's Copa del Rey first-leg quarterfinal, but have league matches against Mallorca and Real Betis, respectively.
Coach Jose Mourinho warned his team of looking beyond Mallorca, calling the championship a "priority" with Madrid having opened up a five-point lead over Barcelona.
"Last year we lost two points in Mallorca and it could happen again. It's a very dangerous game," Mourinho said on Friday. "We've got a game against Mallorca first, there's no point in talking about Barcelona now." Captain Iker Casillas doesn't want his team to "obsess" over Barcelona, with the onslaught of clasicos saturating the magnitude of one of world football's biggest derbies.
"Last year we played four Real Madrid-Barcelonas in 20 days. We have already played the Super Cup, the league and now the Copa del Rey, and we'll play the two-legged series looking to reach the next round," Casillas said.
... |
| | Toure believes in Ivory Coast title hopes | | JOHANNESBURG AFRICAN Footballer of the Year Yaya Toure says the time has come for 2012 Africa Cup of Nations co-favourites Ivory Coast to match talk with trophies.
After losing on penalties to hosts Egypt in the 2006 final, the Elephants were hot favourites in the next two championships only to 'choke' in the knockout stages.
An overconfident team crumbled 4-1 to Egypt in the 2008 semi-finals and the Ivorians conceded a lastminute equaliser against Algeria in the quarter-finals two years later before losing after extra time.
A couple of years later and Ivory Coast once again find themselves hoisted to the top of the favourites' chart beside Ghana and Manchester City star Toure believes this time there will be no slip up.
"This is the third time that people say we are favourites so I think 2012 will be the year of Ivory Coast," said the man who beat fellow midfielders Seydou Keita of Mali and Andre Ayew of Ghana for the CAF individual award.
"We have such a fantastic squad and I think we have a chance of going far," said Toure, who missed the FA Cup loss to city rivals United last weekend because it came a day after the Ivorians assembled in Paris.
... |
|
|
|
|
