20-10-2022

thUrSDAY, oCtoBer 20, 2022
9
rayo Vallecano's Colombian forward radamel Falcao (2nd-r) shoots and scores a penalty kick past
Atletico Madrid's Croatian goalkeeper Ivo Grbic (C) during their Spanish league match at the Wanda
Metropolitano stadium in Madrid.
photo: Ap
Late Falcao goal for Rayo Vallecano
halts Atletico's winning streak
SportS DeSk
Radamel Falcao converted a penalty
kick two minutes into stoppage time as
Rayo Vallecano pulled off a 1-1 draw
with Atletico Madrid to end the rival's
three-game winning streak in the
Spanish league on Tuesday, reports
UNB.
Falcao, a former Atletico player,
struck the top of the net at the
Metropolitano Stadium after a
handball by Jose Maria Gimenez inside
the area.
"It feels like a victory," Falcao said.
"We never gave up and kept pushing
until the end and got rewarded with the
goal."
Alvaro Morata had opened the
scoring in the 20th for Atletico, which
was looking to move closer to
Barcelona and Real Madrid at the top
of the standings. It stayed two points
behind second-place Barcelona and
five behind leader Real Madrid. Madrid
and Barcelona are yet to play this
round.
Rayo, winless in three straight games,
Prosecutors
nab CEO of
ad firm ADK
over Tokyo
Olympics
SportS DeSk
Tokyo prosecutors today
arrested the president and
two former employees of
Japanese advertising firm
ADK Holdings Inc over
suspected bribery related
to the Tokyo 2020
Olympics, Japanese media
said, reports UNB.
The arrests mark the
latest widening of a
corruption scandal
involving Olympic
sponsors that has centred
on a former member of the
Tokyo 2020 Olympics
board, but has spread
across corporate Japan.
Prosecutors arrested
Shinichi Ueno, 68, the
president and CEO of
privately held ADK, and
raided the company's
headquarters over
suspicions it and a maker
of stuffed toys paid a bribe
of about ¥54 million
related to the Olympics,
Kyodo said.
Sun Arrow Inc, the
stuffed toy maker, could
not immediately be
reached for comment.
A spokesman at ADK
said the company had no
immediate comment.
In August, prosecutors
arrested a former member
of the Tokyo 2020
Olympics board, Haruyuki
Takahashi, on suspicion of
receiving bribes.
Separately, media
reported that prosecutors
had decided to arrest
Takahashi again today,
meaning he faces longer
detention so prosecutors
can question him further.
stayed in 10th place.
Atletico was trying to leave behind its
struggles in the Champions League,
where it is in danger of elimination
after a three-game winless streak in the
group stage. Diego Simeone's team sits
in third place in Group B, two points
behind second-place Porto and six
behind leader Club Brugge.
"We have to stay positive and get
back to work as soon as possible," said
Morata, who put the hosts on the board
with a low shot from close range after
an assist by Antoine Griezmann.
Morata and Griezmann started again,
with João Félix relegated to the bench
one more time.
Griezmann had a goal disallowed for
offside in the 81st.
CAVANI NETS AGAIN
Edinson Cavani scored again but
Valencia couldn't earn a win after
defender Jose Luis Gaya missed a
penalty kick 12 minutes into secondhalf
stoppage time.
Cavani gave the visitors the lead in
the sixth minute for his third goal in
two matches after enduring a scoreless
start to his stint with Valencia. Erik
Lamela equalized for Sevilla in the
86th, and Gayà had his penalty shot
stopped by Sevilla goalkeeper Yassine
Bono deep into injury time.
Sevilla defender Kike Salas was sent
off for the foul that prompted the late
penalty.
Sevilla, coached by newly hired Jorge
Sampaoli, was coming off a win at
Mallorca to end a six-match winless
streak in all competitions. Eighth-place
Valencia had drawn with last-place
Elche at home in the previous round.
ATHLETIC HELD
Athletic Bilbao reached three games
without a win after being held to a 2-2
draw at Getafe.
Athletic twice relinquished the lead,
with Iñaki Williams scoring two
minutes into the match and Raul
García in the 62nd.
Getafe got on the board with Carles
Aleñá in the 27th and Munir El
Haddadi in the 76th.
Athletic, which next visits Barcelona,
stayed in sixth place, while Getafe,
winless in four games, stayed 15th.
Tatum, Brown shine as
Celtics down Sixers in
season opener
SportS DeSk
Jayson Tatum and Jaylen
Brown scored 35 points
each as the Boston Celtics
brushed off their pre-season
woes with an impressive
126-117 opening night
victory over the
Philadelphia 76ers on
Tuesday, reports UNB.
Tatum - roundly criticized
after a series of
disappointing
performances in Boston's
NBA Finals defeat to
Golden State last season -
led from the front in a
dazzling display at the TD
Garden.
The 24-year-old Tatum
went 13-of-20 from the field
while Brown's 35-point
salvo came from 14-of-24
with four three-pointers.
Malcolm Brogdon (16
points), Grant Williams (15)
and defensive linch pin
Marcus Smart (14) also
made double figures as the
Celtics handed interim head
coach Joe Mazzulla the first
win of his reign.
Mazzulla only took over as
head coach last month after
the stunning season-long
suspension of Ime Udoka.
Udoka, one of the rising
coaching stars of the NBA,
was banned for the entire
2022-2023 campaign after
details emerged of an
improper relationship with
a female member of the
Celtics staff.
But while the scandal
upended the Celtics' preseason
preparations, there
was no sign of it on Tuesday
as the new campaign got
under way with an
emphatic win over one of
the teams expected to be
one of their main Eastern
Conference rivals.
After the Sixers started
brightly to lead 29-24 after
the first quarter, Boston
roared back to level it at 63-
63 at the halftime break.
The Celtics then pulled
away late in the third
quarter with Smart
punishing a sloppy Joel
Embiid turnover to make it
87-78 before a Tatum threepointer
gave the team a 12-
point cushion.
The Celtics held onto the
lead for the remainder of
the game, going 16 points
clear later in the fourth
before comfortably closing
out the win.
James Harden led the
Sixers scorers with 35
points, while Embiid added
26 and Tyrese Maxey 21.
Boston Celtics forward Jayson tatum shoots after going past philadelphia 76ers forward
p.J. tucker during the third quarter of their NBA game at tD Garden. photo: Ap
Messi picks
France, Brazil
as favourites
for World Cup
SportS DeSk
Argentina captain Lionel
Messi has said defending
champions France and
Brazil are the favourites to
win the World Cup in Qatar
as they have a core group of
players who have played
together for a long time,
reports UNB.
Messi said Brazil,
Germany, France, England
and Spain are always
labelled favourites to win
but the 35-year-old forward
feels France and Brazil are
the best two teams going
into the Nov 20 to Dec 18
tournament.
"We always say the same
great teams … but, if I have
to choose, Brazil and France
are the two great candidates
to win the World Cup,"
Messi told DIRECTV
Sports.
"They've had the same
group (of players) for a long
time, working well. France,
aside from the last Euros
when they were eliminated
(in the last 16) and did badly,
they have some impressive
players.
"They have a clear idea
and the same coach (Didier
Deschamps). Brazil is a bit
the same (under Tite)."
Messi did not mention
Argentina, who are
unbeaten in 35 matches,
among the favourites even
though Lionel Scaloni's side
won the Copa America last
year by beating Brazil in the
final.
But Argentina have been
recently hampered by
injuries to key players Paulo
Dybala and Angel Di Maria.
Scaloni described club
football's fixture congestion
in October as "terrible" but
urged his players not to hold
back to avoid the risk of
injury ahead of the World
Cup.
"We are in quite a difficult
stage. The players are
playing a lot of games,"
Scaloni told AFAestudio.
German Reichart
appointed CEO of
company promoting
Super League
SportS DeSk
German businessman
Bernd Reichart has been
appointed CEO of the
company promoting the
Super League, a dissident
European football
competition aimed at
supplanting the lucrative
UEFA Champions League,
reports BSS.
The 48-year-old former
boss of the RTL media
group in Germany,
Reichart takes control of
A22 Sports Management,
the European commercial
sports development
company announced on
Wednesday.
Reichart's "initial focus
will be to initiate an active
and extended dialogue
with a comprehensive
group of football
stakeholders including
clubs, players, coaches,
fans, media and policy
makers," A22 Sports
Management said in a
statement.
"The aim is to facilitate
the development of a
sustainable sporting model
for European club
competitions that reflects
the long-term and mutual
best interests of fans and
the broader football
community."
Launched by 12 major
European clubs, the plan to
supplant the Champions
League in the spring of
2021 fizzled out amid the
fury of many supporters
and the threat of political
action.
US star Frances Tiafoe
to debut in Abu Dhabi
this December
SportS DeSk
Frances Tiafoe, the 2022 US
Open semifinalist, will make
his Mubadala World Tennis
Championship debut at Abu
Dhabi's International Tennis
Centre in Zayed Sports City
from Dec. 16 to 18,
organizers have revealed,
reports UNB.
Tiafoe, 24, currently the
top-ranked player in the US,
is the latest addition to the
lineup of A-list players,
including world No. 1 Carlos
Alcaraz, No. 3 Casper Ruud,
and defending champion
Andrey Rublev. Born in
Sierra Leone and raised in
Maryland, US, Tiafoe
reached his highest world
ranking of No. 19 last month
after becoming the first
American since 2006 to
reach the final four at
Flushing Meadows.
As a prodigious 15-yearold,
Tiafoe scooped the 2013
Orange Bowl championship,
widely regarded as being the
sport's most prestigious
junior international
competition.
In doing so, he created
Frances tiafoe celebrates a break point against Carlos Alcaraz of Spain at
the 2022 US open.
photo: Ap
Host Qatar’s World Cup
‘carbon neutral’ claims
under fire
SportS DeSk
Organisers have promised a carbon neutral
World Cup next month in Qatar but
environmental groups are warning that the
tournament will be far more polluting than
advertised, reports BSS.
Hassan al-Thawadi, secretary general of Qatar
2022, said organisers will achieve net-zero
emissions for the tournament as a whole "by
measuring, mitigating and offsetting all our
greenhouse gas emissions".
This promise has failed to convince sceptics,
however. Former Manchester United ace Eric
Cantona recently slammed what he called an
"ecological aberration", pointing to the carbon
footprint of what will be eight air-conditioned
stadiums.
Julien Jreissati, programme director of
Greenpeace Middle East, has accused organisers
of "window dressing", insisting that claims of netzero
emissions from the tournament "could be
considered greenwashing/sportswashing".
Gilles Dufrasne, a researcher for Carbon
Market Watch and author of a report into Qatar
2022's climate credentials, said that carbon
neutrality claims were "misleading and dishonest
about the true climate impact that the event will
have."
Organisers of football's marquee event said it
will generate 3.6 million tonnes of CO2
equivalent, compared with 2.1 million generated
by the previous edition, in Russia in 2018.
The vast majority of these emissions, some 95
percent, are indirect from things like transport,
infrastructure building and housing.
But Carbon Market Watch says that the hosts'
estimate is incomplete. It says that Qatar has
underestimated the footprint of constructing
eight new stadiums, for example, by a factor of
eight, generating 1.6 million tonnes of CO2
instead of the 200,000 tonnes disclosed.
Some of this difference can be explained by
methodology. Qatar deems that most of the new
stadiums will be used well after the tournament is
over, meaning that their environmental impact
shouldn't be tied specifically to one event.
history by becoming the
youngest champion in boys'
singles - eclipsing the
achievements of John
McEnroe and Roger
Federer.
In 2015, he became the
youngest American in 26
years to appear in the main
draw of the French Open. By
2018 he had won his first
ATP title at the Delray Beach
Open and in 2019 he made it
to the quarterfinals of the
Australian Open.
In 2021, he secured his
biggest career victory with a
win over Stefanos Tsitsipas
at Wimbledon, before
beating Rafael Nadal and
Andrey Rublev a year later
en route to the US Open
semifinals.
"I'm super excited to travel
to Abu Dhabi and compete
at the Mubadala World
Tennis Championship," said
Tiafoe. "Playing in such a
competitive tournament
before the holidays and at
the start of the new season is
something I am really
looking forward to. It's going
to be a terrific experience
against an elite field, and I
can't wait to get out there."
John Lickrish, CEO, Flash
Entertainment, added:
"Frances Tiafoe is one of the
most brilliant and brightest
tennis stars right now and
one to watch as the next
generation of tennis
superstars emerge. He had
an outstanding season this
year and excelled at this
year's French Open and US
Open. He is considered one
of the most talented young
players and has developed a
strong fan base around the
world. I have no doubts at all
he will prove a highly
popular addition to this
year's Mubadala World
Tennis Championship."
Celebrating its 14th
edition this year, the annual
championship features six of
the world's top male players
and two of the best players in
the women's game, who will
contest on the tournament's
opening day on Dec. 16. Ons
Jabeur, the World No. 2,
2022 US Open finalist and
defending champion, will
face 2021 US Open winner
and British No. 1 Emma
Raducanu.
Carbon Market Watch differs, pointing out that
banking on continued use of eight massive
sporting venues in a country of just 2.4 million
inhabitants is risky.
Stadium air conditioning in Qatar, contrary to
popular belief, is expected to only contribute a
minimal amount to the tournament's climate
impact.
"It's relatively minimal compared to total
emissions from constructing stadiums or from
air transport," said Dufrasne.
Given the vast amounts of infrastructure Qatar
has had to build in order to accommodate the
world's largest sporting event, some experts
believe the tiny Gulf nation was destined to
struggle to keep emissions down.
"The huge error was made in December 2010
at the moment the World Cup wasn't awarded to
a country that already had all the infrastructure,"
said Giles Pache, a specialist in logistics at
France's Aix-Marseille University, referring to the
United States, which missed out on FIFA voting
to Qatar.
"In Qatar we were starting with nothing,
hosting a global event built on sand," said Pache.
"The US was really well equipped" in terms of
stadiums and hotels, he said.
To achieve carbon neutrality, tournament
organisers have promised that emissions will be
offset in the form of carbon credits. These, in
theory, balance out the emissions produced by
saving emissions elsewhere in the world.
With Qatar, organisers are working on
renewable energy projects in Turkey as part of
this scheme.
Jreissati said these carbon credits constituted a
"distraction".
"They give the impression that a solution that
doesn't necessitate efforts to reduce greenhouse
gas emissions through ambitious political
decisions is possible," he said.
"We need to reduce emissions at source as soon
as possible."
For future tournaments Dufrasne said he
hoped for a "systemic reflection" in how World
Cups are organised.