The Malaysian Insider :: Sports
The Malaysian Insider :: Sports |
| Evans set to become first Australian to win Tour de France Posted: 23 Jul 2011 08:41 AM PDT GRENOBLE (France), July 23 — Cadel Evans was set to become the first Australian to win the Tour de France after leapfrogging the Schleck brothers in a final time trial won by Germany's Tony Martin today.  Evans pedals during the 20th time trial stage in Grenoble on July 23, 2011. — Reuters pic Evans, 34, took second place in the penultimate stage — seven seconds adrift of Martin, who clocked a best time of 55 minutes 33 seconds. Evans now leads Andy Schleck by 1:34 going into tomorrow's final parade to the Champs Elysees in Paris, with Frank Schleck in third place overall and 2:30 off the pace, according to provisional results. It will be the first time that two brothers finish together on the Tour de France podium. Three-times champion Alberto Contador of Spain finished the time trial with the third best time, 1:09 off the pace, and will finish fifth overall. Evans, who finally started to live up to expectations in 2009 when he won the world championship, got off to a strong start. At the first intermediate time check after 15km, the tide had already turned as Evans had shaved 36 seconds off Schleck's advantage. The Australian, who won the Tirreno-Adriatico race and the Tour de Romandie this year, took the virtual lead after some 20km and there was no looking back. His face a mask of pain, Andy Schleck was helpless as the gap dramatically widened in the second part of the stage. — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
| Russia and China dominate at halfway stage of swim championships Posted: 23 Jul 2011 08:04 AM PDT SHANGHAI, July 23 — Hosts China and Russia, with Natalia Ishchenko taking six gold medals, dominated the first half of the world swimming championships while controversy lurked in the open water. Russia, roared on by the crowd whose support was only marginally more vociferous for the home nation, totally outclassed the rest of the teams in the synchronised swimming, winning all seven titles on offer.  Russia's team pose with their gold medals and national flag after winning the synchronised swimming team final at the world championships in Shanghai on July 23, 2011. — Reuters pic Not to be outshone, the Chinese diving machine did exactly the same in the outdoor pool just a short stroll from the main indoor venue, claiming all nine titles that had been determined by today, with only the men's 10-metres platform final to come tomorrow. The hosts, who were watched by retired NBA player Yao Ming today, are heavy favourites to emulate the Russians and complete the sweep with Qiu Bo topping qualifying for the platform final by almost 80 points. Britain's Tom Daley, the champion from Rome in 2009, also qualified but was more than 110 points behind Qiu in sixth place. The only other discipline in which medals were decided in the first half of the championships was the open water, held at Jinshan City Beach held about 90 minutes south of Shanghai. Concerns about the water temperature had been raised throughout the week and were brought to a head today when US officials advised their swimmers not to participate in the 25km race after they measured it at 30.4° Celsius just 30 minutes before the competition was due to start at 0600 local time. Fina guidelines set a maximum water temperature of 31° degrees, though the German team took a reading during the race and discovered it was in excess of 32°. Bulgaria's Petar Stoychev and Ana Marcela Cunha of Brazil won the controversial men's and women's races, which were blighted by the withdrawals of several competitors before and during the events. The world governing body, however, dismissed the complaints from some of the teams, saying they had followed their protocols and new temperature limits based on a scientific study still being completed would be in place for next year. "Personally, from the information we have, the 25km races are successful," Fina executive director Cornel Marculescu said. "In general, 25 swimmers pulled out. All the swimmers, we have the boat to them. They were helped into the boats in order to intervene when necessary." Earlier in the week, Britain's Keri-Anne Payne and Greece's Spyros Gianniotis won the women's and men's 10km races, which also doubled as Olympics qualifiers with the top-10 finishers all earning slots at the 2012 London Games. Fina had also conducted 115 doping tests, "seven or eight" of which had included blood tests, by the end of the first eight days, with no positive tests, Andrew Pipe, the chairman of the Doping Review Control Board said. The main focus of action will now switch to the pool with everyone beginning their preparations for the 2012 Olympics, while all eyes will be on Phelps, who has already said next year's London Games will be his last. "We both talked about this meet being the first step to our preparation for the London Olympic games," his coach Bob Bowman told reporters at a packed media conference on Saturday. "What we do here will set the table of what we're going to work on and how we're going to go about working it for London." — Reuters Full Feed Generated by Get Full RSS, sponsored by Used Car Search. |
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