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He opened the batting, and scored an 18-ball 7. He bowled six overs and picked up a wicket. He strutted around the Headingley turf, mostly with a big smile on his face, and threw in as much drama as possible into pouching a sitter on the field and, if that wasn't enough, proceeded to do six push-ups. And after West Indies had beaten Afghanistan to finish their World Cup 2019 campaign, Chris Gayle confirmed - again - that as far as World Cups were concerned, he was done.

"It's a brilliant privilege and honour to represent West Indies in five World Cups (2003 to 2019)," he then told Brett Lee and Dean Jones, among others, while speaking to the host broadcaster. "Disappointed to end the World Cup without making it to the final four, but at the same time, I'm grateful to actually be here. A lot has happened behind the scenes, (and) to actually be here is fantastic. To finish off with a win is fantastic for me.

"We have a great bunch, some great youngsters as well and it's up to them to lift West Indies cricket from here on. I will still be around, and give my input to West Indies cricket. I still have a few more games left as well, so we'll see what happens. The World Cup (form and results wise) wasn't the one I wanted from a personal point of view, but at the same time, you can't complain too much. It's one of those things."

In February this year, Gayle had declared that he would be done with ODIs after the World Cup, but during the tournament he offered the possibility of playing on for a bit longer. When asked if that reconsideration would stretch to playing another World Cup, Gayle played along.

"Should I give it some thought," he said with a big laugh. "Yes, it is my last World Cup. Unless they can give me two years to rest and I can come back in two years' time again. It's definitely my last World Cup. Like I said, life goes on. The game has done a lot for me and I'm privileged to be part of another World Cup.

"It is possible [to play the 2023 edition] if I put in the work, but I don't intend to put my body on the line. As you can see, I'm struggling a bit. Four years is a long way off, and I'm not considering another World Cup, to be honest with you."

Gayle, who picked up one of the match balls - "a prized possession" - did express regret at not winning the trophy, but acknowledged the support of his team-mates, who let him do things his way. "All the guys rallied around me, and the support from the youngsters was fantastic," Gayle said. "I can't really fault anyone, but I must commend the staff as well for the work ethic they've actually put in for the youngsters and myself.

"Life goes on, it's one of those things. Words can't explain what I feel right now."

There were moments in the World Cup when some of the West Indian youngsters gave enough indications to suggest cricket in the Caribbean has a bright future. Nicholas Pooran, Shai Hope and Shimron Hetmyer with the bat, and Sheldon Cottrell and Oshane Thomas created a splash.

"The future definitely looks bright," Gayle agreed. "Hetmyer, Shai Hope, Pooran as well - those guys will carry the flag and make sure West Indies cricket is back where it belongs. It's just for them to actually take ownership and take responsibility out there in the middle.

"We have a young captain as well, Jason Holder, he's been around five years now. These guys will need to rally around West Indies cricket as long as possible, and I'm looking forward to (watching them in) the next World Cup as well.

"I'll be telling the youngsters to demolish bowlers."

Gayle, meanwhile, will continue to play franchise cricket, and expects to be in the mix for the tour of India later in the year, and "then hopefully we'll see what happens later on in the year."

Gayle has finished with 1186 runs from 35 World Cup matches, sixth in the list of most prolific run-getters in the marquee event and second among West Indians behind Brian Lara's mark of 1225. The 2019 edition had Gayle in patchy form, with 242 runs in eight innings and two half-centuries, scored at a strike rate of 88.32.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.

Zlatan brace sends LA Galaxy past Toronto FC

Published in Soccer
Thursday, 04 July 2019 23:01

Zlatan Ibrahimovic scored twice after halftime, and the LA Galaxy snapped a three-match home losing streak with a 2-0 victory over Toronto FC on Thursday night in Carson, Calif.

Ibrahimovic remains second in MLS in goals with 13 behind the 17 of Los Angeles FC's Carlos Vela. He had scored only two in his previous six league matches, a relative cold spell for someone who has 35 in his 42 MLS appearances overall.

Efrain Alvarez's cross set up Ibrahimovic's first header, which gave the Galaxy their fourth win out of six games overall, with the previous three victories coming on the road.

Substitute Emile Cuello contributed his first professional assist on Ibrahimovic's second goal. David Bingham made five saves to preserve his seventh shutout of the season.

The Galaxy (11-7-1, 34 points) remain second in the Western Conference, six points back of LAFC after earning their first home win since April 28.

Toronto (6-8-5, 23 points) lost despite welcoming Jonathan Osorio back from duty with Canada at the CONCACAF Gold Cup. The Reds are still without Michael Bradley and Jozy Altidore, who remain with the U.S. national team.

Los Angeles outshot Toronto 12-10 and held 58.6 percent of the possession.

Ibrahimovic's first goal came in the 75th minute, immediately following Toronto's most consistent spell of pressure on the other end.

Alvarez had the ball wide on the right and drove in an in-swinging, left-footed cross toward the back post. Ibrahimovic held his run to remain onside, backpedaled, and then sent an arcing header across goal, beyond goalkeeper Quentin Westberg's reach, and inside the right post.

He added his second 14 minutes later with his feet, this time collecting Cuello's cross from the left with a first touch that also took him around Westberg before easily slotting the ball home.

That capped his first multi-goal game since April 13, his ninth overall since joining the Galaxy early in the 2018 season.

One assumes there was some logic to Arsenal making a £40 million bid for Wilfried Zaha this week. It could be the start of negotiations with Crystal Palace. It could be an effort to unsettle the player. It could be a show of ambition to their disgruntled fan base. But offering roughly half the market value for a player who signed a five-year contract in August -- to a club who have just received £50m for Aaron Wan-Bissaka -- only seems likely to annoy Palace, place false hope among their supporters and suggest to the player that they're not especially serious about signing him.

At the same time, it all feels about right for Arsenal these days. Bidding for Zaha has the air of a desperate move by a club at a low ebb, making a bid they know will almost certainly fail because they feel they need to do something. It's like a man striding into a jewellers with £500 and trying to buy a £5,000 ring in a last-ditch attempt to save a marriage.

Arsenal have backed themselves into a corner. Their limp performance against Chelsea in the Europa League final was more than just a 4-1 defeat to a hated rival -- it was a reflection of how Arsenal have been run for years: passive, bloodless, uncertain and devoid of leadership. Some blame must be attributed to Unai Emery and some to the players, but this is a far bigger malaise than just those responsible for what happens on the pitch.

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After that match, Emery emerged to face the media with a note of optimism. He insisted a lack of Champions League football wouldn't make it much more difficult to recruit players this summer. He claimed their youngsters have gained experience and was adamant that while the end result of the season might have been disappointing, Arsenal are definitely, absolutely, entirely heading in the right direction. But not even the most suggestible fan believes that is true, surely? And will things be any different in 2019-20?

To put things mildly, Arsenal are a team without balance. They're a squad with two brilliant strikers in Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Alexandre Lacazette, but who lost Aaron Ramsey on a free to Juventus, are lumbered with Henrikh Mkhitaryan and Mesut Ozil -- a pair of two No. 10s who are as inconsistent as their wages are large -- and a collection of expensive defenders who can't defend, Shkodran Mustafi being the most obvious example.

Things look grim on the pitch, but the really bad news is it's nothing compared to the situation off it. Arsenal started to prepare for life after Arsene Wenger before the great man left, but those plans look nothing like the reality of things at the Emirates now. Gone is the man supposed to oversee it all, Ivan Gazidis, who shuffled off to Milan having singularly failed to turn Arsenal into a financial powerhouse. They're not even a financial powerstudio, as detailed by the football finance expert Swiss Ramble on Twitter this week. (The quick summary: Their transfer funds are low and dwindling.)

The man recruited to do the recruiting, Sven Mislintat, departed after a little over a year, reportedly due to being unable to do his job as he wanted. Now the show is run by two men, Vinai Venkatesham and Raul Sanllehi, the former a long-term club man who will look after the business side and the latter an ex-Barcelona sporting director who will handle the football side. It's sensible enough in theory, but with two people, there's a sense that nobody's really sure who's in charge.

None of this might be such a problem if there was some sort of leader above them, but instead, it's Stan Kroenke. If there was someone dynamic, engaged or even interested in making Arsenal a better football team, there might be a little more hope, but it might as well just be an empty chair at the top of the club. "Silent Stan" occasionally drops by when he has a little free time -- he sent his son to the Europa League final in Baku, Azerbaijan, instead of attending personally -- but the club has slowly been rotting ever since he arrived. Through a lack of investment and even less interest, Kroenke is a landlord who has let a house degrade to the point of uninhabitability. A recent report in the Daily Mail that suggested there's a mice infestation at the Emirates almost felt too "on the nose."

All of which means the road back to competitiveness is long and all options from this point are flawed. You might not be convinced by Emery's managerial nous, but sacking him when everything else is up in the air would be a bigger gamble. You could spend a lot of money on a big name or two, like Zaha, but just dropping them in this team would mean they're treading water in a sea of mediocrity. You could try to be "smart" with some bargain signings, but it would be a risk and would take an awful lot of variables to go their way to work.

An appealing route might involve building a team around promising youngsters returning from loans, such as Reiss Nelson and Emile Smith Rowe, and hope they might learn from the small clutch of senior players worth persevering with, such as Aubameyang, Lacazette, Lucas Torreira and Hector Bellerin. But there's no guarantee those players are good enough, and even if they are, you risk placing undue pressure on young shoulders. It's an indication of how serious things are that placing faith in untried youth is the most preferable option.

A high-risk but creative route might be to "tank," which is to say they sell anything and anyone other clubs will pay money for, start again and accept that things will be terrible (well, more terrible) for a few years. But that could just lead to Arsenal falling even further behind the rest, perhaps irretrievably so.

Prospects are bleak. The most optimistic thing you could probably say about them is that all of their direct competitors are either a mess, too, or face a similar summer of flux. This is a team and a club that has been drifting for years, and it's important to note that this is all a trickle-down effect from the chronic lack of investment in the later Wenger years.

With a detached owner, changing plans and a manager who might not be the right fit, you get the sense the drift will continue for some time to come. Still, you never know. Maybe Crystal Palace will take pity on them and take 50 cents on the dollar for Zaha.

Stranger things have happened.

How many cricketers does Australia really have?

Published in Cricket
Thursday, 04 July 2019 21:32

"They are not professionals...they were invited to play and if they don't like the conditions there are 500,000 other cricketers in Australia who would love to take their places." These infamous words, by the Australian Cricket Board secretary Alan Barnes, were for decades associated with the curmudgeonly attitudes of the board in the years before the World Series Cricket split.

More than 40 years on, however, the barrier to the professional game is long gone and instead the current battlefield for cricket has far more to do with the latter part of the statement. The assumption about the number of cricketers potentially available to replace the likes of the Chappells, Lillee, Marsh, Walker and Thomson can now be far more closely monitored. And according to Cricket Australia's own numbers, that 500,000 figure may need adjustment.

This week saw the release of the annual Australian Cricket Census, trumpeting a headline participation figure of 1,650,030 men and women, boys and girls from a vast array of geographical and cultural backgrounds. Since breaking the million mark in 2014, this overall tally has grown every year, representing impressive work in terms of rolling out ever vaster and wider school and introductory programs to add more numbers to the total.

The telling numbers

But the more problematic area of the census does not often make its way into the top of the annual press releases or fact sheets. That's the annual check-up on how many junior and senior, male and female cricketers are formally registered to play with clubs - a far more robust indicator of their relationship to the game, whether it be playing, watching or organising. Over recent years, that area of the census reporting has grown increasingly opaque, as previously reported on ESPNcricinfo, with changing and broadening definitions not always adequately explained.

That has not necessarily reflected internal attitudes, and certainly since the appointment of Belinda Clark as the executive in charge of community cricket and by extension participation, CA has been a lot more frank with itself about how headline participation growth does not reflect a slowly creeping drain away from clubs. For the first time, the governing body has revealed its formal club cricket figures over the past six years since 2014, painting a far more challenging picture for cricket than has been previously publicised.

Over that time, club cricket totals rose from 356,681 in 2014 to 392,812 off the back of the 2015 World Cup and that year's Ashes tour in 2016. From that peak, however, the fall has been unrelenting, slipping to 388,242 then 375,915 and, as of this year, 365,076. Of course the time for club registrations last year also happened to be around the same time that the scathing review of CA's culture was released off the back of the Newlands ball-tampering scandal. That meant the most indelible images of cricket in the national mind in pre-season were those of the then chairman David Peever being walloped on television, a few days before he was forced into resigning.

CA knew at the time that those passages could not be good for the game's image, and earlier this year the head of participation Stuart Whiley forecast that a drop-off was expected.

Role models

Having now digested the census results in full, the acting head of community cricket, Kieran McMillan, said that the key point for growing CA's club cricket catchment ahead of this summer will be a far louder and better presence for the game on television screens between June and October. With the World Cup followed by an Ashes series and then the inaugural standalone WBBL running more or less one after the other, the landscape will be rather different to 2018.

"Last season we were slow out of the blocks in terms of registrations and in October we usually get a bulk of registrations, particularly in entry level programs," McMillan said. "That was a tough month for cricket last year. We've got more cricket on TV, high profile, in that period this summer. Our job now, with the benefit of a long lead-in to our planning is to really make the most of that from how we piggyback our marketing campaigns on top of all that."

History indicates that yes, these factors will encourage growth in the game's heartland this summer - food for thought for others in the game, not least the ECB in a summer where its home World Cup is being seen by a small subscription television audience in keeping with the deals done ever since the 2005 Ashes. McMillan said there was plenty of research indicating that any sport will slowly wither in the absence of strong role models.

"I think Sport Australia made it pretty clear in some of the research they've done of the importance of role models," he said. "I think the growth in girls' cricket is a good example of that where you've got a national women's team who've got some fantastic role models, and they're successful - they perform well on the field but they're fantastic off the field.

"You've got the WBBL as a world leading domestic product, it's high quality cricket TV. So you've got the stuff at the elite level and it's able to inspire. Then the work we've been able to do at that grassroots level, we've now got 100 associations offering girls-only competitions. So no matter where you are in Australia there should be somewhere where your young daughter can find a place to play cricket. Marrying that top down and bottom up is where the secret sauce is."

Keeping the kids

For the moment, at least, it is far from the happiest marriage. The problem of retaining club players, and also of bringing interested juniors across from school programs to a broader and deeper relationship with the game, is something occupying plenty of minds at CA, from the community cricket office to the executive and the board itself, now chaired by a former club president in Earl Eddings (North Melbourne). McMillan pointed to recent moves to modify junior formats to be more inclusive of all ages, sizes and skills as a pivotal step in creating more love for the game.

"You've now got almost 80% of all junior associations over the country running formats which are appropriate for those kids whether smaller teams, smaller boundaries, more fours, more sixes, more action, shorter timeframes," he said. "So the actual formats kids are playing from under 10s onwards, the results we've got from those are hugely encouraging in terms of the ability to then retain kids that are coming into the game."

One of the knock-on effects of the Newlands scandal and its aftermath was a slow start for CA's new entry level program, Woolworths Cricket Blast. As discouraging as that was, McMillan said the signs were there that in a more favourable environment, the concept had plenty of chance to grow. "Parents provide a score on whether they'd recommend the activity to other parents for their kids and it's on a scale of -100 to +100, so +100 is amazing, but above zero is a positive, and we're at +39. So parents are saying they're likely to recommend this activity to other parents.

"The other thing we've changed is the packs - they get a shirt with their name on it, aligned to their BBL team of choice. That linkage of what they can see on TV at a BBL game and being able to bring that kind of colour, excitement, personalisation to their local community club, I'm personally really excited about us really nailing the second year of Cricket Blast and I see if we get this right then we can get a lot more kids then we've got quality junior formats to retain them through to teenagers."

Alongside the census results sits the Sport Australia AusPlay sample data, based on detailed surveying of 20,000 Australians. Among its most salient findings was that the peak participation age for cricket is among children 11 years old, with a steady decline following every year thereafter. Australian Rules Football, by comparison, retains far more participants into the late teens. McMillan acknowledged that CA needed to become more "creative" in building better bridges between the schools where their programs introduce the game to children, and the clubs where their interest will grow into something deeper.

"I think one of the things that we have found out is that where there's successful recruitment from schools into clubs, there's a strong role the local club has to play in that school," McMillan said. "That might be because there's individual relationships where there's a parent from the club on the board of trustees or a teacher who plays for the seniors, but regardless there's a strong presence that club has with its local schools that enables that frictionless kind of transition to playing more regularly outside of school hours."

So while the landscape of the game has changed irrevocably from the time of Alan Barnes, the ACB and the cricket war with Kerry Packer and the players, there is plenty to be done to make that statement about "500,000 other cricketers" ring true once more.

We never got to be friends, exactly. We were more like soldiers who had fought in the same war. We talked in shorthand. I didn't have to explain eating a box of Girl Scout cookies in one sitting. He didn't have to explain trying to find a pair of pants that fit his waist and his thighs at the same time.

In a lot of the important ways, we had lived each other's lives.

In other ways, we hadn't. Jared Lorenzen had been a star quarterback at Kentucky and won a Super Bowl ring with the New York Giants. I'd had desk jobs my whole life, stringing together words for a living. That's why I was writing about him, instead of the other way around. But when we talked -- and we talked a lot, that spring and summer of 2014 -- I felt like I was talking to a mirror.

I'm just now realizing that we never ate a meal together. That would have been fraught for both of us.

I wanted to write about Jared because I was afraid to write my own story. Jared was known as the biggest quarterback anyone had ever seen; he often played at more than 300 pounds, and by the time I met him, he was somewhere about 400. But he wasn't as big as me. That year, I was closing in on a high of 460, and I had this weird two-sided life: I loved my work and loved my wife and loved my friends, but I often hated myself because I couldn't control my weight and I knew one day it would kill me.

For years, I had been hauling around the idea that I should write about all that -- that I should share the most important story of my life. But I was afraid to reveal the darkest parts of myself. And I was terrified of the damage it might do to the people I loved. So I stuffed all that back inside and kept writing about other people.

Telling Jared's story was a substitute for telling mine.

I went to his office. I went to the radio station where he worked part time. I watched him play Wiffle ball with comedian Jay Mohr. I hung out at the apartment he had just moved into, strewn with boxes and clothes and toys belonging to his two kids. The one thing he had managed to do was hook up the TV. On one of my interview tapes, you can hear golf announcers in the background, calling the British Open.

I talked to his mom and his ex-wife and his old agent and a bunch of his coaches. They all loved him and cared about him. None of them knew how to help him.

I try to keep myself out of stories I write about other people. But as I wrote Jared's story, it became clear I had to put myself in. My struggle was the whole reason I was writing about his. I started the story this way:

Jared Lorenzen and I are in love with the same woman. Her name is Little Debbie, and she makes delicious snack cakes.

The story on Jared ran that August and became one of ESPN's most-read stories that year. I got hundreds of emails and messages from readers who had their own weight issues and saw something in Jared's story that made them want to change. I forwarded a bunch of those emails to Jared. He was hearing from a lot of people too. His story moved so many.

One of the people Jared inspired was me. As I listened to him being so open and honest about his weight, I started to think that my story might be worth telling too. I wrote a book proposal for a memoir, and we found a publisher. That book, "The Elephant in the Room," came out this past January. Since then, I've heard from hundreds of more readers who were motivated to change because of the book or who used it as a way to connect with someone they know with a weight problem.

The book would not exist if not for Jared showing me the way.

I sent him a copy when it came out. We had kept in touch off and on over the years. He didn't say much except that he was doing OK. But every once in a while, I saw photos of him online. As I was getting smaller, he was getting bigger.

Jared died on Wednesday. He had gone into the hospital last week with an infection and heart and kidney issues. I don't know for a fact that they were related to his weight, but it seems likely. He was only 38.

After the story came out, he started a company called Throwboy Tees; one of his nicknames as a player was the Pillsbury Throwboy. He worked on the radio team at Kentucky football games. He always had a business idea or two in his head. But I don't know that he ever found anything with the clarity and purpose that football gave him.

A couple of years after the story, he finally went to the doctor and stepped on a scale for the first time in years. He weighed 560 pounds.

For a while, he did a video series called "The Jared Lorenzen Project" about his fight to get back in shape. When ESPN's show, E:60, did a piece on him last year, he had dropped down to 477. This past February, he was the subject of an online documentary series, also called "The Jared Lorenzen Project." The last clip on the series' Facebook page is from two months ago. He looks tired and stressed.

Jared had told the E:60 crew that he was willing to be the face of obesity, to be the one to stand up and say, "I'm fat," and then to show people what it took to get better. He had a desire to change people with the force of his personality, the way I always hope to change people with my words.

Wednesday night, on Twitter, a reader named Noble Brown told a story about reading my story on Jared. At the time, Noble was about to turn 40 and weighed more than 300 pounds. He read the story and stared at the unopened can of Dr Pepper on his desk. He resolved to never drink it. He started eating better and exercising. Now he lifts weights five times a week, and 5K races are a breeze.

His whole thread reads like poetry, and it ends this way:

As strange as it sounds

In some small way

Jared Lorenzen saved my life

I am deeply saddened to hear of his passing

He was younger than I was when I turned my life around

Perhaps in a few years, he might have done the same

I'm honored and humbled that the story on Jared has made a difference for so many. I wish my words had been strong enough to make the difference for Jared. His courage made so much of a difference for me.

Xu and Fan on top again

Xu Xin and Fan Zhendong began their day with a loss in the first game against Ho Kwan Kit and Wong Chun Ting, but the Hong Kong pair’s success ended there: The Cloudwalker, recently elevated to world #1 in men’s singles, and Fan, the man who held that spot for 15 months before ceding it to Xu, quickly clamped down. Result: the Chinese took the next three games to solidify their place in the semifinal. Margin of victory: 3-1 (9-11, 11-9, 11-6, 11-4).

A semi-celebration for Korea

Korea has found its first semifinalists in men’s pair Jang Woojin and Lim Jonghoon. This tournament will always be special for Jang, who last year in Daejeon became the first player ever to capture the triple crown of table tennis, taking the titles in men’s singles, men’s doubles and mixed doubles. It was one of the things that earned a nod of commendation from no less than Korean President Moon Jae-In.

Jang and Lim are back and into the semis after answering the Swedish challenge set by Kristian Karlsson and Anton Kallberg, which resulted in a 3-1 Korean victory (11-7, 11-9, 12-10). Minutes later, compatriots Jeoung Youngsik and Lee Sangsu also broke through, holding off Japan’s rising star/experienced veteran pair Tomokazu Harimoto and Koki Niwa 3-1 (11-4, 7-11, 11-8, 11-7) to advance and setting up an all-Korea semi, guaranteeing the host nation a berth to the final.

Wong and Doo complete MXD semis field

It’ll be an all-Hong Kong semifinal in mixed doubles in Busan as Wong Chun Ting and Doo Hoi Kem face off against Ho Kwan Kit and Lee Ho Ching for the honor of doing battle with either Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen or Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito in the final.

Wong and Doo overpowered Slovakia’s Lubomir Pistej and Barbora Balazova in four, cruising to a two-game lead before a little concentration blip caused a loss in the third. They remained solid and focused in the last to close out the 3-1 victory (11-6, 11-7, 5-11, 11-7).

Ho-Lee moly!

Adam Szudi and Szandra Pergel’s upset streak came to an end against Hong Kong’s Ho Kwan Kit and Lee Ho Ching, who proved too much for the standout Hungarian pair today, beating them 3-0 (11-6, 11-6, 11-9) to take their place among the four duos still remaining.

The bright side for Szudi and Pergel is that they head home with the satisfaction of having avenged themselves on Maharu Yoshimura and Kasumi Ishikawa, who knocked them out of contention at April’s World Championships in Budapest.

Mizutani and Ito are living the dream

Things are working out for Jun Mizutani and Mima Ito. Yesterday, the newly matched pair edged ITTF World Tour leaders Lin Yun-Ju and Cheng I-Ching. Today they sent France’s Tristan Flore and Laura Gasiner packing, surviving an early dropped game and a nailbiter of a fourth game to clinch a 3-1 win (8-11, 11-5, 11-7, 14-12). But the biggest test of this promising early partnership will come when they see Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen in the semifinal.

Xu and Liu, as expected

Xu Xin and Liu Shiwen aren’t giving an inch — which is exactly what you’d expect from a pair that have already won twice on the World Tour this year. Xu and Liu are back together after Xu played (and dominated) with Zhu Yuling at the Japan Open in Sapporo two weeks ago. Here against Korea’s Lim Jonghoon and Yoo Eunchong it was another up-and-down story — 3-0 (11-5, 11-5, 11-2) — and onto the semis.

Day Two begins!

It’s on: The second day of main draw action at the Seamaster 2019 ITTF World Tour SHINHAN Korea Open is underway! Here’s what’s on the schedule for today:

Rahmer Rules Johnny Grum Memorial

Published in Racing
Thursday, 04 July 2019 19:32

HAGERSTOWN, Md. – Freddie Rahmer earned his first victory of Pennsylvania Sprint Speedweek during the third edition of the Johnny Grum Memorial Thursday at Hagerstown Speedway.

Robbie Kendall and Lucas Wolfe paced the field from the front row, and Kendall beat Wolfe into turn one and off of turn two to take the lead.

Kendall quickly drove his No. 55k into lapped traffic on the sixth circuit before a lap seven caution waved for the stopped car of Brandon Rahmer in turn one.

On the restart, Kendall repeated his original start, beating Wolfe and the field again to remain the race leader. At the halfway point, Kendall led Wolfe by a 1.63 second margin and once again was working through lapped traffic while rim-riding the top groove of the Hub City oval.

Just a few laps later, Wolfe worked the bottom groove underneath Kendall to take the lead coming off of turn two on lap 19. As Wolfe was leading, a four-car battle for second began between the cars of Kendall, Cory Eliason, Danny Dietrich, and Freddie Rahmer.

Rahmer made the best of the battle, settling into second and began his chase of Wolfe on lap 23, and worked the low groove to pass Wolfe for the lead on lap 24.

From then, Rahmer looked poised to pull away until a lap 28 caution waved for the spun car of Brock Zearfoss on the backstretch.

This setup a two-lap dash to the finish, but Rahmer was too strong at the end, and took the checkered flag.

The win for the Salfordville, Pennsylvania driver in his Leffler Energy No.51 was the first of his career at Hagerstown.

“I don’t know how good I was at the end, but it was good enough to hold them off,” said Rahmer. “It’s pretty cool to get my first win at Hagerstown.  I always love coming here. I wish we could race here more. The track flows perfect for sprint cars and Late Models. It’s all good racing.”

Wolfe held onto second, followed by Eliason, Dietrich, and fifth-place finisher Anthony Macri.

The win put Rahmer into the points lead at the time for the PA Sprint Speedweek championship with two races remaining.

The finish:

Freddie Rahmer, Lucas Wolfe, Cory Eliason, Danny Dietrich, Anthony Macri, James McFadden, Rico Abreu, Robbie Kendall, Dylan Cisney, Logan Wagner, Tony Stewart, T.J. Stutts, Mike Wagner, Chad Trout, Jared Esh, A.J. Flick, Justin Whitall, Brock Zearfoss, Troy Fraker, Chase Dietz, Carl Bowser, Brandon Rahmer.

Na WD from 3M Open citing neck injury

Published in Golf
Thursday, 04 July 2019 13:39

After signing for a first-round, 4-over 75 in the inaugural 3M Open, Kevin Na withdrew from the event citing a neck injury. 

Na also withdrew from the Valspar Championship in March with what could be the same neck injury, and said it was still bothering him a week later at the WGC-Dell Technologies Match Play.

Since then, he missed the cut at both the PGA Championship and the U.S. Open, but between those events he won the Charles Schwab Challenge with a score of 13 under. 

BLAINE, Minn. – Scott Piercy went on a late birdie binge en route to a 9-under 62 and the first-round lead at the inaugural 3M Open on Thursday.

Adam Hadwin and Hideki Matsuyama are each two shots back after a 7-under 64 at the TPC Twin Cities.

Seeking his fifth career tour win and first since the 2018 Zurich Classic, Piercy birdied one of his first seven holes and eight of his final 11, including a nearly 30-foot putt on No. 16 to get to 8 under.

Brian Harman, Sungjae Im, Patton Kizzire and Sam Saunders are among a group three back after shooting 6-under 65.

Bryson DeChambeau is among nine players who shot 5-under 66 and are four shots back.

Brooks Koepka, the world's top-ranked player, is among more than a dozen players that shot a 4-under 67. Nate Lashley, who won last week's Rocket Mortgage Classic in Detroit, finished 2 under.

The 3M Open is the first regular tour event in Minnesota since 1969; however, the U.S. Open and PGA Championship have each twice been contested at Hazeltine National Golf Club. The 2016 Ryder Cup was also played there and is to return in 2028.

The tournament replaces a PGA Tour Champions event held in the Land of 10,000 Lakes for 26 years.

A 36-minute weather delay occurred shortly after Piercy teed off, and showers fell briefly a couple of times during the rest of his round. The winds also picked up at times in the afternoon.

Playing in the calm morning, Matsuyama and Hadwin found better success on the soft greens.

Matsuyama entered the day ranked 93rd on tour, averaging 28.95 putts per round. He had 26 Thursday, including making 13 of 14 from inside 10 feet and four of five from 10 to 15 feet. He did not three-putt a hole.

Starting on No. 10, Matsuyama, a five-time tour champion who last won at the 2017 Bridgestone Invitational, had four straight birdies around the turn to get to 6 under before back-to-back birdies on Nos. 5 and 6, the first an 18-foot putt. His lone bogey was his final hole.

Playing two groups behind Matsuyama, Hadwin, 40th in putts per round, was 3 under through nine holes, and birdied four straight holes among his final nine. He made all 15 putts from inside 10 feet and made two of three from between 20 and 25 feet.

''Hideki and I are kind of taking out the Fourth of July celebration for Americans so far,'' joked Hadwin, a Canadian whose wife is from the United States. ''I've got a green card, so it's home for me.''

Phil Mickelson had seven penalty strokes, including two on the par-5 18th, and finished 3 over.

Minnesota native Tim Herron aced the 208-yard eighth hole.

Salcedo on Mexico: 'There aren't giants anymore'

Published in Soccer
Thursday, 04 July 2019 16:14

CHICAGO -- Mexico defender Carlos Salcedo isn't getting carried away with Mexico's traditional status as a regional giant ahead of Sunday's Gold Cup final against the United States.

Mexico scraped past Haiti 1-0 after extra time on Tuesday in the semifinal to set up a championship game against El Tri's bitter rival, but Salcedo doesn't believe there is any favorite on Sunday.

"In football, there aren't any giants anymore," he told media after the game against Haiti. "You have to play the games. History says we've won a lot of Gold Cups [seven], but that isn't going to help us win on Sunday. We can only show our quality by lifting the cup."

Mexico received some criticism for taking so long to put away a Haitian side ranked 101st in the world by FIFA, but the Tigres defender stressed taking a balanced approach is the best way to analyze the tournament so far.

"If you play well against Sweden and lose, there is criticism," Salcedo said. "In Mexico there is no middle ground. We aren't looking for the spotlight, we aren't looking for people to tell us what we are doing well or badly, the team has to give explanations to the coach. We are in a final and we're going to give it all to win."

Meanwhile, the former Eintracht Frankfurt player also has been linked with a move back to Europe this summer, but he isn't focused on his club future at present.

"I have to wait," he said. "I don't want to put my head in that situation. I want to wait. I haven't talked to my agent and that's one thing I have to do: sit down with my agent, go through everything and then I'll see.

"Right now I'm focused on national team and after that I'll focus on Tigres, which is my team right now."

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