Cobble king Clarke rules Tour de France stage five with bike throw

Stage winner Australia’s Simon Clarke, right, pushes his wheel over the finish line ahead of Netherlands’ Taco van der Hoorn during the fifth stage of the Tour de France cycling race in France, Wednesday. (AP)
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Updated 07 July 2022
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Cobble king Clarke rules Tour de France stage five with bike throw

  • The 35-year-old Australian Clarke used a bike throw on the line in a razor thin victory over Taco van der Hoorn after Native American Neilson Powless launched a sprint in a bid for the yellow jersey but fell just short

ARENBERG, France: Simon Clarke of Israel Premier Tech won stage five of the Tour de France on Wednesday in a photo finish after a 157km run from Lille to Arenberg featuring 20km of cobbled mining roads.

Belgium’s Wout van Aert of Jumbo retained his overall leader’s yellow jersey despite a nasty fall, but his teammate Primoz Roglic lost around two minutes to defending champion and fellow Slovenian Tadej Pogacar.

The 35-year-old Australian Clarke used a bike throw on the line in a razor thin victory over Taco van der Hoorn after Native American Neilson Powless launched a sprint in a bid for the yellow jersey but fell just short.

“What a year,” said Clarke, who got a last-minute contract with the IPT team in December after leaving EF. “I’m ever the optimist.

“I just told myself not to panic even when the sprint started almost 1km out,” he said about the finale.

“I sat back in the slipstream, waited and waited and went for the line at the last second,” he said.

Van Aert fell early and hurt a shoulder and was almost run over by his own team car, but rallied to cling on to his overall lead by 13sec from Powless of EF.

The race goes to his native Belgium on Thursday where he can parade through 60km of roads there in the yellow jersey.

“That’s part of why I dug so deep,” he said. “But this wan’t what we had planned this morning.”

Defending champion Pogacar did the best of the pretenders to the 2022 title when he finished seventh, 51sec off the lead, putting a little time into all his rivals after threatening to pulverise them before fading in the final kilometers.

“I like the cobbles,” smiled the 23-year-old UAE leader.

“I had no bad luck, felt good and played it intelligently at the end when I knew I wouldn’t catch the leaders,” he said.

Pogacar retains the best placed under-26’s white jersey.

Ineos trio Adam yates, Tom Pidcock and Geraint Thomas all hung in and trail Pogacar by 28, 29 and 30sec respectively.

The treacherous stage raced over cobbles was doubly dangerous due to dust billowing from the bone dry surface among the corn, wheat and potato fields making it tough to breath and easy to slip.

Eleven cobbled sections totalling almost 20km of bone shaking mining roads caused much of the chaos but not all of it.

Roglic, runner-up in 2020, was brought down after Caleb Ewan collided with a stray hay bale, the Jumbo man then hitting him and struggling thereafter.

He finished 44th on the day, 2min 36sec off the lead.

Embarking from the chic northern city of Lille, good humored crowds along the roadside thickened as the race hit the cobbles in the finale.

But a grim-faced Mathieu van der Poel, a pre-race favorite, was dropped by the lead group 30km out.

Visible for his polka-dot jersey and handle-bar moustache, Magnus Cort-Nielsen was once again in the thick of the action finishing fifth and retaining the King of the Mountains shirt he took in his native Denmark on stage two.

Thursday’s sixth stage starts in the Belgian town of Binche and returns to France in the Ardennes forest for what should be a splintered finale with two short steep climbs.


Saudi Arabia pays for naming rights to Atlético Madrid's stadium for 9 years

Updated 6 sec ago
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Saudi Arabia pays for naming rights to Atlético Madrid's stadium for 9 years

MADRID: Saudi Arabia has consolidated its branding push with Atlético Madrid by paying for naming rights to the Spanish club’s stadium for the next nine years.
Atlético, which has been sponsored by Saudi state-owned Riyadh Air since last season, said Wednesday that its Metropolitano stadium will be known as the Riyadh Air Metropolitano henceforth until 2033.
Atlético did not say how much it was receiving for the new agreement “which makes the Saudi Arabian company the most important sponsor in the club’s history.”
The deal for shirt sponsorship from 2023-27 was already worth a reported 40 million euros a season to the club.
“The final installation of the new name of the stadium on the main, northeast and southeast facades will take place in the next few weeks,” Atlético said.
The establishment of Riyadh Air was announced by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in March 2023. It is yet to begin commercial operations.


Top tennis player Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals

Updated 09 October 2024
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Top tennis player Sinner to face Medvedev in Shanghai Masters quarter-finals

  • Jannik Sinner put some old demons to rest in overcoming American Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-6 (7/1)
  • Medvedev and Sinner have met four times this year already in the final stages of tournaments

SHANGHAI: World number one Jannik Sinner will face Daniil Medvedev in the Shanghai Masters quarter-finals, after both had straight sets victories on Wednesday.
Sinner put some old demons to rest in overcoming American Ben Shelton 6-4, 7-6 (7/1), while Medvedev took out Greece’s Stefanos Tsitsipas 7-6 (7/3), 6-3.
Shelton, ranked 16, knocked Sinner out at the same stage last year, but on Wednesday the Italian looked confident from the start as he won in 88 minutes.
The US Open champion pulled ahead in the ninth game of the first set, breaking when Shelton hit long, then dominated the second set tiebreak.
“It was very tough, you don’t have so much control when you play against him... I just tried to stay strong mentally,” said Sinner.
World number five Medvedev and Tsitsipas were meeting for the 14th time.
Tsitsipas started the second set strongly, breaking in the first game, but Medvedev broke in the fourth and eighth to progress.
Medvedev and Sinner have met four times this year already in the final stages of tournaments.
Sinner beat Medvedev in the semifinals at Miami, the quarter-finals at the US Open and in the Australian Open final, but the Russian ended the Italian’s hopes in the last eight at Wimbledon in an epic five-set battle.
Also in action on Wednesday are world number two Carlos Alcaraz, who beat Sinner in the China Open final a week ago, four-time Shanghai champion Novak Djokovic and world number three Alexander Zverev.


Man City’s Rico Lewis eyes ‘dream’ of playing for England in an international tournament

Updated 09 October 2024
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Man City’s Rico Lewis eyes ‘dream’ of playing for England in an international tournament

  • The 19-year-old is in the Three Lions squad for the Nations League B games against Greece on Thursday and Finland on Sunday

MANCHESTER: It was 10 years ago when Rico Lewis had his first experience of a World Cup.

Aged 9, he was banking on Brazil to win the trophy on home soil so he could earn a prize in the shape of a packet of sweets.

With Neymar and Thiago Silva out injured, the Selecao could not deliver. They fell 7-1 in the semifinal against Germany, who would go on to beat Argentina and claim international football’s biggest honor for a fourth time.

England won their only World Cup in 1966, but Lewis wants to be a part of their bid to end a 60-year wait when the US, Canada and Mexico stage the tournament in two years’ time.

“Of course it’s everyone’s dream to play in an international competition with your country,” Lewis told Arab News exclusively.

“It would be amazing to play in that kind of environment and see how different it is, and also try to win something.

“Watching the World Cup, it makes you strive to do as best as you can and get picked for these squads to get to play in that.

“I think that’s what everyone wants to do, and to go and win a tournament with your national team.

“My earliest memories of a World Cup were in 2014, I remember being in a sweepstake for it.

“I had Brazil and they got beat by Germany 7-1 in the semifinals. I’d have probably won a bag of Haribo’s or something like that if they had won it.”

The 19-year-old, who made his international debut under Gareth Southgate against North Macedonia last November, added: “It was amazing to be called up for England, a unique feeling.

“It’s something you dream of and not many professional footballers get there. You’ve got to be very lucky and I was very lucky to get to that position.

“But once you are there you just enjoy it. It almost makes it easier because you can enjoy it.”

Lewis is certainly enjoying himself this season. And an ability to play confidently in a multitude of roles at such a tender age is not just down to luck.

Having established himself as a key component in Manchester City’s title-winning machine, whether at right-back or in midfield, he has been given an opportunity to transfer his talents to the international stage.

He can do so with Nations League B games against Greece on Thursday and Finland on Sunday.

England’s interim boss Lee Carsley, who replaced Southgate after the Three Lions lost the Euro 2024 final to Spain, turned to Lewis to help solve the side’s troublesome left-back position, where there has been no regular starter.

The youngster impressed in the 2-0 win over Finland last month and has settled well with a squad featuring current City team-mates Kyle Walker, John Stones, Phil Foden and Jack Grealish, and an old one in Chelsea forward Cole Palmer.

“Of course I feel comfortable now,” said Lewis. “When you’ve been with people like that for so long — and this is my third year with the City first-team now — I feel a lot closer with everyone and that makes it easier to play with them and at this level.

“I just want to play football and if that means I play in a different position to get more game time then that’s fine with me.

“I like playing fullback and like playing in midfield, but I don’t really mind where I play.”

That approach has typified Lewis’ amazing rise since his City debut two years ago at the age of 17.

His first season in the first-team ranks saw him lift a historic Treble as the Etihad outfit memorably won the Premier League, FA Cup and Champions League.

That was followed by the UEFA Super Cup and then the Club World Cup, with City beating Fluminense in Saudi Arabia.

Lewis also helped City lift the English title for a fourth successive time last season and admitted: “I want as many trophies as I can get. It’s everything I’ve dreamed of. When you break it down, it’s difficult to put into words what I’ve done.

“So that’s what I don’t really do, I don’t really think about it too much. That will probably come later on in life when I look back in my career.

“Right now I just want to focus on putting out consistent performances and being the best I can be.”

He added: “Of course there’s extra pressure. Once you’ve done it, then comes the expectation to do it again.

“When you are playing in a squad like at City you can stick out like a sore thumb if you don’t perform because of how many good players there are. Yes there’s pressure, but that comes with being at a club like this,” Lewis said.

“I think I enjoy it. I think everyone enjoys a little bit of pressure, being able to prove people wrong, stuff like that, but that comes with being a footballer.”


Root surpasses Cook’s 12,472 test runs as England reaches 232-2 in first test against Pakistan

Updated 09 October 2024
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Root surpasses Cook’s 12,472 test runs as England reaches 232-2 in first test against Pakistan

  • Root is now fifth on the all-time list of test run-scorers behind Sachin Tendulkar’s leading 15,921
  • England lost Zak Crawley’s wicket in the first half-hour when he chipped a catch of Shaheen Afridi

MULTAN: Joe Root became England’s highest-run scorer in tests as the tourists continued to score at a rapid pace on the third day of the first test against Pakistan on Wednesday.
Root surpassed Alastair Cook’s 12,472 runs with a straight-driven boundary before lunch to reach 72 at the break and guided England to a brisk 232-2 in 45 overs.
Root is now fifth on the all-time list of test run-scorers behind Sachin Tendulkar’s leading 15,921.
Ben Duckett recovered from a thumb injury which denied him opening England’s first innings on Tuesday afternoon and was unbeaten on 80 off 67 balls as the tourists smashed 136 runs in the first session after resuming on 96-1.
England still trails Pakistan by 324 runs after the home team was bowled out for 556 on a placid wicket of Multan Cricket Stadium.
England lost the wicket of Zak Crawley (78) inside the first half-hour when he chipped a catch of Shaheen Shah Afridi (1-44) after adding 14 runs to his overnight score of 64. Jamal pounced on the opportunity on second attempt at short mid-wicket as Crawley tried to whip the fast bowler on the on-side.
But England continued to exhibit its ‘Bazball’ approach against both pace and spin on a benign wicket. Duckett and Root decoded the mystery spin of Abrar Ahmed with lot of aggression on an unresponsive wicket for the bowlers as the leg-spinner has so far conceded 79 runs off his 12 overs.
In an England-dominated session, Pakistan also lost two of its reviews when it went for a shocking caught behind referral against Duckett soon after the left-hander had completed his half century, but the television replays suggested the bat was nowhere near the ball.
Captain Shan Masood then went for a second referral against Root off the same bowler, but the TV replays showed the ball was missing the leg stump.


Jurgen Klopp to be head of Red Bull football operations

Updated 35 min 41 sec ago
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Jurgen Klopp to be head of Red Bull football operations

BERLIN: Former Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has a new role as head of football operations at Red Bull, which owns the Leipzig, Salzburg and New York clubs, the company said Wednesday.
Klopp left Liverpool at the end of last season after nine years in charge, during which he breathed new life into the club and won the Premier League and Champions League.
His announcement in January that he was leaving came as a shock to the club's fans but Klopp said he was exhausted by the role.
The 57-year-old's new job with the Austrian energy drinks giant does not involve hands-on coaching.
According to a statement released by the company, "Klopp will not interfere in the day-to-day business of the clubs, but rather take on a higher-level strategic position."
Klopp himself said: "I see my role primarily as a mentor for the coaches and management of the Red Bull clubs.
"After nearly 25 years on the sidelines, I couldn't be more excited to be involved in a project like this."
The 57-year-old will start his tenure on January 1, 2025.
Sky Germany reports Klopp's contract includes an exit clause which allows him to take over as manager of the German national side should he be approached.
Klopp spends much of his time at his home on the Spanish island of Majorca and retains a sponsorship role with German sportswear maker Adidas.
Hans-Joachim Watzke, the managing director of Klopp's former club Borussia Dortmund, told AFP's German sports subsidiary on Wednesday he had discussed the Red Bull role with him.
"As always, I wish Jurgen good luck in his new job," Watzke said.
"It was no surprise to me because we talked about it personally," he added.
Earlier this month, Klopp was presented with Germany's Federal Cross of Merit.
In addition to their extensive football interests, Red Bull are the principal sponsor of the reigning Formula One champion team of Max Verstappen.