SHUBAYTAH: Sebastien Loeb’s decision to ‘go slow’ in stage five earlier in the week paid off on Friday as the Frenchman won the marathon two-day stage 6 at the Dakar Rally.
Veteran Spaniard Carlos Sainz finished second 2min 01sec behind and took the overall lead while five-time winner Nasser Al-Attiyah saw his hopes of winning a sixth title disappear with a mechanical problem in the last 50 kilometers.
Adrien van Beveren made it a double French success with victory in the bike race.
Loeb, a nine-time world rally champion, deliberately lost time on Wednesday so that he would not have to open the road on the virgin dunes at the start of the an unprecedented two-day marathon around Shubaytah — a 780km loop in the kingdom’s vast Empty Quarter with more than 600km of specials for motorcycles and nearly 550km for cars.
Loeb, who has yet to win a Dakar Rally, started Friday’s second part of the stage in third place, 37min behind Sainz, but carved his way through the dunes to claim his second stage win of the rally, having also taken stage 4.
“The strategy was the right one,” said the Prodrive competitor who has moved up to third in the standings 29min 31sec behind Sainz.
“It was a good day for us, a good stage with no problems. It was very long, so the first part of the stage yesterday (Thursday) was more than 400km. I tried to take it a bit easy for the car especially and not to be too hard on the car.
“I knew that it would be very hard mechanically for it to go through so many kilometers in the dunes.
“Today, there were 150km left so I tried to push harder on this one, to get a good time and that’s what we did. So, there have been no problems at all for us with this long stage.
“For the second week we’ll have to continue to find the right rhythm.
“If you have any mistakes on just one stage you lose a lot of time and you are far behind, so we need to be consistent until the end.”
The 61-year-old three-time Dakar winner Sainz showed the value of experience as he brought his Audi home safely in second place gaining over eight minutes on his teammate Mattias Ekstrom of Sweden, who is second in the standings 20min 21sec behind the veteran.
“It was quite a difficult stage, but I think we managed to do a good job,” said Sainz.
“If you asked before this week ‘would we be leading?’ I would say I am happy. But there is still a long way to go. It’s still very open.”
The unforgiving nature of the terrain, however, claimed another victim as Al-Attiyah became the third big gun in two days to kiss his hopes goodbye.
Thursday had seen the end of Saudi Yazeed Al-Rajhi, overall leader at the time, who rolled his Toyota and ‘Mr Dakar’ — 14-time winner Stephane Peterhansel — who suffered a hydraulic failure that prevented him from using the jack to change a wheel.
Al-Attiyah avoided retiring in spite of breaking his steering by finishing the stage 2hr 45min behind his teammate Loeb and will now focus on helping the Frenchman to a first overall victory.
“We’ll try to keep going and we’ll see what we can do,” said the Qatari.
“Everything is not finished. I will try to help Seb, to be behind him. At least he can win this Dakar. I will do my best for him to win because we are a team.”
In the bike category, van Beveren (Honda) took his fourth Dakar stage win since his first appearance in 2016.
He finished 4min 13sec ahead of Australian Toby Price (KTM) and 5min 2sec in front of the American Ricky Brabec (Honda), who has taken the overall lead from Ross Branch (Hero), albeit only by a slender 51sec.
Van Beveren is third overall, 9min 21sec behind teammate Brabec.
Saturday sees the competitors taking a well-earned rest day in Riyadh, their only day off in the rally, before resuming on Sunday with stage 7 which includes a 483km special as they head to Al-Duwadimi.
Gamble pays off for Loeb with victory in marathon stage 6 of Dakar Rally
https://arab.news/6efy2
Gamble pays off for Loeb with victory in marathon stage 6 of Dakar Rally
- Frenchman, who has yet to win Dakar Rally, started Friday’s second part of stage in third
- Veteran Spaniard Carlos Sainz finished second 2min 01sec behind
Sevilla beat Al-Ittihad 1-0 to take Antonio Puerta Trophy
- La Liga club host annual match in honor of former player who died aged 22 in 2007
- Match is latest pre-season friendly for both clubs ahead of the start of their domestic leagues in August
DUBAI: La Liga club Sevilla FC defeated Saudi Arabia’s Al-Ittihad 1-0 to claim the Antonio Puerta Trophy at the Ramon Sanchez Pizjuan Stadium in Seville on Friday night.
Lucas Ocampos scored the only goal of the game from the penalty spot after 42 minutes.
The annual friendly has been hosted by the Andalusian club since 2008 in honor of former player Antonio Puerta who died from heart disease in 2007 at the age of 22.
This was the 13th hosting of the match, which was not contested in 2015, 2018, 2020 or 2021. Sevilla now have won won the trophy 11 times.
The match was also the latest outing for both clubs ahead of start of their respective domestic campaigns.
Al-Ittihad will play two more friendlies against Real Betis (Aug. 3) and Inter Milan (Aug. 7) before kicking off their Saudi Pro League season with a match against Al-Kholood on Aug. 24.
Sevilla will launch their La Liga campaign on Aug. 16 at Las Palmas.
Rahm leads by 2 after first round of LIV Golf UK
ROCESTER: Jon Rahm is accustomed to being in contention after most of his LIV Golf rounds this season. But for the first time since joining the league, he has the outright lead.
Thanks to a bogey-free 8-under 63, Rahm has a two-stroke lead over Abraham Ancer and Andy Ogletree after the first round at LIV Golf UK by JCB. Meanwhile, his Legion XIII is atop the team leaderboard by one stroke over Smash GC, HyFlyers GC and Fireballs GC.
Friday’s round was the 29th that Rahm has completed in LIV Golf. He has been inside the top 5 after 13 of those rounds, including a tie for the lead after the first round in Jeddah.
Six other times, Rahm has been inside the top 10. In each of his nine completed tournaments — he had to withdraw in Houston due to a foot infection — he has produced a top-10 result, and he is currently second behind Torque GC Captain Joaquin Niemann in the season-long points standings.
It is an impressive show of consistency that Rahm hopes will peak with his first individual LIV Golf title this week at JCB Golf & Country Club.
“Nothing much to say obviously but good things,” said Rahm, who entered the week off a tie for seventh at The Open Championship, his best major result of the year. “Played really good golf all day. With days like this, it almost feels effortless.”
Rahm played in the same group with his teammate and former Ryder Cup partner, Tyrrell Hatton, along with another Legion XIII player, Caleb Surratt, as the LIV Golf captains were grouped with their top-two teammates for the first round.
Not only did Rahm go low — the 8-under score matches his lowest LIV Golf round relative to par — but Hatton shot 66, bouncing back from an opening double bogey. The duo fueled Legion XIII’s 12-under total that also included a counting score of 72 from Kieran Vincent. Legion XIII has won three team titles during its inaugural season and is second in the points standings behind Crushers GC.
“It was the first time I played with any teammates in LIV Golf,” said Rahm, who had six birdies in his final nine holes to pull away from the pack. “I wasn’t sure how that was going to go. I was a little curious.”
Hatton said: “We’ve shared some pretty cool stages over the last few years, and we generally play well when we play together. So, it was nice for both of us to have a good round of golf and have some momentum going into the weekend.”
Ancer, the winner via playoff earlier this year in Hong Kong, finished with a flourish. The Fireballs star birdied four of his last five holes during a brilliant putting round in which he led the field.
Ogletree’s best finish during his first full LIV Golf season is a tie for third in Adelaide. He has battled a wrist injury that may require offseason surgery and forced him to make some swing adjustments to alleviate the pain.
“I’ve had a lot of days where I’ve played 13 and 14 really good holes and then kind of held myself back by a bad stretch,” said the HyFlyers member. “Today, I was in it all day and played some solid golf.”
Hatton and Ripper GC Captain Cameron Smith are tied for fourth, while a group of seven players — including Smash GC Captain Brooks Koepka and local resident Sam Horsfield of Majesticks GC — are four strokes off the lead in a tie for sixth.
On a course that was unfamiliar to most players and expected to give up low scores grudgingly, 35 of the 54 players in the field broke par, with a stroke average of more than one shot under par.
It was not a surprise for Rahm. “You can’t really say surprising when the best players in the world show up at a course,” he said.
Standings and counting scores for Friday’s opening round:
The three best scores from each team count in the first two rounds while all four scores count in the final round. The team with the lowest cumulative score after three rounds wins the team title.
1. LEGION XIII -12 (Rahm 63, Hatton 66, Vincent 72)
T2. FIREBALLS GC -11 (Ancer 65, Garcia 68, Puig 69)
T2. SMASH GC -11 (Koepka 67, McDowell 67, Gooch 68)
T2. HYFLYERS GC -11 (Ogletree 65, Tringale 67, Mickelson 70)
T5. RIPPER GC -9 (Smith 66, Herbert 69, Jones 69)
T5. RANGEGOATS GC -9 (Wolff 67, Uihlein 68, Watson 69)
7. STINGER GC -8 (Oosthuizen 67, Burmester 68, Schwartzel 70)
8. TORQUE GC -6 (Munoz 68, Niemann 69, Pereira 70)
T9. CRUSHERS GC -5 (Casey 67, Lahiri 69, Catlin 72)
T9. CLEEKS GC -5 (Meronk 68, Bland 69, Samooja 71)
11. MAJESTICKS GC -4 (Horsfield 67, Stenson 70, Westwood 72)
12. 4ACES GC -1 (Varner 69, Johnson 71, Reed 72)
13. IRON HEADS GC Even (Na 70, Vincent 70, Kozuma 73)
Final four battle it out for MLBB Women’s Invitational title at Esports World Cup in Riyadh
- Hometown heroes Falcons Vega in the running for $180,000 first prize alongside Team Vitality, Victory Song Gamers and Omage Empress
RIYADH: Audiences are set to witness a monumental moment in professional women’s esports history as the Esports World Cup hosts the Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Women’s Invitational 2024 semifinals and Grand Final on Saturday.
One of the most highly anticipated competitions heading into the eight-week tournament at Boulevard Riyadh City, the MLBB Women’s Invitational debuted on Wednesday by welcoming 12 clubs on the world stage.
After three days of matchups, the last four standing are within touching distance of legacy status — with one assured of a place in the women’s esports hall of fame come Sunday morning.
The first semifinal between hometown heroes Falcons Vega and French club Team Vitality is at midday on Saturday. Saudi Arabia’s Falcons Vega head into the contest with confidence sky-high after whitewashing every opponent that they have faced — and many are tipping them to go all the way.
Awaiting the victors are the winners of the other semifinal featuring Victory Song Gamers of Russia and Filipino outfit Omega Empress. This showdown starts at 3 p.m. live from the SEF Arena where the grand final takes center stage hours later at 6 p.m.
The Esports World Cup is running from July 3–Aug. 25 with 22 tournaments across 21 titles during its eight-week duration.
Alongside the MLBB Women’s Invitational, audiences can also catch the Overwatch 2 quarter-finals and main tournament action from the PUBG Mobile World Cup 2024 on Saturday. Both these competitions end on Sunday before new tournaments headline Week 5, starting on Wednesday, July 31.
Emirati referee to officiate Dominican Republic vs Spain match at Paris 2024 Olympics
DUBAI: Emirati referee Adel Al Naqbi has been selected by FIFA to officiate an intriguing clash between Spain and the Dominican Republic at the Summer Olympic Games Paris 2024 on Saturday.
FIFA selected Al Naqbi to officiate the Dominican Republic vs Spain - Men's Group C Match 14 and he will be assisted by his countrymen Ahmed Al Rashidi (First Assistant) and Sabit Obeid (Second Assistant), according to WAM.
Al Naqbi has officiated matches in the UAE football league as well as continental championships, most notably the AFC Champions League.
He also officiated several friendly international matches since 2016.
The world football governing body has selected referees and assistant referees from 45 countries to officiate matches at the Olympic Football Tournaments Paris 2024.
Athletes from 184 countries will take stage to compete in various sports at the Paris Olympics over a two-week period between July 26 and Aug. 11.
South Korea expresses regret after its athletes introduced as North Korea at Olympics opening ceremony
- South Korea’s delegation includes 143 athletes competing in 21 events
- North Korea, which is returning to the Games for the first time since Rio 2016, has sent 16 athletes
SEOUL: South Korea expressed regret that its delegation of athletes at the Paris Olympics opening ceremony on Friday was introduced as from rival North Korea and has demanded assurances from organizers the mistake will not happen again.
As the boat carrying South Korean athletes passed on the Seine, the announcer introduced them as the “Democratic People’s Republic of Korea” — the official name of North Korea — in French and English.
The announcer used the same introduction when the North Korean delegation passed.
South Korea’s vice minister for sports and culture, Jang Mi-ran, who was in Paris, had requested a meeting with International Olympics Committee President Thomas Bach, the ministry said in a statement.
“We express regret that the country was introduced as North Korea at the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympic Games when the athletes of the Republic of Korea were entering,” it said.
South Korea’s National Olympic Committee immediately referred the incident to the Games’ organizers and requested that the error will not be repeated.
South Korea’s delegation includes 143 athletes competing in 21 events. North Korea, which is returning to the Games for the first time since Rio 2016, has sent 16 athletes.
