Sport Sunday: Tour, Sumo, Golf, Aquatics, 日本, 中华人民共和国
Tour de France: Each year France's grand festival of cyclingkicks off in grand style, and keeps the French at home to welcome the Tour asit passes through their village. This year the Tour began in Dusseldorf,Germany, on July 1st, to the great acclaim of the Germans. The second stage also began in Dusseldorf,before a slow journey back to France via Belgium and Luxembourg. La Grande Boucle, as it is called, is a chasefor the overall champions yellow jersey, but also a chase for glory. Sadly,this year's Tour has again been tainted by scandal. This year the scandal wason the part of the organizers and judges, not on the cyclists, and had nothingto do with cycling. Instead, in thefirst two weeks they made boneheaded decisions, time after time, starting with theejection of champion sprinter fan favorite Peter Sagan. The UCI said thatshould never have taken place. African born English cyclist ChrisFroome, riding for the SKY team, all butwrapped up a third consecutive Tour de France triumph as he outpaced his rivalsin the penultimate day time trial won by Polish cyclist Maciej Bodnar, ridingfor Bora, on Saturday. Last to go, the Team Sky rider was the thirdquickest of the 167 to tackle the 22.5 kilometre course that started andfinished in Marseille's Orange Velodrome soccer stadium, extending hislead to 54 seconds going into Sunday's ceremonial ride into Paris.Incidentally, the Orange Velodrome started as a velodrome, and continued thatway as it was retrofitted for soccer and rugby, the wooden velodrome track wasultimately removed in the 1980s. Chris Froome will not be removed,though, and if he avoids any calamities on the 103km trek from Montgeron to theArche de Triomphe on Sunday's last stage, he will take his overall Tour wins tofour in the last five years, one behind cycling greats Miguel Indurain ofSpain, Belgian's Eddy Merckx and Frenchmen Bernard Hinault and Jacques Anquetil,and three behind American Lance Armstrong. In Saturday's stage, another Polish cyclist, Michal Kwiatkowski of TeamSky was second. If, indeed, the ceremonial ride remains ceremonial onSunday, and every indication is that it is, Froome will win the Tour,Colombia's Rigoberto Uran will come second, and Frenchman Romain Bardetthird. Budapest, Hungary: Aquatic Worlds FINA Swimming Worlds provides the best inaction for the aquatic sports every other Summer, and this year is noexception! Week one has featured theopen water swims, and more of interest to our readers, the Diving competition,and the Water Polo tournament, week one. Groupplay in the water polo tournament has certainly provided lots of action, andlots of ups and downs this week, and is a week which shall be remembered. With the riotous crowds and fantasticatmosphere at the Alfred Hajos Pool, the days ahead promise wonderful waterpolo. Theleaders of each group will next play on Tuesday. Today features play ins for the second andthird placed teams in each group, and it promises much excitement. Today's headline match is Spain, behindSerbia and Greece in Group D, against Russia, second in Group B. In otherplay-in matches, Brazil, which took second in Group A on the strength of a 6-6tie with Canada, will face Australia, third in Group B. Kazakhstan, with a winover the Canadians on Wednesday, will face Italy, Group B’s second place team.In the fourth match Japan, which has only advanced once in FINA Worlds (2011),will play Greece, the second-place team in Group C. The winners of Sunday’s matcheswill face four rested teams on Tuesday; either Brazil or Australia will earnthe dubious honor of a match against Serbia. Hungary will draw the winner ofthe Spain vs. Russia winner; Croatia will face the Italy vs. Kazakhstan winner,and whomever wins the Greece vs. Japan match will play Montenegro. The men's diving competition concluded on in stellar way on Saturday night, with astirring competition which resulted in a win by Tom Daley of England, The finalday of diving from Danube Arena in Budapest saw Great Britain’s Tom Daleyprevail over 2016 Olympic champion Chen Aisen for the gold medal in the men’s10m platform. Last year, in theOlympics, Daley failed to reach the finals competition. This year he made it through to the final in2nd position, and once he got there he performed perfectly. Daley received a total of 12 perfect-10scores over the course of his six dives, and twice scored over 100 on a dive.He totalled 590.95 points, beating out masterful Chinese diver Chen by a slimmargin (585.25). The 23-year-old regains the world title after winning it eightyears ago in Rome. Yang Jian won bronzefor China, giving them two medals in the final event to cap an incredible meetthat saw China win eight of the thirteen events. Russian Aleksandr Bondar took4th after qualifying 1st from the semis, and Ukrainian Maksym Dolgov moved upto 5th after being the last qualifier (12th) for the final in the semis. Just a few hours prior to this performance inthe 10m, Daley won a silver medal in the mixed 3m synchro with teammate GraceReid. China won gold, as Li Zheng and Wang Han combined for a score of 323.70,and the Canadian pair of Jennifer Abel and Francois Imbeau-Dulac won bronze. China’s 8 gold medals in this year's divingcompetition is down from the 10 won in Kazan, as this year five other countrieswon one gold each. Russia finishes 2nd on the medal table with 1 gold, 2 silverand 2 bronze. British Open SouthAfrica's Branden Grace moved into contention at the British Open on Saturdaywith his record-breaking third round of 62. Grace's round is the lowest in the history of the majors. He incredibly moved from four over par tofour-under par overnight, just two behind leader Jordan Spieth of the UnitedStates, and level with Matt Kuchar. England's Ian Poulter, and current US Openchampion Brooks Koepka were both three-under overnight. Earlier, Australia's Jason Day was one of anumber of players to score 65 in the benign conditions that contrasted sharplywith the miserable weather late on Friday. The British Open wraps up today in what promises to be a nail bitingfinal round. Japan: Sumo Wrestling Mongolian Hakuho has smashed the sumo wrestling record with his 1,048thwin. The grand champion, took downTakayasu yesterday in a frenetic bout, to deafening cheers at the Nagoya GrandSumo Tournament. He is now the "yokozuna",or grand champion. With his 1,048th win,Hakuho surpassed former wrestler Kaio's record, in place since 2011. The 32-year-old Mongolian was so small whenhe arrived in Japan at age 15 that only a minor sumo"stable" would take him. "I'm glad that I was able to show thisvictory to the fans," the now 6'3" (almost two meter) wrestler said,struggling to catch his breath after the historic win against his"ozeki"-ranked rival. Hakuho's success comes as foreign wrestlersincreasingly dominate Japan's 15-century-old sport. The sumo association, though, forbids foreign nationals from becoming sumomaster, or "oyakata" - a title that successful wrestlers oftenseek after they retire. Since Japan continues to forbid dual citizenship,Hakuho may renounce his Mongolian citizenship in order to become oyakata, butthat will be when his competition career is over. Hakuho's father is regarded as a nationalhero in Mongolia, as the country'sfirst Olympic medalist, a silver for wrestling in 1968. Soccer certainly continues somewhere in theworld. -- Posted By Rex to SR at 7/23/2017 01:18:00 AM -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "omnisport" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/omnisport. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
