ITF President David Haggerty announced today that long-serving ITF Chief Operating Officer Juan Margets would be leaving the ITF at the end of 2016. “Juan has played a very important role in the IT…
Source: Juan Margets To Step Down As ITF Chief Operating Officer After 18 Years
The world ranking’s leader Morgan Craft of USA won today’s Skeet final at the ISSF World Cup in Nicosia, upsetting the home champion Andri Eleftheriou in the Gold medal match.
Craft, 22, left no chances to her opponent, scoring 16 out of 16 targets in the match, and securing the first world cup gold medal of the season, which also turned out to be her first world cup victory in career.
Eleftheriou, 31, closed the match in second place, with 15 hits, after missing a crucial clay on station four.
Craft started-off the competition with a perfect 25 during this morning’s qualifications, making it into the semi-final with 71 hits.
At the end of the semi-final, with a tally of 14 hits, she had to pass through a three-way shoot-off to access the gold medal match, beating her 16-year old teammate Katharina Monika Jacob.
Craft is considered the best Skeet Women shooter of the world. In 2015, she pocketed two world cup medals in Larnaca (Bronze) and Gabala (Silver), and won the ISSF World Championship held in Lonato. In October then, here in Nicosia, she sealed a great season with a world cup final Bronze medal.
Her sights are now clearly set on Rio 2016, as she has already qualified last year, through her world championship victory.
“The pressure is off, to make the Olympic team. It was such a relief to make the team at last year’s world championship,” says Craft. “ Making it into the team for Rio was a goal of mine for the past eight years. Over the next three months I will be competing at the Rio test event and at the ISSF World Cup in San Marino, trying to get as much experience as I can before the Games, because I feel that makes me better.”
“Today it was great, overall. Considering that this is the first world cup of the year, I couldn’t be happier!”
“Going into the final with two teammates of mine was awesome. We were 50% of the final, actually. Our secret? Our great coaches, the program we have grown up through, and the fact that we have so much talent in USA: we push each other and make each other better.”
Craft’s teammate Jacob, at her first participation in a world cup event, claimed today’s Bronze by beating London 2012 Olympic Bronze medallist Danka Bartekova of Slovakia (31) by 14 to 12 hits.
The young American shooter is coached by the father of the two-time Olympic Champion Vincent Hancock, Craig. Actually, she moved to Hancock family’s house two years ago, where she lives now, sleeping in Vincent’s former bedroom.
“Craig is a great coach, I give him so much credit for everything I have been able to accomplish. He has been training me since 2012. Today’s competition has been amazing!” Jacob said.
Thailand’s Sutiya Jiewchaloemmit (29) took the 5th place with a semi-final score of 13+5 hits, as she lost a shoot-off against Bartekova to access the Bronze medal match. She was followed by the reigning Olympic Champion, USA’s Kimberly Rhode (34), who closed the match in 6th with 10 hits.
A total of twelve very motivated teams, selected through Continental Qualification Tournaments or Continental Championships, are facing each other this week in Gouda (NED), the city where the FINA Women’s Water Polo Olympic Games Qualifications Tournament is currently taking place and running through March 28: Canada, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Russia, Spain, South Africa, and USA.
With already 12 games played on Monday and Tuesday (six in each group), Group A’s USA and Greece, and Group B’s Italy have taken the lead. The three teams have now 4 points each. The host country and Russia follow with 3 points each (tie game when they played each other).
The ranking in the Olympic Games Qualification Tournament gives two (2) points to the winner of the game, one (1) point in a tie and null (0) to the losing team.
The provisional ranking is as follows:
Group A: USA 4pts (2W), GRE 4pts (2W), ESP 2pts (1W, 1L), CAN 2pts (1W, 1L), JPN 0 (2L), RSA 0 (2L)
Group B: ITA 4pts (2W), RUS 3pts (1w, 1T), NED 3pts (1W, 1T), GER 2pts (1W, 1L), FRA 0 (2L), NZL 0 (2L)
The four best teams in Gouda (gold, silver, bronze medallists and fourth place) will secure a spot for the Olympic Games.
Four teams (Australia, Brazil, China, and Hungary) have already secured a place for the Olympic Games by winning their respective Continental Championships. Brazil, as Olympic Games host, will represent the Americas.
The Men’s Olympic Qualification Tournament will be held in Trieste (ITA) from April 3-10.
FINA
South Africa defeated Ireland by 67 runs at the Chidambaram stadium in Chennai on Wednesday to register its first win after two matches in the ICC Women’s World Twenty20 2016.
South Africa, electing to bat in the day-night match, recovered from a middle-order collapse to score 156 for five and then restricted the minnow to 89 for nine.
Sune Luus, a 20-year-old leg-spinner, ran through the Irish innings to finish with spectacular figures of five for eight from her four overs.
South Africa, beaten by three-time defending champion Australia in its first match, is now level with Sri Lanka and the Southern Stars with two points each from as many games in Group A.
New Zealand leads the group with three straight wins, with South Africa in second place due to a superior net run-rate.
Ireland suffered its third consecutive defeat and is out of the race for the semi-finals.
South Africa’s openers Dane van Niekerk (20) and Trisha Chetty (35) gave their team a solid start with a 41-run stand in 4.5 overs.
South Africa moved to 70 for one in 10 overs when Ireland hit back with three quick wickets to make it 84 for four in the 14th over.
The innings was lifted by an unbeaten 30 off 24 balls by Lizelle Lee and useful contributions from Dinesha Devnarain (24) and Chloe Tryon, who scored 20 not out off just seven deliveries with a six and two boundaries.
Opener Clare Shillington (34) and skipper Isobel Joyce (22) lifted Ireland to 64 for two in reply before the fall of three wickets for five runs messed up the chase.
South African captain Mignon du Preez said her team was delighted to get the first points on the board.
“It was a good team performance,” she said. “The batters did well to give us a total of above 150, something we have not been able to do in the last few matches.
“And then what Luus achieved was something very special. She has worked really hard on her game which really paid off.”
Irish skipper Isobel Joyce said South Africa was deserving winner.
“I think we competed well in the first 15 overs with both bat and ball, but after that South Africa turned the screws,” she said. “We lost by a bigger margin than we should have.”
South Africa beat Ireland by 67 runs in Chennai
South Africa 156-5, 20 overs (Dane van Niekerk 20, Trisha Chetty 35, Lizelle Lee 30 not out, Dinesha Devnarain 24, Chloe Tryon 20 not out; Kim Garth 2-26)
Ireland 89-9, 20 overs (Clare Shillington 34, Isobel Joyce 22; Sune Luus 5-8)
Thursday’s fixtures:
Australia v Sri Lanka (1530) New Delhi
England v West Indies (1930) Dharamsala
Bangladesh v Pakistan (1930) New Delhi
Rivers United fired blanks in a drab Nigeria Professional Football League (NPFL) contest against Sunshine Stars that ended 0-0 at the Yakubu Gowon (former Port Harcourt Liberation) Stadium on Wednesday.
The big news before kickoff, was the omission from the match day squad of Obomate Frederick from the Rivers United with Bernard Ovoke starting in his place.
In the absence of the midfielder, the hosts struggled to control the game and boss possession with deadly efficiency as has been the case in recent matches.
Striker, Guy Kuemian missed a sitter from two yards in the first half when it appeared easier to score and Chigozie Ihunda also came close with a half volley as well as United looked to put the game to bed early on. It was however the visitors that created the best chances in the game.
The Sunshine Stars coach, Solomon Ogbeide was pleased with the point in the end. “We had our plan and it worked for us. We wanted to play on the (break).
“On two occasions, we had one-on-one opportunities with just the (Rivers United goal keeper) to beat but we did not take them,” he told Rivers United Media.
Eguma on his part said his charges have yet to fuse into a unit. “We have not really started playing as a cohesive unit but we are one of the best-playing teams in the league at this moment. “I believe we will get it right in the shortest possible time,” he said.
Rivers United are now in 11th place on the NPFL standings with 10 points from eight matches while Sunshine Stars remain one place from bottom in the 20-team log with three points from six matches.
The 2016 international Eventing season promises to get off to an exciting start at Fontainebleau (FRA) this weekend with up to 10 nations fielding teams in a highly competitive first leg of this year’s FEI Nations Cup™ Eventing.
Flying the French flag – series opener
Top names in the field at Fontainebleau include Olympic and European champion Michael Jung (GER), World champion Sandra Auffarth (GER), the host nation’s former European champions Nicolas Touzaint (FRA) and Jean-Lou Bigot (FRA), alongside Christopher Burton, a key member of the prominent Australian squad last year, and World team bronze medalist Tim Lips (NED).
Great Britain, firm supporters of the FEI Nations Cup™ Eventing since its inception in 2012, and the leading nation last year, brings another strong group including Boekelo winner Nicola Wilson, plus fellow European squad members Izzy Taylor, Laura Collett and Gemma Tattersall. Ireland has also entered a strong squad, which includes all four members of the team that produced a stunning performance to win the final event at Boekelo (NED) last year, and Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden will field teams.
First for USA
There are eight legs at CIC3* level in this year’s FEI Nations Cup™ Eventing, including a brand new addition in the USA at The Plains, Virginia on 8-10 July.
This event will also serve as one of the final trials for the US Olympic Eventing team and other nations with just a month to go to the Rio 2016 Olympic Games, the first Games to be held in South America.
Team experience
The FEI Nations Cup™ Eventing was designed to help national coaches give valuable team experience to up-and-coming riders. Last year, 15 nations contested the series which culminated in a thrilling finale at Boekelo.
This year, the series will be of particular value in view of the forthcoming Rio 2016 Olympic Games, and the athletes will be able to get a flavour of the Olympic Cross Country Course Designer’s style as Pierre Michelet (FRA) is also officiating at Fontainebleau this weekend.
“The FEI Nations Cup™ Eventing continues to go from strength to strength as national coaches realise how useful it is for evaluating and preparing riders for championships,” said Catrin Norinder, FEI Director, Olympic & Eventing. “As it is an Olympic year, I would expect the series to be even better supported and more competitive. We are in for a really exciting season.”
Follow the action at Fontainebleau with live results on http://www.thecrazyride.fr.
The Perfect 2016 World Team Table Tennis Championships was the most social & digital of all time, smashing all the records set in 2015.
#ITTFWorlds2016, which was held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in the start of March reached over 48.5 million people across ITTF’s social & digital platform.
ITTF’s Promotion & Media Manager Matt POUND stated: “It is satisfying seeing that our carefully laid out strategies resulted in figures that exceeded all our expectations across all of our social & digital media platforms. This proves the incredible global appetite for international table tennis, and we will now think of new and innovate ways to engage our fans and increase these figures even more.”
ITTF’s Facebook page (Facebook.com/ITTFWorld) was the star performer, achieving 19,756,881 total reach, and close to 34 million impressions on the ITTF Facebook page, doubling the feat recorded in Suzhou.
Event posts on the ITTF twitter account (@ITTFWorld) left over 2 million twitter impressions, while on the ITTF’s Sina Weibo, the Chinese hybrid between Facebook and Twitter, relevant posts using the official hashtag alone, reached over 5.4 million people.
With 248 videos created for the 8 days of competition, viewers from 144 countries tuned in to followed the world’s biggest table tennis event on the ITTF Youtube channel (YouTube.com/ITTFChannel), resulting in 3 million views on the platform.
ITTF.com/itTV, ITTF’s free online streaming platform, which lived streamed eight tables from Kuala Lumpur, saw 735,500 unique visitors accessing the platform to watch the world’s best teams battle for the Championships title, live and on demand.
Over the 8 days of the Championships, 351.44 million hits were recorded on the ITTF.com, where 3,717,648 unique visitors accessed the ITTF page for results and updates about the World Championships.
Other than breakthroughs on the ITTF’s social media platforms, which now has 1.3 million fans, the 2016 World Championships also broke TV ratings in China and Japan on the last day, where the final showdown between Team China and Team Japan happened.
The 2016 World Championships once again proved that table tennis remains a massive sport in China, where a total of 190 million people in China alone tuned in to watch the event live on CCTV5. An average of 22 million people tuned into CCTV5 to watch the Men’s Final between China & Japan, and 60 million people watched at least 1 minute of the match that China won to become the World Team Champions.
In Japan, rights holder TV Tokyo received a record 15% market share for TV viewers in Japan for the Women’s Final, which is close to a record for the network for Sunday night viewing.
With the 500 accredited media working on site to spread news about the World Championships to the rest of the world, over 15,000 articles were written on the event, reaching millions of readers worldwide.
Breaking these media figures will be the target for next year’s World Table Tennis Championships to be held in Dusseldorf, Germany from 29 May to 5 June 2017.
#ITTFWorlds2016 Media Stats:
Countries that broadcasted the event live on TV: 90
CCTV viewers: 190 million
ITTF.com unique visitors over 8 days: 3,717,648
ITF.com hits: 351,440,511
itTV unique visitors over 8 days: 735,500
728 matches on itTV
People who saw content on ITTF’s Facebook: 19,756,881
Youtube views: 3 million
Countries that watched content on ITTF’s Youtube: 144
Minutes watched on Youtube: 14,031,654 minutes
Accredited media: 500
Media articles: 15,000
Experienced Delta Force forced their way past the Nigeria Immigration team 62-37 on Wednesday morning to continue their unbeaten start to the 2016 Zenith bank Women Basketball league.
Powered by forward Uju Agbotan’s 23 points and 4 rebounds and 10 points apiece from Esther Igben and Ogoh Bolum, the South-South Queens pulled an unassailable lead against their opponents from the blast of the whistle, running through the 1st quarter with 26-8. Immigration put up a fight in the 2nd quarter limiting Delta force to just 12 points but poor execution on offence meant they themselves put up just 6 points in the quarter.
The 3rd and 4th quarters saw delta Force maintain the status quo with the scores at 13-6, 11-7 respectively, completing a Delta Force dominance. As they retained the 2nd place position in group A behind champions Dolphins.
In other results of the day Nasarawa Amazons defeated Taraba Hurricanes 43-32, while Oluyole babes continued their search for their first win of the campaign, they fell to AHIP Queens of Kano 37-46. FCT Angels came from behind to defeat Sunshine Angels 32-30 in the clash of Angels and GT2000 overcame Zamfara Babes 84-64.
Thursday Fixtures
GT2000 vs Oluyole babes
Plateau Rocks vs Nasarawa Amazons
Delta Force vs Zamfara Babes
Sunshine Angels vs Coal city Queens
Customs vs immigration
Benue Princess vs FCT Angels
First bank vs IGP Queens
Dolphins vs First Deepwater
Following a thorough investigation into results from the three-star Dressage event at Lier (BEL), the FEI has found evidence of nationalistic judging in favour of a Ukrainian athlete, Inna Logutenkova, by two Ukrainian judges in the Grand Prix Special test on 2 March 2016.
As a result, the FEI Dressage Committee, with the full support of the FEI Executive Board, has ruled that the results from the CDI3* Grand Prix Special will not count towards the Olympic and World Rankings.
In addition, the FEI Executive Board has agreed that it will recommend to the FEI Bureau support of the Dressage Committee in reviewing the judging by establishing a working group composed of Committee members and external experts who will look into and supply proposals to address these matters.
“This was a clear example of nationalistic judging and the FEI takes this very seriously”, FEI Secretary General Sabrina Ibáñez said. “The FEI has a duty to take the appropriate measures if it is shown that nationalistic judging has occurred.
“Judging at all FEI events must be absolutely fair and the integrity of the competitions and of the judges themselves must be beyond reproach.”
As a result of the removal of the Lier Grand Prix Special results, the final allocation of quota places for the Rio 2016 Olympic Games has now been completed.
Two Team Nigeria junior players had their games polished with the latest techniques in tennis by former Nigerian tennis star, Sadiq Abdullahi as Nigeria continues its quest to unleash future tennis superstars.
The duo of Toyin Asogba and Venus Ubiebi were drilled for a week by Abdullahi at the Ricc Macci Tennis Academy, Boca Raton, Florida. The players also took some coaching tips from Abdul Adi, a former Nigerian player who is an academy coach in the United States at his base in Bradenton, Miami.
The week-long training tour, was facilitated by Aces Tennis Services.
Nigeria junior tennis assistant coach Abel Ubiebi also benefited from the tour after sessions with a couple of top junior coaches in the US. “It was a wonderful and unforgettable experience for me as well as the players. We were exposed to so many things which would help in the development of tennis particularly from the aspect of coaching.
“We had good discussion and ideas on developing tennis in Nigeria,” expressed Ubiebi, who alongside Stella Epego were part of the coaching staff of Team Nigeria at the 2016 West & Central African qualifiers for the African Junior Championship in Abuja last January.
Asogba was a silver medalist at the 2015 African Junior Circuit held in Lome Togo and also featured at the 2016 West & Central African Championship qualifier where she lost to Angel McLeod in the quarterfinal to miss out of the recently held 39th ITF/CAT African Junior Championships in Pretoria, South Africa.
Venus on her part failed to make the final 16-man team from the 32 players that were invited to camp.
Alongside Nduka Odizor, David Imonitie and Tony Nmoh; Abdullahi put Nigeria’s name on the global map of tennis in the 80’s through the early 90’s. He represented Nigeria at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul. The right-hander reached his highest singles ATP-ranking on October 14, 1985, when he became the number 262 of the world.
* Women’s Softball Top 10 features Americas, Asia, Europe, and Oceania
* Men’s Softball Top 10 features Asia, Europe, North, Central and South America, and Oceania
The World Baseball Softball Confederation today launched the first-ever world rankings for softball, across both men’s and women’s disciplines. The newly implemented world ranking system tracks the performance of a country’s National Team in the Softball World Championships, including junior and top-tier levels, over a three-year period.
The WBSC Softball Competitions Commission carried out the assignment of extensively reviewing, developing and introducing an initial world ranking system. This task force will continue to study the best method for the ongoing expansion of the world rankings to include multi-sport events, regional championships, head-to-heads and other WBSC-recognised international competitions in which WBSC’s 141 Members worldwide participate.
“These new softball world rankings mark another major milestone in the history of our global sport,” said WBSC Softball Division President Dale McMann. “These rankings not only provide a benchmarking tool for nations to construct and evaluate their strategic/development plans, but they also give the players and fans a new and exciting way to express the pride of their country through sport.”
Japan and New Zealand rank No. 1 in the new WBSC Softball World Rankings in women’s and men’s, respectively.
Japan is now the top-ranked country across both women’s softball and men’s baseball — events that could potentially be re-introduced and generate massive nationwide interest and strengthen host nation, as well as worldwide, engagement for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Japan’s top ranking and success on the world stage comes as baseball/softball is the country’s top sport, in terms of youth participation, popularity, fan-attendance, broadcast/media coverage and existing infrastructure.
Women’s Softball World Rankings
Asia, the Americas, Europe and Oceania are all represented in the Women’s Top 10, highlighting a universal footprint of the sport.
The Japan National Softball Team programme has secured the No. 1 ranking (1560 pts), elevated by gold medals at both the 2012 and 2014 Women’s Softball World Championship.
Trailing leader Japan by just 60 points is the United States (1500 pts). The U.S. Women’s National Team captured the silver medal at the world championships in 2012 and 2014, while the U.S. is the current Junior Women’s world champion.
Australia (1300 pts), Oceania’s top representative, is the World No. 3.
Canada is the World No. 4, with 1280 points, while Chinese Taipei, with 1080 points, is No. 5.
Europe is showcased in the Top 10 by No. 7 Netherlands (880 pts) and No. 9 Italy (760 pts).
No. 17 Botswana (180 pts) is Africa’s top-ranked nation on the continent.
Men’s Softball World Rankings
Four continental regions are featured in the Men’s Top 10, including Oceania, the Americas (North, Central, and South Americas), Asia, and Europe.
New Zealand, “the Black Sox”, is the World No. 1, with 1340 points after winning the 2013 Men’s Softball World Championship and placing second at the 2014 juniors and 2015 men’s world championships.
Canada (1220 pts) captured the 2015 men’s world title and is ranked No. 2, followed by No. 3 Australia (1140 pts) and No. 4 Venezuela (1080 pts).
World No. 7 Czech Republic (720 pts) and No. 10 Great Britain (460 pts) place Europe firmly within the Top 10.
No. 16 South Africa (100 pts) is Africa’s top representative in the world rankings.
The top international softball competitions on the 2016 calendar are the Women’s World Championship in Surrey, Canada and the Junior Men’s World Championship in Midland, USA in July.
There was immense joy and excitement when the Super Eagles duo, Chisom Chikatara and skipper Austin Obaroakpo returned to the Abia Warriors Camp in Umuahia after they were not considered for the 2017 Africa Nations Cup double header against the Pharaohs of Egypt by the Super Eagles Interim coach, Samson Siasia.
As soon as the final list was released, in Abuja both Abia Warriors players jetted back to Umuahia with the next available flight and the camp exploded in ecstasy when they were seen by their colleagues.
The duo later participated in the evening training session where they gave a good account of themselves.
Speaking to Abia Warriors website, both players said they had no hard feelings about the decision of the National Team handlers to drop them and wished the Super Eagles well in the double header.
According to Chikatara, who certified himself 100 per cent fit, the players who were chosen by Coach Siasia are good enough to handle Egypt in both qualifiers, adding that he would continue to work hard in order to get future call-ups.
“All of us cannot play for Nigeria at the same time, so I will wait for another opportunity to play for my fatherland” Chikatara, who has been acquired by Morocco’s Wydad Casablanca, said.
He disclosed that all his attention is now focused on helping Abia Warriors achieve success in the domestic League beginning with the week eight mid-week clash against Wikki Tourists of Bauchi in Umuahia.
Obaroakpo, on his own, said in as much as he was physically, mentally and psychologically ready for the Egypt match, he has no hard feelings for being drooped, adding that it is the dream of every player to don the Country’s National Team colours.
He believed the door is not closed for him in the Super Eagles and thanked the organizers for the invitation extended to him in the first place.
The Abia Warriors Captain also said his attention is now focused on how to help his beloved Club grab the league diadem or at least pick a continental ticket at the end of the season.
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