India enter SAFF final with 1-0 win
Kathmandu: Young stopper Arnab Mondal scored his maiden international goal as defending champions India beat Maldives 1-0 to enter the final of the SAFF Football Championship for the ninth time here on Monday. The win, which Wim Koevermans' boys achieved without their skipper Sunil Chhetri, meant that India made it to their fifth successive final in the tournament and will meet Afghanistan in the final on Wednesday. Mondal, the lad from Kolkata's Behala region, was a bundle of nerves throughout the match but turned out to be an unlikely hero in the end with a delightful strike. The winner came in the 85th minute when Mehtab Hossain's corner from the right flank was neatly headed down by Syed Rahim Nabi and Mondal, who had joined the attack, struck a powerful angular right-footer that crashed into the net.
‘Squash still has a great future’
New Delhi: Despite being ‘devastated’ by the IOC decision to choose wrestling ahead of squash as an additional sport to join the 2020 Olympic programme, the Professional Squash Association (PSA) today stressed that the sport has a ‘great future’. “We are obviously devastated, not only for the whole sport and squash fans everywhere, but for the players, current and future that have worked so hard for this,” said PSA CEO Alex Gough. “We can be very proud of the efforts of everyone and none more so than our world number one Ramy Ashour, who has put in so much time into the bid process,” he said. It was at yesterday’s meeting of the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires that squash – shortlisted with wrestling and baseball/softball as one of three sports being considered for addition to the 2020 Olympic programme, and the only one never to have been in the Games before – lost out to wrestling.
IOC awaits lance’s medal return
Buenos Aires: The International Olympic Committee (IOC) are awaiting the return of disgraced American cyclist lance Armstrong’s Olympic bronze medal from the 2000 Games in Sydney nine months after they asked for it back, the head of the IOC’s judicial commission, Thomas Bach, revealed on Monday. The IOC had written to Armstrong -- who was third in the time-trial event in Sydney -- in January to ask him hand back the medal, but Bach admitted that while the cyclist had accepted the punishment he had yet to honour his promise to return the medal.
SC notice to cricket board
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Monday issued notice to the Indian cricket board, the Cricket Association of Bengal and others on a plea seeking strict enforcement of laws to prevent spectators from showing disrespect to the national flag during matches. Petitioner Kamal Dey, an editor of a Bengali newspaper, sought the strict observance of the statutory directions enumerated in “The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, Flag Code of India, 2002 and other provisions of the constitution to check alleged slippage in display of the national flag by the spectators during cricket matches.
PNS/Agencies