2 CHENNAISportsFRIDAY11 AUGUST 2017

London, Aug 11:Among the eight sprinters lined up at the start of the

world 200 metres fi nal and the 56,000 people in the crowd watching, only one man probably thought Ramil Guliyev would be the winner, and that was the Azerbaijani-born Turk himself.

His faith was fully justifi ed as 20.09 seconds later he crossed the line ahead of a host of favoured rivals to take the gold medal that had been the property of Usain Bolt since 2009.

Wayde van Niekerk, seeking a 400/200m double had to settle for silver in 20.11, a thousandth of a second ahead of Jereem Richards of Trinidad and Tobago.

The result was universally acclaimed as a shock but Guliyev, who became a Turkish citizen in 2011 and was cleared to represent his new country in 2013, was having none of it.

‘This is not a shock,’ he said. ‘I have shown my best throughout this competition. I delivered my best race at the right time.’

‘I was competing against some of the best athletes in the world, so it didn’t bother me that the atten-tion was on them. Maybe at the next competition everyone will look at me instead.’

They certainly will and they probably should have been looking a little closer this time.

Whenever people questioned Bolt’s amazing times his supporters pointed to his remark-able performances as a teenager, particularly his junior 200m world record of 19.93.

It would have been a tough quiz question before Thurs-day to name the second-fastest junior ever, but it was Guliyev, who posted 20.04 as a 19-year-old when representing Az-erbaijan.

Nagpur, Aug 11In a much-anticipated southern der-

by match of the Pro Kabaddi league yesterday at Nagpur, debutants Tamil Thalaivas took on Bengaluru Bulls by the horns to score their maiden victory of the season 29-24 and avenged their one point defeat against the same team during their last encounter.

The match brought back memories of the good old days of the CSK vs RCB rivalry as both the team played with their hearts out. Both teams played cautiously in the beginning and attacked mainly in do-or-die raids.

In the first few minutes, scores stayed equal but Bengaluru Bulls kept taking out the Tamil Thalaivas players as Rohit shone in his raids. It looked like the Thalaivas would face a fi rst half all-out before D. Pradap, the only Thalaivas player left on the mat, rose to the occasion and pre-vented it by raiding successfully. He and C. Arun then super tackled Rohit to put the pressure back on the Bulls.

Dong Geon Lee, brought in as substitute raided successfully for the

Thalaivas and that brought the Bulls on the brink of an all-out. The teams went into the break with 12-8 score in favour of Tamil Thalaivas.

Bengaluru Bulls couldn’t prevent the all-out in the second half and conceded a 16-9 advantage to Tamil Thalaivas.

Looking for blood, Rohit led the charge for the Bulls and raced to another Super 10, fi nally infl icting an all-out in the process. But the Thalai-vas still had a lead.

The scores could have been lev-elled in the 19th minute but a suc-cessful Tamil Thalaivas review meant that they retained their slender lead. With the score at 28-24 in the clos-ing seconds and Ajay Kumar on the attack, the Bulls hoped for another miracle from the young raider but it was not to be. He got dashed out in a strong defensive effort and the Thalaivas emerged victorious.

In the other match Pune took on Jaipur. The game was intensely

fought from the very fi rst minute. After a series of do or die raids, Jaipur got back their foothold through Jasvir Singh and the solid defence to end the half leading 14-11, with just a lone Paltan player remaining on the other side.

The second half started with the fi rst all-out of the match as Pune suf-fered the inevitable. Narwal picked up a super raid for Pune in the 30th minute to keep his team in the game. Chhillar, meanwhile, pulled a super tackle on Hooda to increase their lead. They picked up quick points to keep Jaipur’s lead within reach.

Inter School T20 Tournament

NT BureauChennai, July 11:

Indian Bank launched its fi rst Inter School T20 cricket tournament for schools in the city. The tournament will see 16 teams taking part in it and will be held between 16 and 22 August at the Loyola College grounds in Nungambakkam.

The matches will be played on a league cum knock-out basis. The win-ners and runner-up will be presented with trophies and prizes will also be given for man of the match and man of the series.

Schools taking part in the tourna-ment are Bhavan’s Rajaji Vidh-yashram, St Bede’s Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Muslim Higher Secondary School, SBOA (Anna Nagar), Bla Vidya Mandir, Nel-lai Nadar Higher Secondary School, St Patricks Anglo Indian Higher Secondary School, Santhome Higher Secondary School, Government Higher Secondary School, Chettinad Vidhyashram, P S Senior Second-ary School, Vidya Mandir, Padma Seshadri Bala Brindavan, Modern Senior Secondary School, Madras Christian College Higher Secondary School and PSBB Millennium School.

NT BureauChennai, Aug 11:

Heavy thunderstorms played spoil sport for the game between Lyca Kovai Kings and Madurai Super Giant at the NPR College Ground in Natham. With the washout, MSG fi nally have opened their account on the points table.

Kovai and Madurai split points after several inspections and two attempts at drying the wet outfi eld proved worthless. The game was offi cially called off at 9.45pm. No ball was bowled, not even the toss took place.

For Murali Vijay however, his return to the league had to wait

until the next outing for Kovai. Vijay has been away from tour-naments since March this year due to injury. Also, Kovai has not played a single game at the NPR ground.

Kovai remains in sixth place with four points. They need to win their remaining couple of matches to qualify for the play-offs. Madurai on the other hand, stay dead last.

Kovai have two matches re-maining at the MA Chidambaram Stadium against VB Thiruvallur Veerans and Ruby Trichy War-riors. Madurai’s last match is against the unstoppable Albert TuTi Patriots at Natham.

NT BureauChennai, August 11:

Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd, a men’s wear brand, Montra, the sub-brand of TI cycles Ltd and Choos-eMyBicycle.com together launched a cycling series christined as ‘The Champions Sportive Series’ in Chen-nai. The announcement along with the unveiling of shield was done by chairman and MD of Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd, Venky Rajagopal in the presence of TI Cycles Ltd marketing head, Kailash S, ChooseMyBicycle.com CEO Rohit Kuttappa and ISUZU Motors India Pvt Ltd, senior general manager of external affairs Capt J Shankar Srinivas.

Speaking on the occasion, chair-man and MD of Indian Terrain Fash-ions Ltd, Venky Rajagopal, said, ‘The Champions Sportive Series is a competitive cycling event for amateur cyclists, spread across eight cities in India. The event format is split into two parts comprising of a competitive leg (100km race) and non-competi-tive part of the event (50km ride). The

top three winners (Men and Women) from the competitive leg from each city, will get a chance to ride at ‘The Champions Sportive Series Grand Finale’ in Delhi, against the winners

from all eight cities. The event is conducted in line with international sportive standards, and will boast of the best of safety and ride measures across the routes.’

‘Indian Terrain believes in a ‘Life-style’ which has well being and fi t-ness as integral to the persona of our consumer. In perusing this belief, we are partnering with ‘Choose My Bicycle’ to sponsor the Champions Sportive Series and we believe that this will spread the awareness of the sport for both fi tness and doing our bit to reduce our community’s carbon foot print,’ he added.

TI Cycles Ltd marketing head, Kailash S, said, ‘Montra’s vision is to make performance cycling acces-sible to all. Through the Champions Sportive event, we want to create a platform for amateur cyclists to expe-rience competitive cycling.’

‘The growth of cycling as a sport over the years has been phenom-enal. We consider The Champi-ons Sportive Series as the ideal platform for motivated amateur cyclists across India to part-take in this eight city cycling championship, towards the endeavor of positioning cycling as a mainstream sport for all,’ added ChooseMyBicycle.com

CEO Rohit Kuttappa.Finally, ISUZU Motors India Pvt Ltd,

senior general manager of external affairs Capt J Shankar Srinivas, said, ‘Fitness is an essential part of a healthy lifestyle and this trend is fast catching up in India. Cycling has taken a lead in the minds of health conscious people. Cycling is not only a good fi tness pastime but is equally refl ective of an adventurous outdoor attitude to explore nature.’

The Champion Sportive schedule is as follows. Silicon Valley Sportive (Bangalore) on 20 August, Aravalli Sportive (Gurgaon) on 27 August, Grand Delhi Sportive (Delhi) on 3 September, Golconda Sportive (Hy-derabad) on 10 September, Seven Islands Sportive (Mumbai) on 17 September, Deccan Sportive (Pune) on 24 September. Madras Superstar Sportive (Chennai) on 8 October, Indus Valley Sportive (Chandigarh) on 15 October and Champions Spor-tive’s (Grand Finale - Delhi) will be fi nalised soon. Participants can reg-ister at: www.championsportive.com

BLOOD, SWEAT AND CHEERS� Ramil Guliyev shocks the world by winning 200m final � Wayde van Niekerk settles for silver

FROM THE OUTSIDEAmerican Kori Carter pulled off another of the

growing number of shocks at the World Champi-onships by achieving the rare feat of winning the 400 metres hurdles title from the outside lane.

All eyes had been on Carter’s U.S. team mate, Olympic champion Dalilah Muhammad, who had been the strong favourite, but it was the former American champion in lane nine who maintained her form best to race to victory in 53.07 seconds.

Muhammad, the fastest woman in the world this year, earned the silver in 53.50 to complete an American one-two while Jamaican Ristananna Tracey, an Olympic fi nalist last year, took the bronze in a lifetime best 53.74.

Czech Zuzana Hejnova, who had been seeking to achieve an unprecedented third successive one-lap hurdles victory, had to settle for fourth, being overhauled by Tracey on the run-in despite clocking a season’s best 54.20.

FOCUSED AND READY

Shaunae Miller-Uibo put her 400 metres disap-pointment behind her to power into the 200m fi nal at the World Championships on Thursday, saying she had simply lost her balance in the showpiece race the day before.

The Bahamian came from behind in the last 60 metres to win the second heat in a time of 22.49 seconds and qualify second fastest behind Dafne Shippers of the Netherlands for Friday’s fi nal.

She then explained what had happened 24 hours earlier when she stumbled 15 metres from the line with a comfortable lead in the 400m fi nal and dropped to fi fth. Schippers remained on course to become the fi rst Dutch athlete to win successive world titles as the defend-ing champion won the opening heat, ahead of American Deajah Stevens.

HUGE THROWGermany’s Johannes Vetter

and Thomas Rohler will take their burgeoning javelin rivalry into a potentially riveting fi nal at the World Athletics Cham-pionships after achieving the automatic qualifying mark on Thursday.

Yet the pair, who have this season both produced throws that have only ever been bet-tered by the great Czech Jan Zelezny, surpassed the 83 metres qualifying standard in contrasting style.

Vetter, who moved to second on the all-time list last month with a 94.44 metres effort in Lucerne, produced another fi ne throw of 91.20 metres at the fi rst attempt to power into Sat-urday’s fi nal as the top qualifi er.

against some of the best athletes idn’t bother me that the atten-

Maybe at the next competition at me instead.’l and they probably should a little closer this time.questioned Bolt’s amazing

s pointed to his remark-s as a teenager, ior 200m world

en a tough ore Thurs-

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KENYAN CHARGEFour Kenyans with eyes on

1,500 metres medals the three fastest men in the world this year and the one seeking a fourth successive title all quali-fied from first-round heats, though not without a scare for one of them.

Triple defending champion Abel Kiprop, aiming to match the four successive titles world record-holder Hicham El Guer-rouj took from 1997-2003, showed that he is not about to hand over his title without a fi ght.

Kiprop went all the way to the line just behind Elijah Manan-goi, silver medallist two years ago and the world leader this year with three minutes 28.80, in a mass fi nish to the fi rst heat.

The two 21-year-old pretend-ers of the Kenyan team had contrasting nights as Timo-thy Cheruiyot went through strongly in second place in the third heat while Ronald Kwemoi snatched the sixth and last fast-loser slot.

Tamil Thalaivas tames Bengaluru bulls� Tamilnadu beats Karnataka in thriller

Bengaluru Bulls couldn’t prevent the all-out in the second half and conceded a 16-9

advantage to Tamil Thalaivas.

National cycling series launched� Event to take place on 8 Oct in city � Two part race: 100 and 50 km

Chairman and MD of Indian Terrain Fashions Ltd, Venky Rajagopal un-veiling the jerseys of Indian Terrain’s The Champion Sportive series in the presence of ChooseMyBicycle.com CEO Rohit Kuttappa, TI Cycles Ltd marketing head, Kailash S, and ISUZU Motors India Pvt Ltd, senior general manager of external affairs, Capt J Shankar Srinivas.

Madurai opens their account

� Rain helps Super Giant earn a point

Kori Carter

Shaunae Miller-Uibo

Johannes Vetter

Abel Kiprop

Amit Hooda received the Moment of the Match award.