ARAB TIMES, FRIDAY, AUGUST 28, 2015

40SPORTS

ASTANA, Kazakhstan, Aug27, (AFP): Tina Trstenjakwon Slovenia’s first everworld title as Japan continuedto dominate the world cham-pionships in Kazakhstan onThursday.

Trstenjak beat reigning champi-on Clarisse Agbegnenou in theunder-63kg final to gain revengefor her defeat to theFrenchwoman in the Europeangold medal encounter last year.

And after one silver and sevenbronze medals since their independ-ence from the old Yugoslavia, it wasa first world title for Slovenia.

But Japan continue to set thebenchmark a year out from theOlympic Games in Rio de Janeiro asTakanori Nagase won the men’sunder-81kg division.

Japan suffered a humiliating weekin London three years ago when thecountry that gave birth to the sportflopped at the Olympics.

Their men failed to win a singlegold medal and only KaoriMatsumoto saved face with victoryin the women’s under-57kg category.

She won her second world title inAstana on Wednesday and will be aclear favourite in Rio.

But in traditional Japan it is theperformance of the men that mattersmost.

And it has been so far so good forthe country that usually dominatesthe lightweight divisions.

A day after Shohei Ono beat com-patriot Riki Nakaya to win under-73kg gold, 21-year-old Nagase upset2013 world champion Loic Petri ofFrance to claim Japan’s first everworld title at under-81kg.

Nagase distracted Petri in groundfighting by manoeuvring for an arm-lock before switching into a hold.

He kept Petri pinned on his backlong enough to score the maximumippon — equivalent to a knock-out inboxing.

It was sweet revenge for Nagase,who lost to Petri a year ago inMoscow for bronze.

Japan’s men have two gold, a silverand a bronze medal from the four cat-egories so far disputed, although theirbig men rarely match the light-weights’ results.

Their women have fared ever soslightly better with Misato Nakamuraadding under-52kg gold toMatsumoto’s title while a silver andtwo bronze medals have also beengarnered.

With four gold and nine medals intotal so far, Japan have already virtu-ally assured they will finish top of themedals pile.

Yet Trstenjak did her best to hogsome of the limelight with her firstever gold medal from a major tourna-ment.

The Slovenian, who turned 25three days ago, scored the winninghalf-point waza-ari score with adropping shoulder-throw (seoi-nage).

Agbegnanou, 22, the big favourite,could not find an answer and took hersecond world silver medal after alsoreaching the final in 2013 in Rio,before triumphing in Moscow 12months ago.

Trstenjak had taken bronze lastyear and earnt European silvermedals the last two years.

Israel’s Yarden Gerbi, the 2013world champion, was surprisinglybeaten for bronze by MunkhzayaTsedevsuren of Mongolia, havingearlier lost to close friendAgbegnenou in the semi-final.

The second bronze medal wentto Miku Tashiro of Japan, who lostto Agbegnenou in the quarter-finals.

In the under-81kg division,Georgia’s 2014 champion AvtandilTchrikishvili lost to Victor Penalberof Brazil for bronze with Canada’sAntoine Valois-Fortier taking theother bronze medal, beating LeeSeung-su of South Korea, adding tohis silver last year and bronze at the2012 Olympics.

Japan dominate championships

Trstenjak makes Slovenia history

Slovenia’s Tina Trstenjak (left), competes against France’s Clarisse Agbegnenou in the women’s 63kg final at the World Judo Championships in Astana,Kazakhstan, on Aug 27. (Inset): Gold medalist Tina Trstenjak poses with her medal following the women’s 63kg category competition. (AP/AFP)

Froome 55 seconds behind

Chaves claims sixth stage, recovers leadSIERRA DE CAZORLA, Spain, Aug 27,(AFP): Colombia’s Esteban Chavesregained the lead of Spain’s Vuelta byclaiming his second victory of the race inThursday’s sixth stage.

Chaves attacked for the line with justover two kilometres left on the 200.3 kmride from Cordoba to Sierra de Cazorla totake victory from Ireland’s Dan Martinand overnight leader Tom Dumoulin of theNetherlands in a time of 4hr 46min 16sec.

The Orica-GreenEdge rider now holdsa 10 second advantage over Dumoulinwith Martin 33 seconds back in third.

Chris Froome and the Movistar duo ofNairo Quintana and Alejandro Valverde allfinished with the same time 11 seconds back.

Froome, who is aiming to become justthe third man to win the Tour de Franceand the Vuelta in the same year, is now 55seconds behind Chaves in seventh.

Valverde remains fifth, 49 secondsback, with Quintana in ninth a furthereight seconds behind.

“We have already done big things inwinning two stages,” said Chaves whenasked if he could rival the likes of Froomeand Quintana for the overall victory.

“We need to enjoy this moment and haveour feet on the ground. There are still a lotof stages to go and very tough stages at that.

“I need to thank the team who have doneincredible work. All the team are having agreat tour. Yesterday, Caleb (Ewan) wontoo so we are all very happy in the team.”

Chaves, 25, had claimed his first GrandTour victory on Sunday’s second stage andheld the leader’s red jersey until Wednesdaywhen Dumoulin edged ahead by a second.

However, his desire to recoup the leadwas clear to see as he left the racefavourites in his wake on the tough cate-gory three climb to the finish.

After a fast-paced opening 75km a break-away group of six was eventually formed,but they were never allowed to gain muchground on the peloton with their biggestlead restricted to under five minutes.

Britain’s Steve Cummings then tried toreplicate his victory on stage 14 of theTour de France earlier this year as heattacked on his own with 11km to go.

Yet, Cummings didn’t have the legs forthe final steep climb to the finish and waseasily caught by Chaves as he sped awayfrom the chasing pack to victory.

Dumoulin tried to respond to maintainthe red jersey, but could only managethird as he was passed by Martin in thefinal few metres.

Friday’s 191.1km seventh stage from

(From left): France’s silver medalist Loic Pietri, Japan’s gold medalist TakanoriNagase and bronze medalists Canada’s Antoine Valois Fortier and Brazil’sVictor Penalber pose with their medals following the men’s 81kg category

competition at the Judo World Championships in Astana on Aug 27. (AFP)

JUDO

Burrell out

Burgess no WC‘gamble’: coachLONDON, Aug 27, (AFP): SamBurgess’s inclusion in England’sfinal 31-man World Cup squad wasno selection “gamble”, coachStuart Lancaster insisted onThursday after including the centrejust 10 months since the dynamicball-carrier changed codes fromrugby league.

Burgess, the man-of-the-matchin South Sydney Rabbitohs’ win inthe Australian National RugbyLeague Grand Final, was includedin tournament hosts England’ssquad having played just 70 min-utes of Test rugby union — hisdebut in a 19-14 win over France atTwickenham a fortnight ago seeinghim sin-binned for 10 minutes.

The 26-year-old edged out themore experienced Luther Burrellfor a place among Lancaster’s cen-tres even though Burgess spentmuch of last season playing as aback-row forward for Bath.

With so little evidence of his Testability, many will view Burgess’sinclusion as a risk.

Meanwhile, England backscoach Andy Farrell, who himselfchanged codes from rugby leagueto play in the 2007 World Cup withEngland, beaten in the final of thatedition by South Africa in Paris,said Burgess “should be unbeliev-ably proud of himself” in forcingthe Red Rose management to pickhim for the World Cup.

But prior to Lancaster’sannouncement, former Englandcaptain and centre Will Carling castdoubt on the wisdom of includingBurgess.

Henry Slade, who alsoimpressed on his debut againstFrance at Twickenham, was alsoincluded in midfield alongsideBurgess — although JonathanJoseph and Brad Barritt appear tobe England’s first-choice centres.

Ben Morgan, who has onlyplayed 40 minutes’ rugby, againstFrance, since breaking his leg inJanuary, was included among theback-row forwards withHarlequins veteran Nick Eastermissing out, while Sale fly-halfDanny Cipriani also failed to makethe final squad.

England, again set to be cap-tained by flanker Chris Robshaw,begin the World Cup against Fiji atTwickenham on September 18,having been drawn in a toughgroup also featuring Australia andWales.

As a result, one of rugby union’smajor nations will fail to make thelast eight as only the top two teamsfrom each pool qualify for the quar-ter-finals.

England, beaten 25-20 by Francein Paris last weekend, concludetheir warm-up campaign againstIreland at Twickenham on Sept 5.

England World Cup squadBacks (14)Back three: Mike Brown

(Harlequins), Alex Goode(Saracens), Jonny May(Gloucester), Jack Nowell (Exeter),Anthony Watson (Bath)

Centres: Brad Barritt(Saracens), Sam Burgess (Bath),Jonathan Joseph (Bath), HenrySlade (Exeter)

Fly-halves: Owen Farrell(Saracens), George Ford (Bath)

Scrum-halves: Danny Care(Harlequins), RichardWigglesworth (Saracens), BenYoungs (Leicester)

Forwards (17)Back-rows: James Haskell

(Wasps), Ben Morgan (Gloucester),Chris Robshaw (Harlequins, capt),Billy Vunipola (Saracens), TomWood (Northampton)

Second-rows: George Kruis(Saracens), Joe Launchbury(Wasps), Courtney Lawes(Northampton), Geoff Parling(Exeter)

Props: Kieran Brookes(Northampton), Dan Cole(Leicester), Joe Marler(Harlequins), Mako Vunipola(Saracens), David Wilson (Bath)

Hookers: Jamie George(Saracens), Rob Webber (Bath),Tom Youngs (Leicester)

RUGBY

Orica GreenEdge’s Colombian cyclist Esteban Chaves celebrates winning thesixth stage of the 2015 Vuelta Espana cycling tour, a 200.3km stage between

Cordoba and Cazorla on Aug 27. (AFP)

Japan vows new venuelist after stadium fiascoTOKYO, Aug 27, (AFP): Japan prom-ised Thursday a new list of venues forthe 2019 World Cup after rugby’sgoverning body demanded fresh plansin the wake of the proposed nationalstadium being scrapped.

The pledge came in response toWorld Rugby issuing a strongly-word-ed statement saying it was giving theJapanese hosts until the end ofSeptember to come up with a “reviseddetailed host venue proposal” as organ-isers scramble to find a replacement.

The governing body has alsorequested a fresh tournament budgetthat supplies “appropriate financialsecurity”.

Last month, Japan’s PrimeMinister Shinzo Abe shocked WorldRugby when he scrapped expensiveplans for the national stadium for the2020 Olympics.

The venue had also been sched-uled to host Rugby World Cupmatches in 2019, including the show-piece final.

But Abe said the $2 billion cost of thestadium was too high and a new designshould be found. As a result, any newstadium will not be ready by 2019.

Tharanga to replace Sangakkara

New-look pitch leaves India, Lanka guessingCOLOMBO, Aug 27, (AFP): India and Sri Lanka were left toponder the behaviour of an unusually greenish wicket as theydelayed naming their line-ups for the decisive final Test start-ing in Colombo on Friday.

The traditionally high-scoring pitch at the Sinhalese sportsclub (SSC) has undergone a dramatic change in appearancefrom a brown, flat track to a moisture-laden one that sports atinge of grass.

Sri Lankan captain Angelo Mathews refused to hazard a guess

on the relaid pitch even though the last time the hosts played aTest at the SSC a year ago, they swamped Pakistan by 105 runsto break a sequence of four successive draws since 2009.

“After being relaid the wicket has a bit more carry,” he said.“As of now, there’s a bit of grass on the wicket. You can’t reallypredict a wicket 100 per cent. We just have to play it by the ear.

“It looks a sporting wicket. We just have to play positivecricket. The batters have to look to score runs, bowlers have totake wickets. We have to get the basics right.”

The series is tied 1-1 after Sri Lankawon the opening Test in Galle by 63 runsand India drew level with a thumping278-run win in the second match at theP. Sara Oval in Colombo on Monday.

The Test marks the start of a new erain Sri Lankan cricket following theretirement of batting great KumarSangakkara from international cricketafter the second Test.

Mathews confirmed that the 134-Testveteran Sangakkara will be replaced byanother left-hander Upul Tharanga, whohas played 20 Tests, but admitted SriLanka were undecided on the rest of theteam.

“We still have not found the best com-bination,” the Sri Lankan captain toldreporters on Thursday. “WithSangakkara now retired, we’ve got anopportunity to test our players in differ-ent positions.”

A finger injury sustained by off-spin-ner Tharindu Kaushal in the second Testhas compounded Sri Lanka’s worrieswith Mathews indicating he will wait tillFriday morning to finalise the team.

India, seeking their first series win inSri Lanka in 22 years, will also notreveal their playing 11 till they hadassessed the wicket before the toss, teamdirector Ravi Shastri said.

“It’s far from being a finished productyet,” Shastri told reporters after inspect-ing the pitch before practice onThursday.

“There is still quite a bit of grass on it,but there could be another cutting ofgrass. Only then can we decide who toplay.”

India, who have not won a Test serieson the island since 1993, will be withoutthe injured trio of regular openers MuraliVijay and Shikhar Dhawan, plus wicket-keeper Wriddhiman Saha.

Shastri admitted the injuries had setthe tourists back, but insisted India willcontinue to play positive cricket likethey had done throughout the series.

“Fitness issues always hurt but noth-ing has changed from day one,” he said.“We play to win. We have got ourselvesin a position now where if we win thisTest, we will win the series which ismassive.

“There’s no point being shy of goingfor a win. At the same time, it’s not acase of being over-confident. We havegot to have the right balance and playproper cricket like we did in the last Testover five days.”

India are likely to bring in CheteshwarPujara for the first time in the series toopen the innings with Lokesh Rahul inthe absence of Dhawan and Vijay.

Uncapped 32-year-old Naman Ojha, awicketkeeper-batsman who reinforcedthe injury-hit touring squad on Monday,is set to replace Saha.

CYCLING

CRICKET

RUGBY

Jodar to La Aplujarra could also provokesignificant changes in the general classifica-tion with a category one climb to the finish.

Vuelta Stage Six ResultsStage1. Esteban Chaves (COL/ORI)

4h46min 16sec; 2. Daniel Martin(IRL/CAN) at 0:05; 3. Tom Dumoulin(NED/GIA) s.t.; 4. Ruben Plaza(ESP/LAM) 0:11.; 5. Alejandro Valverde(ESP/MOV) s.t.; 6. Joaquin Rodriguez(ESP/KAT) s.t.; 7. Chris Froome(GBR/SKY) s.t.; 8. Rafal Majka(POL/TIN) s.t.; 9. Nairo Quintana(COL/MOV) s.t.; 10. Nicolas Roche(IRL/SKY) s.t.; 11. Fabio Aru (ITA/AST)0:15; 12. Mikel Landa (ESP/AST) s.t.;13. Sergio Henao (COL/SKY) s.t.; 14.Domenico Pozzovivo (ITA/ALM) s.t.;15. Tejay Van Garderen (USA/BMC) s.t.;16. Peio Bilbao (ESP/CJR) s.t.; 17.Samuel Sanchez (ESP/BMC) s.t.; 18.Louis Meintjies (RSA/MTN) s.t.; 19.

Jose Goncalves (POR/CJR) s.t.; 20.Frank Schleck (LUX/TRE) s.t..

Overall1. Esteban Chaves (COL/ORI) 21h55min

13sec; 2. Tom Dumoulin (NED/GIA) at0:10; 3. Daniel Martin (IRL/CAN) 0:33; 4.Nicolas Roche (IRL/SKY) 0:36; 5.Alejandro Valverde (ESP/MOV) 0:49; 6.Chris Froome (GBR/SKY) 0:55; 7. DanielMoreno (ESP/KAT) s.t.; 8. JoaquinRodriguez (ESP/KAT) 0:56; 9. NairoQuintana (COL/MOV) 0:57; 10. Fabio Aru(ITA/AST) 1:12; 11. Mikel Landa(ESP/AST) 1:16; 12. Mikel Nieve(ESP/SKY) s.t.; 13. Tejay Van Garderen(USA/BMC) 1:20; 14. DomenicoPozzovivo (ITA/ALM) 1:23; 15. RafalMajka (POL/TIN) 1:29; 16. Sergio Henao(COL/SKY) 1:31; 17. Gianluca Brambilla(ITA/ETI) 1:43; 18. Luis Leon Sanchez(ESP/AST) 1:44; 19. AndrÈ Cardoso(POR/CAN) 1:54; 20. Louis Meintjies(RSA/MTN) 1:55.

Parole ‘review’set for Sept 18JOHANNESBURG, Aug 27, (RTRS):South Africa’s parole review board willmeet on Sept 18 to decide if Oscar Pistoriuscan be released early from prison, afterbeing sentenced for killing his girlfriend,ENCA television reported on Thursday.

The paralympic gold medallist was dueto be released and placed under house arrestlast Friday after serving 10 months of afive-year sentence, but the justice ministerblocked his release saying procedure hadnot been followed. The Justice Ministry andPistorius’ spokeswoman could not bereached immediately for comment.

Pistorius was found guilty last Septemberof culpable homicide, the equivalent ofmanslaughter, after he fired four 9mm shotsthrough a locked toilet door in 2013 killinghis girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.