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Monday April 2, 2018

MANCHESTER City is one win away from being crowned English Premier League (EPL) champion after a swaggering 3-1 victory over Everton, while Mohamed Salah was Liverpool’s hero yet again as the Egypt star clinched a 2-1 win at Crystal Palace on Saturday.

Pep Guardiola’s men main-tained their 16-point lead at the top thanks to a scintillating fi rst half display at Goodison Park.

City, on a fi ve-match winning run in the league, can look for-ward to the delicious prospect of sealing the title when bitter rival Manchester United visits Eastlands on April 7.

Leroy Sane put City ahead with a sumptuous volley from David Silva’s pin-point cross in the fourth minute.

Gabriel Jesus increased City’s lead eight minutes later, the Brazil forward heading in from Kevin De Bruyne’s cross.

Thrashed 4-0 at Everton last season in one of the worst defeats of Guardiola’s glittering career, City players underlined their vast improvement since then as Raheem Sterling fi nished off a ruthless counter-attack in the 37th minute.

Yannick Bolasie drilled home for Everton in the 63rd minute, but City’s club record 13th away league win means the side has 84 points and can break the previous record total for Premier League champions — Chelsea’s 85-point haul in 2005 — if the side beats United.

AFTER just 21 fi ghts, Anthony Joshua is a three-belt world heavyweight boxing champion.

He fi nally knows what it’s like to go 12 rounds, too.

Frustrated by the movement of Joseph Parker and the irritating interventions of inexperienced referee Giuseppe Quartarone, Joshua required a decision by the judges to add the WBO belt to his WBA and IBF titles.

It was never in doubt, with two judges awarding it to Joshua 118-110 and the other making it 119-109. It was Parker’s fi rst loss in 25 fi ghts, and Joshua’s 21st straight win.

“I was switched on, focused and went 12 rounds. It was light work,” said Joshua, after a mature, patient but hardly head-line-grabbing performance.

“This was about boxing fi nesse. I stuck to my word.”

All 20 of Joshua’s previous wins came via knockout — and only two had gone beyond seven rounds.

But, thanks to Parker’s reac-tions and counterattacking skills, one of the sport’s biggest punchers barely landed a clean shot with his big right hand.

Quartarone didn’t help, either, constantly getting between the two fi ghters and stopping the fl ow of the contest. There were boos at the fi nal bell from many

ZLATAN IBRAHIMOVIC scored twice in his U.S. Major League Soccer (MLS) debut and the LA Galaxy defeated LAFC 4-3 Saturday.

Ibrahimovic won it with a header in the opening seconds of stoppage time after tying the match at 3 in the 77th minute when he caught LAFC goalkeeper Tyler Miller out of his goal and scored on a 40-meter kick.

The 36-year-old Swedish forward pulled off his shirt in celebration, resulting in a yellow card, as his long-awaited Ameri-can arrival more than lived up to the billing.

Ibrahimovic replaced Sebas-tian Lletget in the 71st minute after chants of “We want Zlatan” started in earnest at a sold-out StubHub Center. Ibrahimovic’s fi rst touch came in the 73rd and helped lead to a goal by Chris Pontius on a header pulling them to 3-2. (SD-Agencies)

INTERNATIONAL Olympic Committee (IOC) President Thomas Bach met with Kim Jong Un in Pyongyang on Friday and said the North Korean leader is committed to having his country participate in the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics and the Beijing Winter Games in 2022.

“We had a very fruitful meet-ing where it became clear that the supreme leader has a clear vision of the role that sport can play in a society with regard to education, with regard to health,” Bach said after the two met Friday for a 30-minute formal meeting followed by 45 minutes of casual conver-sation while watching a football match at Pyongyang’s May Day Stadium.

He added that Kim told him the North’s participation in the PyeongChang Games and marching together with South Korean athletes was an “impor-tant contribution to a peaceful dialogue.”

Bach, who also met with North Korea’s sports minister, said he received a commitment from the country’s National Olympic Com-mittee to participate in Tokyo in 2020 and Beijing in 2022, along with competing in the respective youth Olympic Games.

“This commitment has been fully supported by the supreme leader Kim Jong Un in a meet-ing we had this afternoon,” he said. “He explained that sport is a pillar in his policy for the future development of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea.”

Bach arrived in Pyongyang on Thursday to discuss develop-ment of sports in North Korea and the preparation of its ath-letes to qualify and participate in upcoming Olympics. Among the 22 North Korean athletes who competed in PyeongChang, only two won places on merit and the other 20 were granted special spots by the IOC.

He is the fi rst foreign offi cial to meet Kim since the North Korean leader returned earlier last week from a summit in Beijing with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

That was Kim’s fi rst known trip abroad since he assumed power after the death of his father in late 2011.

Kim is to meet with South Korean President Moon Jae-in on April 27.

Both the North and South hailed the PyeongChang Games as a signifi cant step toward easing tensions on the Korean Peninsula that reached danger-ously high levels last year as the North stepped up its missile tests and detonated its largest nuclear device to date.

Since the Olympics, the North has pushed forward with a fl urry of diplomatic moves. After his summit with Moon, Kim is to meet President Donald Trump in May. (SD-Agencies)

Manchester City’s Leroy Sane (R) in action with Everton’s Jordan Pickford (C) during their match at Goodison Park in Liverpool on Saturday. SD-Agencies

Man City one win from EPL title

Having already won the League Cup, City next faces a Champions League quarter-fi nal fi rst leg against Liverpool on Wednesday.

In rainy south London, Liver-pool trailed when Luka Milivo-jevic drove struggling Palace into a 13th-minute lead from the pen-alty spot after Loris Karius fouled Wilfried Zaha.

But Senegal winger Sadio Mane leveled four minutes after the break with a close-range fi nish.

Salah, in the midst of an incredible debut season at Liverpool, proved the match winner as he smashed home in the 84th minute. Salah, who has 37 goals in 42 games in all competitions this term, has scored in the joint-most Premier League matches (21) in a single 38-match season.

That ties the mark set by Robin van Persie in 2012-13 and Cris-tiano Ronaldo in 2007-08.

“I think the moment you see it is Mo on the ball you feel good.

It was a very cool fi nish and long may that form continue,” Klopp said.

Liverpool was unable to hold onto second place as Manches-ter United moved two points ahead of the side with a 2-0 victory against Swansea at Old Trafford. “Lots of players played internationals, so they were tired in the second half. Every point is vital because we want to stay in second place,” United manager Jose Mourinho said.

(SD-Agencies)

Olympics chief says N. Korea committed to Tokyo Games

Joshua becomes 3-belt heavyweight champion

in the crowd of 78,000 inside Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, seemingly aimed at the Italian referee who was taking charge of his fi rst world heavyweight title fi ght.

“Ref seemed too hurried to break them up at times,” tweeted former undisputed heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis. “But it was a clear win for AJ and he showed maturity and patience.”

Joshua moved to within one win of matching Lewis’ achieve-ment of cleaning up the sport’s most glamorous division.

Big-punching American Deon-tay Wilder holds the other main heavyweight belt, the WBC’s, and could meet Joshua before the end of 2018.

“Wilder, let’s go baby,” Joshua screamed in his interview inside the ring. He wants to stay in Brit-ain to complete the set.

“I’m not interested in coming to America,” Joshua said. “We are staying right here.”

Neither Joshua nor Parker came close to getting knocked down, showing respect for each other’s undefeated records.

(SD-Agencies)

Anthony Joshua (R) of Great Britain goes on the offensive against Joseph Parker of New Zealand during their heavyweight unifi cation bout at Principality Stadium in Cardiff, the United Kingdom, on Saturday. SD-Agencies

Zlatan makes MLS debut

Zlatan Ibrahimovic