Sports

Jonas Jerebko recorded a 14-point, 13-rebound double-double in place of suspended Draymond Green, helping the Golden State Warriors pull away from the Atlanta Hawks for a 110-103 victory Tuesday night in Oakland, California.

Green was suspended for the game for conduct detrimental to the team in the wake of a run-in he had with Kevin Durant after Monday’s overtime loss to the Los Angeles Clippers.

The Warriors also played without Stephen Curry, who sat out his third straight game with a strained groin.

The Hawks led by as many as six points in the first half and 58-53 early in the third period before Jerebko, Klay Thompson and Quinn Cook drilled 3-pointers in a 17-2 flurry that turned the game for good in the Warriors’ favour.

In his second start as a Warrior, Jerebko hit five of his 10 shots and four of his seven 3-pointers to account for his season-high point total.

Durant led the Warriors with 29 points. Thompson had 24 and Cook, starting in place of Curry, chipped in with 18 as Golden State improved to 3-0 this season in the game immediately following a loss.

The Warriors also won for the seventh straight time in the game immediately following an overtime affair.

One night after being outscored 30-16 at the foul line, the Warriors got the better of the Hawks 20-11 in a game in which Atlanta had more field goals (40-39) and the teams had the same number of 3-pointers (12-12).

Taurean Prince had a team-high 22 points for the Hawks, who lost their fifth straight overall and eighth straight against Golden State.

Kent Bazemore (18 points), Alex Len (14), DeAndre’ Bembry (13 points), Vince Carter (11) and Jeremy Lin (10) also scored in double figures for Atlanta, who fell to 0-2 on a four-game Western swing.

Rookie star Trae Young suffered through a 2-for-12, four-point night on which he missed all five of his 3-point attempts. He had a game-high nine assists, as well as five rebounds and three steals.

Rockets 109, Nuggets 99

James Harden scored 19 of his 22 points in the second half and also had 11 assists as Houston pulled away to beat host Denver.

Clint Capela had 24 points and nine rebounds, and Chris Paul had 21 for the Rockets. Houston has won two straight amid a roster shakeup regarding veteran forward Carmelo Anthony, who is expected to be released by the organisation.

Monte Morris led Denver with 19 points, Jamal Murray and Gary Harris scored 15 each and Nikola Jokic had 14 points and 12 rebounds. The Nuggets have lost four in a row and eight straight to Houston.

Cavaliers 113, 

Hornets 89

Jordan Clarkson scored 24 points off the bench, and Tristan Thompson had 21 rebounds as part of a double-double as injury-ravaged Cleveland came together for a resounding thumping of visiting Charlotte.

David Nwaba added 18 points as a reserve in the Cavaliers’ second win of the season. Rodney Hood and Collin Sexton each scored 16 points, while JR Smith chipped in with 13 points. Thompson scored 11 on 5-of-6 shooting.

Jeremy Lamb’s 22 points and Nicolas Batum’s 11 were tops for the Hornets, who shot 34.7 per cent from the field. Kemba Walker was limited to seven points on 2-of-16 shooting from the field.

LONDON — Red Bull’s Max Verstappen is a Formula One champion-in-waiting but he showed in Sunday’s Brazilian Grand Prix that he still has much to learn, according to Mercedes team boss Toto Wolff.

The 21-year-old Dutch driver and Force India’s Esteban Ocon, 22, provided the main talking point after the youngsters clashed on and off the track at Interlagos.

Verstappen pushed and shoved the Force India backmarker at the scales, the images broadcast around the world, after a collision that robbed him of a second successive victory.

“On Max, you can see there is a future champion coming together,” Wolff told reporters.

“Unbelievable talent and speed and I think once the raw edges are off he will be somebody that will be a world champion one day.

“In a few years he will look at the footage of today and will maybe have his own opinion whether that was the right behaviour or not. But you can’t accelerate these things, this is a learning process.”

Already this season Verstappen has had to fend off questions about why he has had so many accidents, while Ocon’s record is hardly blemish-free either after well-chronicled clashes with Force India team mate Sergio Perez.

Sunday’s incident drew a range of opinion, with some feeling Verstappen went too far by laying hands on a rival while others saw the Dutchman as justifiably angry at paying the price for another driver’s mistake.

Ocon, backed by champions Mercedes who see him as a talent for the future, was widely criticised for a risky move in trying to pass the leading car when already lapped. He was handed a 10-second stop/go penalty at the time.

Verstappen, subsequently ordered to do two days of public service as punishment for the pushing, could equally have given the Frenchman a wider berth and kept his eyes firmly on the bigger prize of victory.

Lewis Hamilton, delighted to be gifted the lead and ultimately the win for Mercedes while Verstappen finished second and was named ‘Driver of the Day’, reminded him of that as they were waiting to go on the podium.

“He is allowed to unlap himself... you had more to lose than he did. He had nothing to lose,” the five-times world champion, who had already wrapped up this year’s title, pointed out.

The Briton later told reporters: “You make sure there’s space. You always make sure there’s space.”

Damon Hill, the 1996 world champion and Sky Sports pundit, felt neither was blameless.

“Clearly Ocon should not have got himself in a tangle situation with the race leader,” he told motorsport.com.

“But Max diced with him, instead of going, ‘What is this guy playing at? He’s going to be difficult,’ and waiting for a slightly less risky opportunity.

“I don’t want to be critical of Max. It won’t make a difference anyway, because he will continue to take risks and drive the way he drives, but he will learn. And eventually he will drive like Lewis has learned to drive now.”

On a scale of fisticuffs, Sunday’s incident ranked among the milder ones.

There was rather more drama in 1993 when Brazil’s late triple champion Ayrton Senna famously struck out at rookie Eddie Irvine at Suzuka after the Northern Irishman had the temerity to pass him after being lapped.

Another Brazilian, Nelson Piquet, also a triple champion, kicked out and punched Chilean Eliseo Salazar on the helmet after they stepped out of their cars following a 1982 German Grand Prix collision.

In 1998 Michael Schumacher, then still five titles short of his record seven, angrily confronted McLaren’s David Coulthard after having a wheel ripped off his Ferrari in a smash between the two.

AMMAN — Jordan’s top taekwondo fighters have hit form at the President’s Cup in Chinese Taipei, winning four medals on Tuesday. Juliana Al Sadeq won silver in the -67kg competition after losing her final to Korea’s Jan Kim, 4-3.

Earlier she beat fighters from Chinese Taipei and South Korea for her chance to fight for the gold. Teammate, Hamzeh Qattan, then added silver in the 87kg weight after losing his final to Kio Dung from South Korea, 4-3.

Qattan launched his campaign with a big 21-0 win over Shun Yu, from Chinese Taipei, before beating Kazakhstan’s Ruslan Zararove with a golden point in the semifinal.

Olympic champion, Ahmad Abu Ghaush, stepped up to the -73kg weight and added a bronze to his collection by reaching the semifinal where he lost to Yun Kim, from South Korea.

Saleh Al Sharabati completed a superb day for the Kingdom with another bronze in the -80kg category after losing his semifinal to Nam Jung, from South Korea.

The four medals were added to a fifth — a bronze — that was won by Zaid Mustafa on Monday, leading to Head Coach, Faris Al Assaf, being named the Coach-of-the-Tournament.

SAO PAULO — Mercedes won their fifth successive Formula One constructors’ championship on Sunday, joining glamour team Ferrari in the record books and rendering team boss Toto Wolff temporarily speechless.

The Austrian revealed that Jean Todt, now president of the governing FIA but previously Michael Schumacher’s boss at Ferrari, had called after the Brazilian Grand Prix to congratulate him.

“He said ‘it is an honour to welcome you to the five times club’. Which is unbelievable to even hear that. I am speechless,” Wolff told reporters, even if he was not lost for words for long.

While Ferrari won six team titles from 1999 to 2004, they and Mercedes are the only ones to have won five successive “doubles” — the drivers’ and constructors titles together.

Next season will see Mercedes attempt to break new boundaries, with Sunday’s race winner Lewis Hamilton also chasing his sixth title to move closer to Schumacher’s seven, but there is plenty to celebrate before then.

Wolff said 2018 had been the toughest of them all, with Ferrari mounting a major challenge, and also the most satisfying.

“It was the most difficult and that’s why the relief now is the most I’ve ever felt in the team,” he said.

“We had such a horrible race today with the perfect end result, with Lewis winning and us winning the constructors’ championship.

Wolff said Hamilton’s engine had been close to failure, and the engineers had to reduce the power remotely and cool the temperatures. 

Every lap to the chequered flag was filled with tension before, finally, “everything broke loose”.

The team’s pit lane celebrations were so wild that one of the barriers collapsed, bringing an ecstatic Hamilton back to earth with a bump.

Since the start of the V6 turbo hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes have won every title and Hamilton 50 of the 99 races — a phenomenal return.

When Hamilton moved from McLaren in 2013 there were plenty of pundits predicting the Briton would regret it but now Mercedes, along with Ferrari, are the team every driver would love to race for.

The battle has ebbed and flowed this year, with Ferrari winning the first two races before Mercedes came back and were then overtaken again. For much of the season, Mercedes felt the Italians had the fastest car.

“That is why this championship feels best, because we had a hell of a fight on our hands throughout the season with Ferrari,” said Wolff.

“And being able to win a fifth consecutive championship is something we wouldn’t have dreamt of six years ago. In our wildest dreams that wouldn’t have come to mind.

“Equalling a Ferrari record that seemed unachievable is something I feel so grateful and fortunate [for],” he added.

“I can remember before I joined Formula One, those Ferrari years with Jean at the helm and Michael and many others that contributed to the team’s success was something I really looked up to and admired.” 

AMMAN — The women’s senior football team plays Indonesia on Tuesday in their final Round 1, Group D Olympic qualifier in Ramallah, West Bank.

The tournament which is acts as a qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics saw Jordan trounced the Maldives 6-0 and Palestine 7-0 to take the lead atop the group. Indonesia beat Maldives 3-1 and Palestine held Indonesia 1-1.

Jordan is in a good position to qualify to Round 2 hence becoming the only national team to advance in Asian qualifiers this season.

Earlier this year, the U-19 women’s team was eliminated from Round 1 qualifiers for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-19 Championship. Likewise, the men’s U19 national team was eliminated from Round 1 of the AFC U-19 Championship. The semifinalists advanced to the FIFA U19 World Cup.

Jordan was hoping to advance in the Asian event after they failed to qualify to the championships in 2014 and 2016. It was the fifth time for Jordan at the championship with the best showing when they finished fourth in 2006 and advanced to the FIFA Youth World Cup in Canada in 2007. They exited the first round in 2008 and 2010, and reached the quarters in 2012. 

In U-16 events, Jordan bowed out of the Round 1 of the 2018 AFC U-16 Men’s Championship. Held once every two years, the competition serves as a qualifier for the FIFA U-17 World Cup, with the top four countries qualifying. The U-16 women’s squad was also eliminated from Round 1 Group A qualifiers for the AFC U-16 Women’s Championship.

In addition, Jordan’s U-23 men’s team was knocked out of Round 1 of the 3rd AFC U-23 Championship which acts as a qualifier for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. In 2016, Jordan reached the quarter-finals and in 2014 Jordan finished third.

AMMAN — The UAE have dominated the Jordan International Muay Thai Elite Championship, which is sponsored by the country’s federation and was hosted in Amman over the weekend, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service. 

But there was success for the host nation with Mohammad Al Barri winning the 81kg title after beating Libya’s Mohammad Al Tabbal.

His teammate, Seif Zaqzouq, took the -60kg title by beating Morocco’s Rabe’ Al Ghilani.  But the UAE fighters showed their class. The -57kg weight was won by Zakaria Al Jamari; Nour Sameer won the -67kg class; Elias Habeeb took the -86kg and Nasser Al Qattani won the -91kg category. The championship attracted fighters from 14 countries.

AMMAN — Jordan has finished its campaign at the WKF World Karate Championships empty handed after Abdulrahman Al Masatfa lost his bronze medal match on Saturday.

Masatfa lost by the narrowest of margins to Chile’s Camilio Velozo, but his run would have earned him valuable points as he bids to qualify for the -67kg section at the 2020 Olympic Games. Jordan sent nine fighters but all missed out on the medals. 

AMMAN — Jordan has flexed its muscles with four medals at the IFBB World Championship of Bodybuilding being hosted in Benidorm, Spain, including a gold, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service. 

Dyia’ Lutfi clinched gold in the Physique (173cm) category while Tareq Naseir took silver in the 182cm Physique. 

Ahmad Al Halaykah (182cm) and Reda Al Ja’afrah (170cm) each won a bronze medal.  Jordan sent six athletes that were managed by Hussni Ayesh as Chef de Mission and coached by Qasim Haymour. 

AMMAN — The 2018 Jordan Drift Championship has finished with the tightest of winning margins with Mohammed Al Foqahaa taking the title by just half-a-point on Friday, according to the Jordan Motorsport Media Service. 

With all to play for heading into the fifth and final round, Foqahaa had to finish in the top six to guarantee the crown, and he did that by finishing sixth in his BMW E30 to take the title by the narrowest of margins from Friday’s winner Raafat Haroun. 

Ahmad Al Jabali finished fourth on Friday to clinch third in the championship, just three points off the top spot, while Omar Al Kukhun took third on the round five podium to clinch fourth overall. Abdullah Abu Hussein finished fifth to complete the championship top five.

SAO PAULO — McLaren and two-times Formula One world champion Fernando Alonso will enter next year’s Indianapolis 500, the team announced on Saturday.

It will be the second time the Spaniard has taken part in the race, which he led in 2017 before retiring with an engine problem. 

The 37-year-old, who is also competing for Toyota in the World Endurance Championship, is leaving Formula One at the end of this season and the May 26 date in Indianapolis will not clash with any commitments.

Alonso is a double Monaco Grand Prix winner and also won the Le Mans 24 Hours this year, leaving only Indianapolis between him and becoming only the second driver to achieve the ‘Triple Crown of Motorsport’.

The late Briton Graham Hill, also a two-times Formula One champion, who died in 1975, is the only one to have done it — completing the triple in 1972.

“I’ve made clear for some time my desire to achieve the Triple Crown. I had an incredible experience at Indianapolis in 2017 and I knew in my heart of hearts I had to go back if the opportunity was there,” Alonso said in a statement at the Brazilian Grand Prix.

“I’m especially glad to be returning with McLaren. This was always my first choice if the team decided to do it, so I’m delighted they’ve decided to go ahead.

“It’s a tough race and we’ll be up against the best, so it will be a huge challenge. But we’re racers and that’s why we race.”

Alonso missed the Monaco Grand Prix last year to compete at Indianapolis, no great loss for him given McLaren’s then woes with an uncompetitive Formula One car and unreliable Honda engine. 

Former F1 champions McLaren are three-times Indy 500 winners — in 1972 providing a car for Mark Donohue as a private entry and in 1974 and 1976 as a works entry with Johnny Rutherford.

They will compete at The Brickyard next year as McLaren Racing.

“McLaren has a long and fond relationship with the Indianapolis 500 and it’s a case of unfinished business for us with Fernando,” said team principal Zak Brown, who had already ruled out a full IndyCar season.

“No Indy 500 is a cakewalk, it’s a massive challenge. We have the utmost respect for the race and our competitors. So, we are under no illusions. But McLaren are racers first and foremost, as is Fernando. We’re going for it.”

Meanwhile, the Spaniard won both of his 2005 and 2006 titles with Renault at Interlagos and the ramshackle, but atmospheric Sao Paulo circuit has given him plenty of memories over the years, if no race wins.

Alonso has not been on the podium since he was at Ferrari in 2014 and points have been hard to come by since he joined McLaren in 2015 at the beginning of a failed partnership with Honda.

This year, with Renault engines, has been better and Alonso is 10th in the championship having scored 50 of McLaren’s 62 points.