Sports

AMMAN — The women’s U-16 national football team has arrived in Thailand to play Group A qualifiers for the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-16 Women’s Championship.

The event, kicking off August 27, will see Jordan play alongside Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, Guam, after Pakistan pulled out. There are 24 teams playing in four groups with the top team from each group advancing to the championship. Last edition’s top four — North Korea, Japan, China and Thailand — have qualified.

Jordan’s squad will be missing some players who are on the U-17 team line-up currently preparing for the Women’s World Cup kicking off September 30 in the Kingdom.

The team just concluded a training camp in Egypt where they beat the U-19 Egyptian team 2-0 and lost 3-1.

The women’s U-19 national team also has Asian Group A qualifiers for the 2017 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship. The qualifiers set for October 29 will see Jordan play alongside Australia, Singapore and Lebanon and the Northern Mariana Islands. The top team from each group moves to the championship in 2017.

The women’s national team has also regrouped to start preparations for qualifiers for the 2018 AFC Women’s Championship starting in April 2017. 

For the past decade, Jordan’s teams have been competing in all women’s age divisions in the Asian zone. In 2014, Jordan was eliminated from Group A qualifiers for the 2015 AFC U-19 Women’s Championship after qualifying as the only Arab team in 2007. 

The U-16 girls team also failed to qualify to the 2015 AFC Under-16 Women’s Championship after qualifying in 2013. In 2015, the women’s national team also exited the 2015 AFC Women’s Olympic Qualifying Tournament with a winless record.

Last year, in men’s competitions, the U-16 boys, and U-19 youth were eliminated from their respective latest Asian qualifiers. The Kingdom had earlier qualified to the AFC U-19 Championship four times. In 2006, the team scored the country’s biggest sporting success when they qualified to the 2007 FIFA Youth World Cup after reaching the semis and eventually finishing fourth at the Asian U-19 Championship. They exited the group stages in 2008 and 2010, whilereaching the quarters in 2012 and failing to qualify when they exited Group B qualifiers in 2014.

MANCHESTER, England — WWE-style grappling at corner kicks, manhandling of match officials, verbal abuse: Sometimes the beautiful game can take on an ugly side.

This season, at least in these early weeks, English Premier League referees are taking a stand.

The start of the new English football season has been marked with no-nonsense — some might say overzealous — officiating that has got fearful defenders re-evaluating their trade and penalty-taking strikers licking their lips at the opportunities coming their way.

One referee awarded two penalties in the same game for pushing and holding in the penalty area at a corner kick. Another has yellow-carded a player for sarcastically applauding a decision. Diego Costa, Chelsea’s typically irate striker, has already been booked for aggressively approaching a referee. After two rounds of fixtures, seven penalties have been awarded already, compared with three at the same stage last season.

It’s not uncommon for referees to put down markers early in the season or at the start of a major international tournament. Before too long, they have eased off.

It remains to be seen if that will be the case this season.

“It’s fine as long as it’s consistent right from now to the end of the season,” Stoke Manager Mark Hughes said. “Usually it isn’t.”

Stoke has been one of the teams to suffer from the vigorous officiating. The team fell behind to Manchester City on Saturday when defender Ryan Shawcross was adjudged to have pulled back an opponent at a corner and conceded a penalty, converted by Sergio Aguero. In the second half, City conceded a penalty after Raheem Sterling impeded Shawcross at a corner when he wasn’t even looking at the ball.

After the game, both managers accepted there was a clear move by referees to act on grappling and shirt-pulling. And their players are starting to take note.

“The penalty was given for using my hands,” said Shawcross, a physical and uncompromising centre back. “It’s something I’m going to have to look at and hopefully adapt in the right way, so I don’t give any more penalties away.”

City defender John Stones also said he and his teammates would have to adjust to the new directive. Yet, there were also protests that things were being taken too far.

“If they’re penalties, then you’re going to be giving two or three a game and it’s going to be a farce,” Stoke striker Peter Crouch said.

“We were told they were going to give more penalties this year so we can’t say we weren’t given a warning. Even so, when you see it in the cold light of day it’s hard to take.”

Yet, grappling at corners wasn’t one of the issues the Premier League was openly targeting heading into the new season. The most popular league in the world was more concerned with the damage that abuse of match officials was doing to its image.

To that end, the league’s top brass called for tougher action on dissent, insulting language and gestures, physical contact towards officials, surrounding officials and misconduct in the managers’ technical areas.

“People look to us to set the example across the world,” Richard Scudamore, the chairman of the Premier League, said during the offseason.

That’s exactly what is happening.

Bournemouth midfielder Harry Arter collected the first of his two yellow cards against West Ham on Sunday for dissent towards an assistant referee, and was later criticised by his manager.

“We’ve been told about dissent — it’s been drilled into us,” Bournemouth Manager Eddie Howe said. “If we lose our discipline, we could have a flurry of red cards.”

Premier League managers held offseason briefings with referees and football authorities over the desired improvements in player behaviour.

“They explained everything again,” Middlesbrough Manager Aitor Karanka said Tuesday. “We have to be careful, they are the rules.”

Some players don’t appear to be getting the message, though.

Costa had 23 yellow cards and one red card — for angrily approaching a referee — across his first two seasons at Chelsea. He has been booked in both his opening league games this year, too, the first for dissent towards a referee.

Asked if he knew about the new dissent law, Costa told ESPN: “I am aware of it now.”

AMMAN — Jordan’s U-23 football team plays its Iraqi counterpart in a friendly at Prince Hamzah Stadium in Aqaba on Thursday.

It will be the second match this week, after a 1-1 draw in the first match played in Zarqa as both teams prepare for regional events.

Jordan’s squad played That Ras club to a 0-0 draw in Karak last week as they start preparations for qualifiers for the third edition of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) U-23 Championship which will be held in 2018.

The national teams is set to play Lebanon on September 21 as they begin a series of training camps and friendlies ahead of the qualifiers will be held next summer and will group 42 nations divided into 10 groups with 16 making it to the finals.

Earlier this year, Jordan was eliminated from the quarter-finals of the last U-23 Championship in Qatar. The Kingdom failed to make it to the top four and a possible Olympic slot with the continents top three advancing to the Olympic Games football tournament in Rio de Janeiro which was won by Brazil. 

In the inaugural AFC U-22 Championship in 2014 (now renamed the AFC U-23 Championship), Jordan took third place when they beat South Korea while Iraq won the title after defeating Saudi Arabia.

In 2015, Jordan’s U-23 squad was eliminated from the 1st West Asian Championship and in 2014 the line-up represented Jordan at the Asian Games where they made to the quarter-finals.

AMMAN — The Jordan Karting Championship concluded on Tuesday at the Jordan Speed Centre racetrack with Shaker Jwaihan capturing the Senior Max category, the highest and most challenging category of the championship.

Jwaihan beat Rashed Sabobeh and Abdullah Dalimi to capture the title. Meanwhile, Ghazi Khalifeh won the Micro Max category and Saif Dein Sheikh the Mini Max category. The Junior Max category was captured by Roid Hanoush.

GENEVA — Russia is banned from the Paralympic Games as punishment for a state-backed doping programme, after losing an appeal at sport’s highest court.

The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) announced its urgent verdict on Tuesday to dismiss the Russian Paralympic Committee’s appeal against exclusion from the September 7-18 games in Rio de Janeiro. A hearing was held in Rio on Monday.

The court said its judges ruled that the International Paralympic Committee “did not violate any procedural rule” in banning the Russian team two weeks ago.

“[The] decision to ban the [Russian team] was made in accordance with the IPC Rules and was proportionate in the circumstances,” the court said in a statement.

An appeal by Russia’s Paralympic committee to Switzerland’s federal court is possible though unlikely before the games open, Alexei Karpenko, an attorney representing the Russian athletes, said in televised remarks.

The Swiss supreme court could intervene if the legal process was abused but not judge the merits of the evidence — which the CAS panel was satisfied had proven that Russian authorities organised cheating.

The Russian appeal “did not file any evidence contradicting the facts on which the IPC decision was based,” the CAS panel said.

The world Paralympic body used evidence from a World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) inquiry into a Russian state-orchestrated programme of doping and cover-ups which ran from 2011 to 2015.

Russian authorities also corrupted results at the 2014 Sochi Winter Games and Winter Paralympics by swapping tainted doping samples for clean ones at the official WADA-accredited laboratory, the inquiry said.

The IPC said in Rio two weeks ago it had evidence of manipulated doping tests relating to 44 Russian athletes, including 27 from competitors in eight sports that are part of the Paralympic programme.

Then, IPC President Philip Craven said of Russia that: “Their medals over morals mentality disgusts me.”

On Tuesday, Craven said the ruling from a court based in the Olympic home city of Lausanne, Switzerland, was a “sad day for the Paralympic Movement, but we hope also a new beginning.”

“Today’s decision underlines our strong belief that doping has absolutely no place in Paralympic sport, and further improves our ability to ensure fair competition and a level playing field for all Para athletes around the world,” Craven said in a statement.

Still, it was “not a day for celebration and we have enormous sympathy for the Russian athletes who will now miss out on the Rio 2016 Paralympic Games,” the British official said.

Craven is also a member of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) which declined to use similar evidence from WADA investigator Richard McLaren’s report to take the toughest sanction against Russia for the Rio Olympics which ended Sunday.

Instead, the IOC asked individual sports governing bodies to decide if Russian teams and athletes could compete. Russia’s weightlifting team was banned and only one track-and-field athlete was ruled eligible.

Russia ended the Rio Olympics in fourth place in the medal table. Its athletes won 56 medals, including 19 gold.

With Russia excluded from the Paralympics, the IPC said it will now “redistribute the 267 slots that had been secured by Russian athletes to compete”.

AMMAN — Jordan’s eight athletes have come in for some well-earned praise after a successful Olympic Games that saw some wonderful performances in Rio de Janeiro over the past two weeks, including the Kingdom’s first ever medal.

HRH Prince Feisal, the president of the Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC), has called the delegation as a whole the pride of Jordan for not just their performances but the way the athletes, coaches and officials conducted themselves on the biggest sporting stage of them all, according to the JOC News Service.

“The Olympic Games represent a celebration of humanity and all of us in Jordan can celebrate the success of our delegation,” said Prince Feisal, who contacted every athlete after each of their competitions to provide support and encouragement.

“They performed magnificently in their events and in particular congratulations to Ahmad Abu Ghaush for his gold medal. He is our hero, as is the whole team. They are all the pride of Jordan and consistently showed both the Olympic and Jordanian spirit throughout these Games. I am looking forward to welcoming them back.”

Abu Ghaush, 20, made history with his gold medal in the taekwondo -68kg category to spark a mass national celebration back home. But there were other achievements and Olympic firsts elsewhere.

Brother and sister Khader and Talita Baqlah set new Jordan records in their swimming events, with 17-year-old Khader ranked the No. 1 U18 swimmer in the 200m freestyle.

Hussein Ishaiash showed tremendous courage to reach the quarter-finals of the super heavyweight boxing, losing narrowly to eventual gold medallist Tony Yoka, of France.

There were Jordanian Olympic debuts in judo, where Ibrahim Khalaf fought well, and triathlon, where Lawrence Fanous finished 46th and declared this as a “start for Jordan’s participation at the Olympics in the sport”.

Obada Al Kesbeh, 21, suffered a narrow defeat in the 63kg boxing but showed his great potential that the best is yet to come, while Mithqal Abu Drais refused to give up during a gruelling marathon that ended with a standing ovation as he crossed the line on the final day. After which he declared that he will immediately start planning for Tokyo 2020 where he says “I can finish in the top 20”.

All in all, it was without doubt Jordan’s most successful games and with several young sportsmen and women already lined up for the next edition in four years’ time, there is every reason why Abu Ghaush’s gold can be described as the game changer for sport in the Kingdom.

AMMAN — The 4th round of the Jordan Karting Championship concluded its activities on Saturday after a disturbance erupted during Friday’s event held at Jordan Speed Centre Racetrack.

The unrest forced the postponement of Friday’s last heat to late Saturday due to problems that occurred between families of the participants and the race director that caused trouble for the participants and the organisers.

In a statement, Jordan Motorsport condemned the situation that occurred when families entered the racetrack to object to decisions instead of presenting their objection according to regulations.

“This is the first time in history that something like that happens during a karting event. The referees had to act accordingly and penalise those who started the problem. Regulations are clear regarding any objections and they should have followed these regulations,” Othman Naseef told The Jordan Times. 

“The referring committee acted according to the FIA Karting regulations and based on this the fourth round was held on Saturday. Winners of both the 3rd and 4th rounds were acknowledged during a special ceremony,” he added.

4th round winners

Senior Max category

Christoph Rezq

Rashed Saboubeh

Abdullah Dulaimi

Junior Max category

Ali Oqabi     

Royd Hanoush

Ameer Hesham Najjar

Mini Max category

Saif Dein Amjad Sheikh

Abdullah Dasouqi

Ziad Khalifeh

Micro Max category

Ghazi Khalifeh

Zaid Haj Hamed

AMMAN — Jordan’s glorious Rio Olympic Games have missed out on a record-breaking climax after the wet weather hit Mithqal Abu Drais’ chances of setting a new national mark in the men’s marathon on Sunday, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

The popular 32-year-old covered the 42km course through the streets of Rio de Janeiro in a time of two hours 46 minutes and 18 seconds, below his previous best of 2:17.24 set last year in Morocco.

“That was an amazing reception I got at the finish line but I found it very hard going throughout the race,” said Abu Drais at the finish line.

“The rain made me struggle with the pace but I was determined to finish as a lot of runners dropped out. To be here though was an honour. I am proud to have represented Jordan at the Olympics again and I want to thank everyone in Jordan for all of the support I have received.”

The Jordanian started from the back of the pack and paced himself steadily. He received a massive reception at the finish as the crowd rose to its feet to welcome him across the line in the Rio rain.

The Jordan delegation after the closing ceremony are flying back to a heroes’ welcome in Amman on Tuesday.

AMMAN — Standings are beginning to take shape as Week 4 of the Jordan Football Association (JFA) Shield kicks off on Monday.

Shabab Urdun will take on Wihdat for Group B lead as they are now trailing by 1 point after a 1-0 win over Ahli. Wihdat beat That Ras 6-1 to maintain the lead and goal difference advantage. 

Ramtha are third after a 0-0 draw with Manshieh and next play That Ras with a win needed to boost any qualifying chances. With two teams from each group advancing to Round 2, Ahli seem to have dropped their chances with no wins so far.

In Group A, Sarih scored a 1-0 win over leaders Sahab who next play second placed Faisali. The latter were held 0-0 by third placed Jazira who next play Baqa’a who held Hussein 0-0.

Jazira, Sarih and Baqa’a have four points each and hope that they can make win and have a shot at advancing after the upcoming week’s results.

Following the first round, the top two from each group will move to the semis on September 5 and the winners advance to the final on September 16.

The season started with Ahli making history when they beat reigning league champs Wihdat 2-1 to win the 34th Super Cup — the first major competition on the 2016/17 football calendar. The Jordan Professional League — will kick off on October 22 while the Jordan Cup preliminary round will kick off October 31 after the conclusion of the U-17 Women’s World Cup. 

Last season, Wihdat won their third consecutive and 15th league title since they moved up to the Professional League in 1975. Faisali beat league and Super Cup titleholders Wihdat 1-0 to clinch the Super Cup while it was Ahli who were the overall better team of the season. After years in the backstage, Ahli beat Shabab Urdun to win their first Jordan Cup final. 

STANDINGS

Group A

Group B

AMMAN — Following the incredible wave of national celebration for Ahmad Abu Ghaush’s historic taekwondo gold medal, Mithqal Abu Drais will be looking to make a mark of his own on what has been a glorious Olympic Games for Jordan, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee News Service.

Two new national records in the pool, a boxing quarter-final and first time participants in triathlon and judo are the green shoots of progress that Jordan was looking for. But Abu Ghaush’s golden run in the -68kg competition sent the celebrations off the scale.

The focus will now turn to Abu Drais who is competing in his second consecutive Olympics and hoping to set a new Jordanian record on the final day of the Rio Games.

The 32-year old ran a qualifying marathon time of two hours 17 minutes and 24 seconds in Morocco last year, a Jordan record that he says is up there with his victory at the Stockholm Marathon in 2012 as his best achievements.

“Just to be here once again is a huge achievement for me and one that I will make the most of on Sunday,” said Abu Drais. “My teammates have made this a very special Olympics for Jordan, especially Ahmad with his gold medal, so I hope I can come close to my record to make it a memorable ending for us.

“I have been receiving a lot of support from home. The messages have made me feel that people are right here with me cheering me on. I have had a good build-up without any injury so I am looking forward to racing.”

The men’s marathon gets under way at 3:30pm, Jordanian time, with the winning time expected to be a little over two hours.