Sports

BARCELONA — Former world champion Fernando Alonso doubts he will make it onto the Formula One podium this season after also enduring his worst points tally last year, but has no immediate plans to retire.

The Spaniard is 13th in the 2016 driver standings on 24 points, 168 behind leader and former McLaren teammate Lewis Hamilton.

Alonso, 34, picked up only 11 points in 2015, and although he has already surpassed that this year, Alonso is sceptical about his chances of getting a first podium appearance since 2014 and since rejoining McLaren.

“It’s very difficult for us to get a podium this season,” Alonso told Spanish radio station Cadena Cope on Tuesday.

“In normal conditions we still wouldn’t deserve a podium. I hope we improve next year but this is Formula One, anything can happen. We are still waiting for things to happen with this McLaren Honda project but we are on the way up.”

Honda were McLaren’s engine partners when they were dominant at the end of the 1980s and returned to the British team last year — the second year of the new V6 turbo hybrid era with Mercedes already dominant.

McLaren, eight times constructors’ champions, have not won a race since 2012.

Despite another torrid campaign and a huge crash in the Australian Grand Prix in March, Alonso said he had no plans to retire.

“My future in Formula One will not depend on this car. Even in these last two difficult years I’ve been enjoying myself a lot,” added Alonso, who won the world drivers championship in 2005 and 2006.

“If the cars are as fun as they were in the past, I’ll have no problem continuing. I’m aware that I’ll never be 20-years-old again but I have more experience and more knowledge now.”

The Spaniard finished seventh in last week’s Hungary Grand Prix and is now preparing for this weekend’s German Grand Prix.

Meanwhile, Jolyon Palmer was left “gutted” after a chance to score his first points of a woeful rookie Formula One campaign got away from him in Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix.

The Briton was on course to finish tenth and score a point after a quick pitstop by his Renault team allowed him to leapfrog the Force India of Nico Hulkenberg.

But the 2014 GP2 champion dropped down the order with a spin on the 40th lap and eventually crossed the line outside the top-ten points paying positions in 12th.

“Everything was perfect, the car was feeling nice, the strategy was good, the pitstop was good and then I don’t know what but I lost the car in turn four,” said the 25-year-old.

“Obviously it’s a disaster because I was running 10th, we had no pitstops and better pace than the guys behind so it was there today but we didn’t get it,” Palmer said.

Palmer, who drove in several practice sessions last year for his current Enstone-based team then known as Lotus, has had a tough rookie season.

He has retired in four of the 11 races so far with a best finish of 11th in the season-opening Australian Grand Prix.

His Renault team has struggled for pace with an outdated car, having completed their buyout of Lotus late last year, and teammate Kevin Magnussen’s sixth-place finish in May’s Russian Grand Prix is the outfit’s only points result so far.

The squad lie ninth in the constructors’ standings ahead only of Manor, the smallest team on the gird, and Sauber who are yet to score any points.

Magnussen and Palmer are 16th and 20th, respectively, in the drivers’ standings.

“It was the best drive of my career but I spun it and we didn’t get any points so I’m gutted,” said Palmer.

“That should have been my first Formula One point. Everything was perfect, the whole team. I was driving easily the best race today.”

BERLIN — When record Olympic champion Michael Phelps and the king of sprinting Usain Bolt resume their hunt for world records and gold medals at the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next month they will not be the only big stories in town.

A team of refugees, hand-picked by the International Olympic Committee (IOC), is expected to hog the spotlight from the very first day when they march as an independent team into the Olympic Stadium just before hosts Brazil at the opening ceremony on August 5.

The IOC in June unveiled its first team of refugees which will have 10 members and 12 officials and will compete under the Olympic flag, as part of its decision to highlight the plight of refugees worldwide.

More than a million refugees streamed into Europe in the past year alone as they fled fighting in Syria and other countries.

Millions more are housed in camps in countries across the world, having escaped dozens of wars or armed conflicts in their home nations.

The Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) includes five athletes from South Sudan, two from Syria, two from Democratic Republic of Congo and one from Ethiopia.

“These refugees have no home, no team, no flag, no national anthem. We will offer them a home in the Olympic Village together with all the athletes of the world,” IOC President Bach said.

“The Olympic anthem will be played in their honour and the Olympic flag will lead them into the Olympic Stadium. This will be a symbol of hope for all the refugees in our world, and will make the world better aware of the magnitude of this crisis.”

The athletes, six men and four women, will compete in the sports of swimming, judo and athletics.

‘Great things’

They include swimmer Yusra Mardini from Syria who trains in Germany, South Sudanese middle-distance runner Rose Nathike Lokonyen, living in a refugee camp in Kenya, and Democratic Republic of Congo judoka Yolande Bukasa Mabika who trains in Brazil.

“I want all refugees to be proud of me, I want to encourage them that even if we are not in our homeland and had a tough way that we can still do great things,” Mardini said.

An initial 43 potential candidates were identified with final selection of the 10 based on consultation with their host National Olympic Committees (NOCs), international federations, the UNHCR and the NOCs of their countries of origin.

Nomination criteria also included sporting level, official refugee status verified by the United Nations, and personal situation and background.

The team will be housed in the Olympic Village along with the other 11,000 athletes.

The IOC decision to include an entire refugee team made of athletes with different nationalities is unique.

But other athletes have competed under the Olympic flag, with some Yugoslavs at the 1992 Games in Barcelona doing so during the break-up of their country.

South Sudan also had one athlete at the 2012 Games racing under the Olympic flag with the fledgling nation at the time having yet to set up an Olympic Committee.

The refugee team has already attracted widespread media attention and is expected to provide one of the feel-good stories of the Games, with their participation alone being a far bigger achievement than any of Bolt or Phelps’ medals.

BUDAPEST — Triple Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton won the Hungarian Grand Prix (GP) on Sunday to seize the championship lead from teammate Nico Rosberg for the first time this season.

The Briton took the chequered flag less than two seconds ahead of the German, who had lined up on pole position at the Hungaroring but lost out to Hamilton at the start in the key moment of the race.

Hamilton, who has now won in Hungary a record five times, leads Rosberg by six points after 11 of the season’s 21 races. The Briton has won five of the last six races, including the last three.

“The start was everything,” said Hamilton. “This is a great result for the team. What a day.”

Sunday’s win was the 48th of his career and fifth of the season.

Until Sunday he had shared the record for Hungary GP wins with seven times champion Michael Schumacher.

“I grew up watching Michael so to have a similar number, and now one more than he had here, is incredible,” said Hamilton.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo finished third for Red Bull after pushing the Mercedes pair hard enough at one point for the champions to tell Hamilton to pick up the pace.

Ferrari’s four times world champion Sebastian Vettel, also a previous winner in Hungary, finished fourth after sounding off over the team radio about slower cars holding him up as he lapped them.

Red Bull’s Max Verstappen held off Ferrari’s feisty Kimi Raikkonen for fifth. The Finn had started 14th but a long first stint saw him challenging the Dutchman.

The battle between the pair provided a moment of excitement in an otherwise uneventful race, with Raikkonen clipping the back of Verstappen’s car and damaging his front wing in an attempt to pass the 18-year-old.

Fernando Alonso was the sole surviving McLaren in seventh.

McLaren’s hopes of a strong result on the back of their best qualifying performance since renewing their engine partnership with Honda were dashed early on, with Jenson Button falling down the order with hydraulics problems.

The 2009 world champion also collected a drive-through penalty for a breach of radio rules before finally retiring late in the race.

Rosberg, who has also won five races this year, will have the chance to seize back the lead in his home German Grand Prix. The race at Hockenheim, absent from the calendar last year, takes place in just a week’s time.

“It was all down to the start in the end,” said Rosberg of Sunday’s race. “From then on I was trying to put all the pressure on Lewis but it’s not possible to pass at this track.

“To have the next race coming up very quickly sounds good, at my home race... it’s going to be awesome.”

AMMAN — The Jordanian Paralympic team was unveiled on Sunday for Rio de Janeiro, according to the Jordan Olympic Committee (JOC) News Service. Ten athletes will compete in powerlifting, table tennis and athletics for the event which takes place nearly three weeks after the Olympics has finished from September 7-18.

The team was revealed under the patronage of HRH Prince Raad Bin Zaid, Jordan Paralympic Committee President (JPC), with JOC Secretary General Lana Al Jaghbeer honouring the athletes. Jaghbeer relayed the warm wishes of JOC President HRH Prince Feisal.

Former world champion and world record holder Mutaz Al Junaidi will be taking part in the powerlifting alongside Omar Qaradeh, Abdel Kareem Khattab, Haidarah Al Kawamleh, Jamil Al Shebli and Tharwah Al Hajjaj. In table tennis, Maha Al Barghouthi, Khetam Awad and Osama Abu Jame will all compete while Belal Sa’adeh will compete in athletics.

Team Jordan for the Rio Olympics, taking place from August 5-21, will be unveiled at the JOC on Tuesday afternoon.

AMMAN — Khatsheek Shadian on Friday was crowned champion of Al Hussein Rumman Hill Climb after clocking 1m50:357s, improving on his 2015 record of 1m52s in his Cosworth F3.

Mohammed Tayseer came second with 1m54:943s, followed by Saher Fatafteh (1m55:352s).

The record registered by Lebanon’s Roger Feghali in 2007 is still unbroken.

In 2007, Feghali, in a Mitsubishi Motortune Proto, clocked 1m48.76s to break the 2005 record of Jordan’s Ameer Najjar’s (1m49.71s).

The event witnessed a heated competition among the best of the best drivers who were willing to do the impossible to win the Hill especially that the event did not have any participation from Lebanon.

The competition witnessed unfortunate events in which Fadi Shaheen’s car flipped while Atef Awad’s car caught fire and Abdullah Ibdah and Najm Kurdi had to retire early due to mechanical problems.

“Unfortunately, some incidents happened, but nothing serious. The Hill is very tough and needs a lot of focus and practice. We hope that everyone will get ready for the next year’s event,” Jordan Motorsport CEO Othman Naseef told The Jordan Times

“We had a lot of fans enjoying the event as this is one of the most popular auto events in any season,” he added.

The only woman driver Lina Hadidi won the Women’s Cup.

At the end of the event, HRH Prince Feisal, the chairman of Jordan Motorsport, handed out trophies.

The Hill Climb course is exactly three kilometres in length and three metres in width with an average rise of 8.5 per cent. There are a total of 27 bends and corners including four hairpin bends. The course is situated two kilometres north of Rumman. 

BUDAPEST — Lewis Hamilton heads into Sunday’s Hungarian Grand Prix fired up to complete a hat-trick of victories and seize the lead in the Formula One title race for the first time this season.

The triple world champion trails Mercedes teammate Nico Rosberg by just one point after a sensational fourth win of the season two weeks ago in his home British Grand Prix at Silverstone.

Hamilton, who also won the race before that in Austria, surfed the Silverstone crowd in jubilation and will be hoping the wave of momentum building up behind his title defence carries him back to the top.

“Ever since the low of Barcelona I’ve been able to cultivate this really strong mental attitude and I’m really feeling that fire inside me right now,” said Hamilton, who trailed Rosberg by 43 points after the pair collided and crashed out on the first lap in May’s Spanish Grand Prix.

“I’m feeling fresh, feeling powerful and feeling confident heading to Hungary. It’s a track that for some reason has always suited my style and I have incredible support there.

“The past couple of years I haven’t had the smoothest weekends in Budapest, but I know I’ve got the pace so I’m gunning to turn that around this time.”

Hamilton has won four times at the 4.3-kilometre long Hungaroring circuit, outside Budapest, including his first victory for Mercedes in 2013.

Another win for the 31-year-old at the halfway stage of the championship would be more than any driver has managed in Hungary. Hamilton and seven times world champion Michael Schumacher currently hold the record.

Rosberg, who dropped from second to third in Silverstone after a post-race penalty for breaching radio rules, will be determined to deny him that honour.

“The battle is on with Lewis and I’m feeling great in myself and great in the car, so bring it on,” Rosberg said ahead of the 31st Hungarian GP. “I can’t wait for the next battle between us in Budapest. It’s a tough circuit that really tests you as a driver.”

The Hungaroring has not been kind to Mercedes lately. Last year, Hamilton finished sixth here and Rosberg eighth — the only 2015 event in which neither driver had a podium finish when completing the race — while Hamilton was third in 2014 and Rosberg fourth.While the spotlight is trained on the Hamilton versus Rosberg battle, resurgent Red Bull could steal the show.

Despite winning 41 of the 48 races since the start of the V6 turbo-hybrid era in 2014, Mercedes have yet to win in Hungary with the new engine.

Australian Daniel Ricciardo won for Red Bull in 2014 while Sebastian Vettel was triumphant for Ferrari last year.

With Ferrari’s challenge fading over the last few rounds, Red Bull see a real chance to add a second win to Max Verstappen’s Spanish Grand Prix triumph.

“We’re actually in the race with Mercedes now at certain circuits which is great to see,” said team principal Christian Horner.

“We’ve got some of the more powerful circuits out of the way... and the circuits coming up will hopefully play to some of our strengths.”

Hungary also offers misfiring McLaren the chance of a strong result at a circuit that has been good to them in the past.

Jenson Button and Fernando Alonso both scored their maiden wins in Hungary, albeit with different teams, while McLaren last year scored their best result of a difficult first season with engine partners Honda.

“I’m keen to see how we perform there,” said Button.

“It’s a track that for some reason has always suited my style,” Hamilton said. “The past couple of years I haven’t had the smoothest weekends in Budapest, but I know I’ve got the pace so I’m gunning to turn that around this time.”

LONDON — Finger-jabbing players aggressively challenging referees. Rival teams in mass brawls. Touchline confrontations between managers.

They all feature in a show-reel of shame produced by English football authorities.

And the video is being shown to players at the Premier League’s 20 clubs ahead of the new season as part of the latest crackdown on bad behaviour that damages the image of the league.

“We’re looking to make a step change in the way our participants behave and how they are seen around the world,” Premier League Chairman Richard Scudamore said after showing the compilation of incidents of indiscipline at a former London courthouse on Wednesday.

It’s a delicate balancing act for the league, which doesn’t want to see the intense competitiveness disappear from its competition. Even Scudamore acknowledged it was a “guilty pleasure” watching the fiery and engrossing game between Chelsea and Tottenham last season that led to both teams being fined over a fracas.

“I felt an element of it was not right,” Scudamore said. “But you couldn’t go away from that game thinking it wasn’t compelling.”

The Premier League is already the world’s wealthiest football competition, raising £8.3 billion ($12 billion) from television rights for the next three seasons.

“People look to us to set the example across the world,” Scudamore said.

“When you discuss what’s holding it back from being absolutely universally popular, one of the things that comes back time and time again is, ‘Wouldn’t it be nice if the participants didn’t quite display some of those behavioural tendencies that just stepped over the edge?’”

Rather than introducing new laws, competition organisers instead want existing regulations enforced with a renewed vigour in five areas:

- dissent towards referees and their assistants by players (yellow card)

- offensive, insulting or abusive language and/or gestures towards match officials (red card)

- physical contact with match officials (yellow card if it’s not aggressive; red card for a confrontation)

- surrounding officials (yellow card and team sanctions)

- misconduct in the technical area by players and managers.

The initiative has been produced by the Premier League in conjunction with the English Football League, which runs the three leagues below the top flight, and the Football Association governing body.

The conduct of referees also comes under the microscope, with officials now under orders to refrain from physical conduct with players or risk their impartiality being questioned by seemingly to be overly friendly.

“Referees are just as guilty of putting their arms about players and invading their personal space — we are asking referees not to do that,” said Mike Riley, who runs refereeing in England. “What we are talking about is actions that are intrusive.”

AMMAN  — The 2016/17 football season agenda has been finalised with the season kicking off on July 29 with the Cup Winners Cup between Wihdat and Ahli.

The Jordan Football Association (JFA) brought the JFA Shield back on the calendar this season starting August 1. League holders Wihdat were drawn in Group A while runner-up Faisali head Group B with the top two from each group moving to the semis on September 5 and the winners advancing to the final on September 16.

As officials grappled with scheduling for the start of competitions with national team and upcoming Women’s U-17 World Cup agendas posing a real challenge, the most prestigious event — the Professional League — will kick off on October 22 while the Jordan Cup preliminary round will be held after the conclusion of the U-17 World Cup and will kick off
October 31.

The major obstacle was arranging stadia for four local competitions as well as not disrupting line-up readiness by delaying competitions with teams heading into a long break for the Women’s U-17 World Cup running from September 30 to October 21. Players will also be called for national team duty. With Jordan eliminated from the 2018 World Cup, the national team has a set of friendlies and camps as they prepare for the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers starting in March 2017. 

With competitions now less than two weeks away, Wihdat and Faisali, the country’s all-time top two football clubs, as well as Ahli and Jazira are busy boosting their line-ups with the hope of competing locally and regionally.

Wihdat have contracted former national team coach Iraqi Adnan Hamad to lead the team which last year won the 64th Jordan Professional League title for the third consecutive year. Hamad has underlined his intention to compete on the Asian teams and aim for the Asian Champions League. Wihdat concluded their string of new contracts after signing Amer Theeb and veteran striker Hasan Abdul Fatah who was playing in Qatar. The team has boosted the line-up Abdullah Theeb, who led Jordan’s U-19 to the World Cup in 2007.

On the other hand , rivals Faisali regrouped under veteran coach Jamal Abu Abed who will aim to bring back the league title as well as put the team on competitive track in Asian and regional events. Abu Abed who led national U-23 in the past two years, has a vision focused on the future squad, and aims to boost the line-up with younger players. Faisali have contracted a number of top players like Shabab Urdun’s Odey Zahran, national team goalie That Ras’ Mutaz Yasin, Ramtha’s Yousef Rawashdeh, Baqa’a’s Anas Amayreh. 

Last season, Faisali beat league and Super Cup titleholders Wihdat 1-0 to clinch the 33rd Super Cup while it was Ahli who were the overall better team of the season. After years in the backstage, Ahli won the third of the season titles when they beat Shabab Urdun to win their first Jordan Cup final.

In addition to the local agenda, players will also be busy on national duty as Jordan is set to play seven friendly matches amid preparations for the 2019 Asian Cup qualifiers starting March 2017.

After putting behind elimination from 2018 World Cup qualifiers, national team coach Abdullah Abu Zam’eh, who assisted Harry Redknapp in the interim period, has recalled mainly younger players including Olympic team players and excluded stars like goalie Amer Shafie, Anas Bani Yasin, Hasan Abdul Fattah and Odey Saifi. 

This week, Jordan went up to 78th in the latest FIFA Rankings and is now 8th in Asia. Iran leads Asian teams at 39th, South Korea (48), Uzbekistan (56), Japan (57), Australia (59), Saudi Arabia (65) and the UAE (74).

The team last played at the King’s Cup, an international football tournament organised in Thailand by the Football Association, where they lost to the hosts in the final. 

Jordan will play the first friendly on August 18 against Qatar before playing Lebanon on August 31 and Bahrain on September 4. In October, Jordan is set to play Oman on the 7th and either Iran or Syria later on. In November, Jordan will play Iraq on November 6th Uzbekistan on the 10th and Lebanon on the 15th.

“We aim to have the biggest number of friendlies possible which will help team cohesion and preparedness ahead of the final phase of the qualifiers, “ Abu Zam’eh was quoted as saying on the JFA website.

The Kingdom was eliminated from the 2018 World Cup qualifiers doubling as part of the qualification for 2019 Asian Cup after a dismal 5-1 defeat to Australia. The qualifying journey ended in Round 1 after an inconsistent year that saw the national team lose 1-0 to Kyrgyzstan, 3-0 to Tajikistan and scoring an 8-0 win over Bangladesh in Leg 2.

The group winners and four best runners-up (total 12 teams) advance to the 2019 AFC Asian Cup finals and the final round of qualifying for the 2018 FIFA World Cup. The next best 24 teams from the preliminary stage of the joint qualifiers will compete in a separate competition for the remaining slots (12 slots or 11 slots + one slot for the host) in the 24-team 2019 Asian Cup. 

During the past year, Jordan’s squad has had five coaches leading the vital qualifying process starting with Briton Ray Wilkins under whom the team failed to advance past the quarters of the 16th Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Asian Cup in 2015 before Ahmad Abdul Qader took over in the transitional phase. Belgian Paul Put took over in July 2015 but his tenure was also suspended when he was caught in the midst of a court case over match fixing in the Belgian league. Briton Harry Redknapp led the last two qualifiers with a focus on reaching the Asian Championship and keeping World Cup qualifying chances alive.

The Kingdom had the most memorable World Cup qualifying journey in 2013, advancing to play then World’s 6th ranked Uruguay in an intercontinental qualifying tie for a place in the 2014 World Cup, losing the home game 5-0 and drawing 0-0 in the away match. Jordan had never reached that far in World Cup qualifying since taking part in the qualifiers in 1985. 

In the Asian Cup, Jordan reached the championship finals three times since 1972. The pinnacle was at the 2004 Asian Cup, when they lost to Japan in the quarter-finals and jumped to the best ever FIFA Ranking of 37th. In 2011 and 2015, Jordan again reached the quarter-finals.

Outgoing Spain coach Vicente del Bosque has no regrets as he prepares to leave his post at the end of July after eight years in charge during which they won the World Cup and Euro 2012.

He called time on his tenure after Spain’s exit from Euro 2016 at the hands of Italy in the first knockout round and will formally leave the post when his contract expires on July 31.

The Spanish Football Federation is expected to appoint his successor straight after that date, with former Athletic Bilbao and Sevilla coach Joaquin Caparros the favourite for the role.

Del Bosque enjoyed a dream start as coach after succeeding Luis Aragones in 2008, leading Spain to the 2010 World Cup and helping them retain the European Championship two years later.

Spain then suffered a shock group stage elimination at the 2014 World Cup and lost 2-0 to Italy in the last 16 of Euro 2016 after finishing second in their group behind Croatia.

Asked if he had any regrets, the 65-year-old former Real Madrid player and coach said: “No, to be honest I don’t. I’m not saying that I’m leaving having completed every task I was set, because we knew that was impossible and unachievable.

“To have won another World Cup and another Euro would have been virtually impossible. I go with a feeling of not leaving any loose ends,” he was quoted as saying on the website of world governing body FIFA.

Del Bosque also denied that his reign ended on a sour note.

“There’s been a bit of everything. We’ve had the opportunity to win a lot of things, but we’ve also suffered defeats,” he said. “That’s sport. But I leave with a clear conscience and the feeling of having fulfilled my duty to Spanish football.”

Throughout his tenure Del Bosque spoke of the importance of continuing the team’s attacking style of play focused on high levels of possession, a style at odds with the football played by teams coached by his likely successor Caparros.

But he said he would have no influence on the way the team played from now on.

“That’s a decision for the new coach and I don’t think I should have any say at all,” he added.

“I’m keeping out of it. Whoever comes in will decide and will get it right. Each one of us sees football in a different way and what seems right to me might not be shared by the next [man] in charge.

“The next coach must be given absolute freedom to shape things as he sees fit.”