Sports

AMMAN — Even if the weather forces a postponement of upcoming matches, Wihdat’s aim will be to take their lead further when they play Hussein in Week 15 of the 63rd Jordan Professional League scheduled to be played starting Thursday.

Wihdat once again disappointed fans when they were held 0-0 by bottom-placed Ittihad Ramtha. It was only because Ramtha lost 2-1 to Ahli that the titleholders were able to keep their lead as Ahli, who had earlier defeated Wihdat, jumped up to fifth.

Ramtha now trail three points behind Wihdat and next play Ittihad Ramtha, while Jazira, who beat Hussein 2-1, next play Manshieh.

Baqaa went up to 9th after a 3-0 win over former champs Shabab Urdun, who are now 11th and next play Faisali, who held Manshieh 0-0 and remained eighth. Former Jordan Cup champs That Ras are fourth after they beat Sarih 1-0. They will next play Baqaa while Sarih play Ahli.

Wihdat will next prepare to play the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup after they were ousted from the preliminary round of AFC Champions League when they went down 1-0 to titleholder Kuwait’s Qadissieh.

Faisali have declined to play any regional events as the former record-breaking League team are in an administrative crisis that has left them trailing at the lower end of the standings for the first time ever since the League kicked off in 1944. Shabab Urdun also disappointed fans trailing down in the standings, while Baqaa, a usual top five finisher, is now 9th after only three wins.

Locally, the Jordan Cup semis will see Faisali play Wihdat and Ramtha face That Ras. Wihdat won the first major competition of the 2014/15 football season after they beat Baqaa 2-0 in the 32nd Super Cup.

Last season, Wihdat won the League for the 13th time, and beat Baqaa to win the Jordan Cup while Shabab Urdun edged That Ras to win the 31st Super Cup. The Jordan Football Association Shield was not held.

AMMAN — The Kingdom’s U-23 football team will hold a training camp in the UAE ahead of the Olympic qualifying journey starting March 25.

The camp is scheduled to be held March 2-13 and will include two matches against the North Korea side and another match against Nepal or a UAE club team. 

Head coach Jamal Abu Abed will finalise the line-up after the camp and it was reported that he was closely coordinating with Wihdat coach Abdullah Abu Zameh, as many U-23 players are also on Wihdat’s line-up who will play the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) Cup matches during the same time.

In the U-23 qualifiers, a total of 43 teams entered the qualification tournament and will play in 10 groups of five or four teams.

Jordan will play in Group B, alongside hosts Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kuwait, hoping to qualify for the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship which will take place in Qatar. The top team from each of the groups in addition to the top second-placed team from groups that have five teams will move to the 2016 AFC U-23 Championship from which the top three advance to the 2016 Summer Olympics Football tournament.

Observers noted that the team’s preparations were hampered by other competitions including the Jordan Professional League.

Last month, when the League was on break as the national team played at the Asian Cup, the U-23 team played four friendlies losing to Manshieh 2-1, beating Wihdat 5-2, holding Faisali 0-0 and edging Jazira 2-1.

Last season, the U-23 team faced the same dilemma when they represented Jordan at the Asian Games. Despite a bumpy preparation period amid the busy agenda of the national team and club competitions, the squad was impressive and reached the quarters.

Similarly, the team took bronze in the inaugural AFC U-22 Championship after beating South Korea. The event, which has now been renamed the AFC U-23 Championship, saw Iraq beat Saudi Arabia to take the title.

Before the latest local matches, the squad hosted Oman — losing 2-1 and winning 1-0. They beat Uzbekistan 2-1, held Iran 2-2 and 1-1, held Kuwait 1-1 twice and Qatar 0-0. They finished second at the Palestine International Championship and hosted the England C squad in a historic match, losing 1-0.

MELBOURNE, Australia — New Zealand unconvincingly beat second-tier Scotland by three wickets in a low-scoring Pool A match at the World Cup on Tuesday.

Chasing Scotland’s modest total of 142, New Zealand needed only half its allotted overs to reach the target but lost wickets at regular intervals in an undisciplined run chase and finished on 146-7 in Dunedin, New Zealand.

Afghanistan will be looking go a step better than Scotland when it makes its much-anticipated World Cup debut against Bangladesh in the Australian capital Canberra on Wednesday.

New Zealand’s simple chase became a struggle, either through complacency or haste. The tournament co-host had looked comfortable at 63-2 when the late innings break was taken but bled wickets on the resumption.

Kane Williamson made 38 and Grant Elliott 29 for New Zealand, which took an unbeaten side into the match after an opening win against Sri Lanka.

Matt Machan earlier made a pugnacious 56 for Scotland and Richie Berrington 50 in a 97-run partnership that rescued Scotland from a potentially embarrassing total.

Machan, the England-born Sussex batsman, seemed impervious to his team’s position when he came to the wicket with two batsmen out and only nine balls bowled, and played his shots.

“Credit to Scotland for the way they hung in there,” New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum said. “Lesser teams would have rolled over there and credit to them for the way they hung in and managed to post a total which was always going to be a bit difficult on that surface.

“Really good performance with the ball and in the field, but we need to improve on our batting.”

Afghanistan may be the World Cup newcomer, but is regarded as a strong chance to beat Pool A rival Bangladesh on Wednesday after winning the only one-day match between the two counties at last year’s Asia Cup.

Afghanistan captain Mohammad Nabi, who whiled away his hours playing cricket in the refugee camps of central Asia, will carry the expectation of a war-torn homeland on his shoulders when his team makes its tournament debut.

“The pressure is not on Afghanistan,” Nabi said. “We’ve already beaten (Bangladesh) in the Asia Cup. We respect Bangladesh because they are a Test playing team, but hopefully we’ll do our best against them.”

Former Warwickshire opener Andy Moles, now Afghanistan coach, said the national team is something a fractured nation can share.

“It’s a unifying sport, it’s a well-received sport among the population in Afghanistan and the players know that through good performances it will be a massive uplift in just the general wellbeing of the country,” Moles said.

Australia will soon find out whether its captain Michael Clarke will join the World Cup squad.

Paceman Mitchell Johnson had little doubt Clarke will return to the team for the match against Bangladesh on Saturday at Brisbane’s Gabba ground.

Clarke was set a deadline of this match to prove his fitness after hamstring surgery or be ruled out of the tournament.

Johnson insisted he did not know what the weekend plan was for Clarke, but said his captain is “ready to go” and “doing what he needs to do”.

Should Clarke make his expected return, it will likely be at the expense of stand-in skipper George Bailey, who made a half century while leading Australia to an emphatic 111-run win over England in their tournament opener last Saturday.

GELSENKIRCHEN, Germany — Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and Gareth Bale taught Schalke a lesson when Real Madrid visited Schalke at the same Round of 16 stage in the Champions League last season. One year later, Schalke hope they have learned enough to avoid another rout when they meet again on Wednesday.

The three Real stars produced a stunning attacking performance and scored a pair of goals apiece as Real romped to 6-1 win in Gelsenkirchen and later completed a 9-2 victory on aggregate.

Real Madrid went on to win their elusive 10th title and are seeking to become the first team to retain the Champions League trophy. 

Lesson learned? 

Schalke are not the same team one year later, starting with coach Roberto Di Matteo. The Italian replaced Jens Keller in October and has shored up the team’s defence.

“We learned from our defeat last year. But we have also improved, we are a different team now,” said Di Matteo, who won the Champions League in charge of Chelsea in 2012.

During the winter break, Schalke added central defender Matija Nastasic on loan from Manchester City. The team are in fourth place and in competition to reach the Champions League again.

In another boost, goalkeeper Fabian Giefer has returned to training and Di Matteo probably won’t have to rely on 19-year-old Timon Wellenreuther.

Finding the target

In defence, Schalke look solid. But they have struggled to convert their chances, especially since striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar started serving a four-match ban.

But the Dutchman is available for the Champions League and is expected to return against Real. He scored Schalke’s only goal at home against Real last season and it was a spectacular volley.

How much Schalke miss Huntelaar was evident in Saturday’s 1-0 loss at Eintracht Frankfurt. Schalke dominated the first half, missed several good chances and then fell victim to an opportunistic second-half goal.

Ronaldo struggling

Schalke are not the only one struggling to score — Cristiano Ronaldo has been held scoreless in Real’s last three matches, the first time he has gone through such a slump since February 2011.

Ronaldo only has four goals in his last 10 matches, while the Ballon d’Or winner scored 17 in his first 11 league matches. 

Pepe to the rescue? 

Real Madrid’s dip in form since the start of 2015 coincides with a spate of injuries to their midfield and defence.

The titleholders have lost James Rodriguez (broken right foot), Luka Modric (left leg), Sergio Ramos (left leg), Pepe (ribs) and Fabio Coentrao (right leg).

But media reports say the club hopes Pepe will be back fit to play in Germany.

If not, then coach Carlo Ancelotti will again be left to rely on young center backs Raphael Varane and Nacho Fernandez, a far from equal pair to Ramos and Pepe. The two were helpless to stop Atletico Madrid from dealing Madrid its worst loss since 2010 in a 4-0 thrashing two weeks ago.

German connection

Toni Kroos immediately became a first-choice player for Ancelotti following his move from Bayern Munich last summer.

Since then, Kroos has seen both midfield partners Modric and Rodriguez go down with injury, as well as the transformation of Francisco “Isco” Alarcon into a Madrid fan favourite.

But the weight of both helping out in defence and organising the attack falls on the German.

“Playing in the centre of midfield is difficult. You have to be versatile, good with and without the ball, defend well, start attacks and be strong in the challenges. It is a tough position to play in and I am trying to overcome my weaknesses,” Kroos said.

Kroos insists Madrid have to respect a Schalke side that many in Spain see as a pushover.

“Schalke are enjoying success in the Bundesliga and with their new manager have become very solid in defence,” he said.  

41 years ago 

Basel and Porto meet in the Champions League on Wednesday with both aiming for a rare run to the quarter-finals.

Two-time European champion Porto reached the elite eight just once since winning the title in 2004. Basel’s only quarter-final appearance was 41 years ago.

Two coaches in their debut Champions League seasons also offer a fresh look to clubs seeking to step up from being group-stage regulars.

Here are some things to know about the only last-16 series not to feature a team from the big three Champions League nations of Spain, England and Germany:

Home comforts 

Basel likely need to make home advantage count Wednesday, after making St. Jakob-Park a difficult place to visit for European football’s biggest names.

Bayern Munich were beaten 1-0 in the first leg of Basel’s only recent last-16 appearance three seasons ago, which ended after a 7-0 rout in the return in Germany.

Basel has also sent past winners Chelsea and Liverpool home with losses since a 2-1 win over Manchester United in December 2011 showed how the perennial Swiss champion had matured on the biggest stage.

Unbeaten run

Porto joined select company with their unbeaten run through the group stage: only Real Madrid — which topped Basel’s group — and Chelsea also avoided losing in their six-match pool.

Porto’s 16-goal tally was also just one fewer than Chelsea’s competition-leading 17. Colombia forward Jackson Martinez scored five times and Yacine Brahimi four.

Brahimi was recruited after impressing at the World Cup with Algeria.

MELBOURNE — Alarm bells have long been ringing in the Caribbean over the West Indies’ chaotic buildup to the World Cup and those fears were realised on Monday when the islanders slumped to a four-wicket loss to Ireland in Nelson.

Coming off a thrashing to England and an embarrassing scare against Scotland in the warm-ups, the wheels well and truly fell off at Saxton Oval as Ireland’s batsmen reeled in their first innings total of 304-7 with over four overs to spare.

Few expected West Indies to seriously challenge for the title, but the opening loss could leave the twice world champions in danger of not making through to the quarter-finals from Pool B.

Associate teams have made a habit of upsetting Test-playing nations at the World Cup, with West Indies’ loss to Kenya in 1996 a case in point.

But the Ireland defeat has reinforced perceptions of a team on the verge of collapse and lacking the motivation to do anything about it.

West Indies had already been in disarray well before the tournament, with a crippling contracts dispute between players and the board scuttling what would have been a lucrative India tour.

That dispute cost regular captain Dwayne Bravo, the players’ spokesperson, a place in the World Cup squad along with big-hitting batsman Kieron Pollard.

The captaincy was handed to a rookie in fast bowler Jason Holder, a 23-year-old with about 20 one-day internationals to his name.

Worse was to come with leading spinner Sunil Narine pulling out of the tour, citing a lack of confidence in his bowling action after being cited during a club tournament.

Narine was free to play at the World Cup, having not breached the guidelines at any ICC tournament.

Holder has struggled to convince he is leading a united team at the global showpiece and was nowhere to be found at the post-match media conference.

Instead it was teammate Darren Sammy, his mentor, facing the inquisition.

Sammy began by apologising, not for the team performance, but for cursing himself with a crude word that was picked up by the stumps microphone during his innings of 89.

“Yeah, today we took them for granted as we fielded,” he told reporters. “So I can’t really pinpoint on what exactly. We just were not putting in a good game of cricket.

“Our bowlers have been going for some sticks over the last few games and today was no different against an experienced Irish team where you know they had a game plan and they stuck to it.”

Though Sammy and Lendl Simmons (102) combined for a 154-run sixth-wicket partnership to rescue West Indies’ innings after it had slumped to 87-5 in the 24th over, the bloodless display in the field will have been galling for home fans.

After seamer Jerome Taylor captured the fourth wicket of Andy Balbirnie with Ireland still needing 20 runs for victory, none of his teammates celebrated the dismissal.

“When things are not going your way, it’s always difficult to motivate yourself,” Sammy said.

“But as a group, you’ve got to keep believing and we need to find some inspiration somewhere, and we need to find it quickly.

“I will always try to be positive in my approach, help our young captain Jason and hopefully the rest of the team could follow.”

PARIS — Paris Saint-Germain coach Laurent Blanc is out to save his reputation in the Champions League.

Last season, Blanc was criticised for his cautious tactics against Chelsea in the second leg of the quarter-finals despite holding a 3-1 lead from the first match. On Tuesday, he will get another chance to advance.

Injury crisis

Blanc is waiting on the fitness of midfielder Blaise Matuidi after injuries decimated his side last weekend.

Midfielder Yohan Cabaye, winger Lucas, centre half Lucas and right back Sergie Aurier all limped off injured in Saturday’s 2-2 home draw with Caen and have been ruled out.

“Everyone could have done well without all of these injuries,” Blanc said. “It’s a big blow for us but we have to cope with it.”

Matuidi is rated as doubtful after taking a blow to his knee and, with Lucas out, Blanc needs Javier Pastore to shake off a thigh injury.

The Argentine was PSG’s best player when they beat Chelsea 3-1 in the home leg of the Champions League quarter-finals last season.

Coasting with Costa

Chelsea forward Eden Hazard finds it much easier to combine with Diego Costa than he did with Fernando Torres, Costa’s predecessor in attack.

Costa’s 17 league goals in 19 games have helped propel Chelsea to the top of the Premier League. Torres, by comparison, scored only 20 league goals in 110 games.

Hazard thinks only Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo are in the same bracket as Costa.

“He is one of the best three strikers in the world,” Hazard said on French TV show Telefoot.  

Transfer 

Defender David Luiz, while playing for Chelsea in last season’s quarter-finals, scored one for Paris Saint-Germain with an own-goal.

The Brazilian joined PSG from Chelsea during the offseason in a deal worth 50 million euros ($57 million) and has started to look more assured in recent weeks after a difficult settling-in period.

The 27-year-old Luiz played for Chelsea from 2010-14, scoring 12 goals in 143 appearances, mostly as a defender and sometimes as a rampaging midfielder.

Luiz recently revealed that he turned down the offer of a new Chelsea contract because he felt coach Jose Mourinho did not try hard enough to keep him.

Rabiot ready 

Paris Saint-Germain’s midfield faces a tough test against Chelsea, and the task could be made even harder without Matuidi.

If Matuidi fails to recover from his injury, coach Blanc will have to turn to 19-year-old Adrien Rabiot — who was linked with a move away from the club throughout the summer and winter transfer windows.

Rabiot has only a handful of Champions League appearances, and lack of experience could be exposed by a Chelsea midfield led by Cesc Fabregas and featuring the lightning-quick feet of Oscar.

Hooligan menace 

Matches between the clubs have led to serious outbreaks of violence on Chelsea’s two previous visits to Paris.

Police will be on alert around Gare du Nord train station — where the Eurostar arrives from London — and in other areas around the capital.

A heavy police presence for last year’s quarter-final match did not prevent trouble, however, with hooligans from PSG fighting with their Chelsea counterparts in the Chatelet area of central Paris.

More than 100 thugs threw glasses and other objects at each other and then clashed in the street, sending shoppers scattering for cover.

There was serious disorder involving even larger numbers close to the Parc des Princes when the clubs met in the group stage of the Champions League in 2004.

Bayern dress rehearsal 

Bayern Munich are confident they have returned to top form just in time for their Champions League round of 16 first leg against Shakhtar Donetsk on Tuesday after their biggest Bundesliga win in 31 years on Saturday.

The German champions’ dress rehearsal ahead of the trip to Ukraine was a resounding success as they demolished Hamburg SV 8-0 in a flawless performance that saw Dutchman Arjen Robben continue his impressive form by scoring two goals.

Victory for Bayern, who had won just one of the previous three league games before Saturday’s drubbing of Hamburg, delighted coach Pep Guardiola after his side made a stuttering return from the winter break.

“Now we can focus on our first Champions League game this year. I am happy that our playing style is back,” the Spaniard said. “Obviously the mood in the team is now much better.”

Guardiola will recall midfielder Xabi Alonso for the game in Lviv after he was rested on Saturday, while winger Franck Ribery and defender Rafinha are in contention after recovering from injuries in time to play against Hamburg.

Defender Jerome Boateng will also make the trip after sitting out a two-match ban in Germany. 

Winter break

Shakhtar, hosting Bayern in Lviv as their hometown is at the centre of a military conflict, would have wished for an easier challenge in their first competitive game after a two-month winter break.

However, Shakhtar, who are looking for their first home win against a German side for over 35 years, filled their lack of domestic action by training in Brazil in January.

Brazilian striker Luiz Adriano, who netted nine times in the Champions League group stage, believes Shakhtar are well prepared for the visit of Bayern.

NELSON, New Zealand — Ireland has become synonymous with Cricket World Cup upsets but captain William Porterfield says it shouldn’t be considered a surprise if his team beats the West Indies on Monday in its opening match.

Porterfield has played in all three of Ireland’s World Cup campaigns and says that no-one is likely to underestimate its ability to beat top eight sides.

The left-handed batsman was a member of Ireland teams that beat fourth-ranked Pakistan at the 2007 World Cup and England at the 2011 tournament and he says if Ireland was to beat the West Indies “I don’t think it will be a surprise. We’ve played enough cricket now and everyone knows everyone. There are not many teams that won’t know much about the 15 lads who are in our squad.”

“I think we’re preparing for every game and going out there to win that game and I don’t think it will be a surprise to anyone if we go out there and win this game,” Porterfield said.

Ireland’s confidence has been fuelled by a sound preparation — it beat Bangladesh in its final warmup match in Sydney while the West Indies were fully-stretched to beat Scotland by three runs. It can also hope to meet a West Indies team which is out of sorts, after the controversial decision to omit Kieron Pollard from its World Cup squad and to appoint 23-year-old Jason Holder as captain over the more-experienced Darren Sammy.

But Holder insists all is well in the West Indies’ camp, that the fallout over team selections has dissipated and that his team is clearly focused on its opening game.

“Everything is done and dusted in my opinion,” Holder said. “We’ve moved on from it.”

Holder said the commitment of senior players to the West Indies’ World Cup campaign “has been there all the time. They’re energetic, they’ve put in a lot of hard work behind the scenes. Obviously we didn’t get the results we wanted [in warm-up games] but we’re up-beat to go [on Monday].”

Holder said it would not be hard for the West Indies to put behind them recent heavy defeats in Test and One-Day Internationals, which had also tested his young captaincy.

“Obviously, you go through tough times in cricket and it’s important that you just move on from it,” he said. “You take whatever you can from it and just move on positively from it in the sense that we start our World Cup campaign and I think it’s important that we all put our minds on it and just go forward to play good cricket for the West Indies.”

Ireland has a great deal to play for also as it continues its push to be considered for Test status and faces the prospect of exclusion or at least a tougher qualifying path if future World Cups are restricted to 10 teams.

Porterfield said much had changed since Ireland stepped tentatively onto the world stage at the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies.

“From 2007 to now the main thing is there have been a lot of changes,” he said. “We were going in slightly unknown in 2007.

“That is the difference, we’re a lot more experienced in terms of how much we’ve played and we’ve been around for a while.

“I think the experience is there... there are six or seven guys who played in the 2007 World Cup. That’s eight years ago so those lads, who were young lads back then, have grown up in the team together, played a lot together.”

AMMAN — Orthodoxi play Ittihad in their third final play-offs match on Monday with a win securing them the title of the Premier Basketball League.

Orthodoxi lead Ittihad 3-1 and need one more win to take home the title. They beat Ittihad once in Round 2 and twice in the play-offs, 79-69 and 71-69.

Ittihad beat Orthodoxi once in Round 2 and have had closely contested matches, but their task seems uphill as they would need to win three consecutive matches to clinch the series. 

Orthodoxi last won the title in 2011 ending a 10-year drought to take home their record 22nd League title when they beat titleholders ASU. 

Riyadi have secured third place this year following ASU’s withdrew from the competition after they were in a three-way fight for the title with Orthodoxi and Ittihad. However, a disputed call in their Round 2 match against Orthodoxi in the final minutes with Orthodoxi leading 73-69 prompted head coach Murad Barakat to again gain a technical foul for his unsportsmanlike gesture leading his team to withdraw from the match.

ASU later announced they would suspend the basketball team and release all players, a move that has drawn criticism from observers as well as the governing body — the Jordan Basketball Federation (JBF).

According to JBF regulations, the team’s continued absence would mean the competition rules would be applied, which includes fines and relegation to Division 1.

ASU won the season’s first basketball competition when they beat Ittihad for the Jordan Cup title. The knockout competition saw Ittihad oust Riyadi 78-77 in the semis as ASU ousted Orthodoxi 92-65.

Last season, ASU beat Ittihad to win the League for the second consecutive time, while Riyadi won 3rd place after beating Kulieh. Orthodoxi finished 5th.

Established in 2007, ASU were crowned First Division champ in 2007 and were promoted to the Premier Basketball League in the 2008/09 season finishing runner-up. The team won the League four times. ASU finished fourth at the 21st Asian Champions Cup and were 3rd at the 22nd Arab Clubs Basketball Championship in 2009 when Zain conceded their Arab title. Last year, ASU finished third in the West Asian Clubs competition and were set to represent Jordan in the 8th edition of the event in March. The national team won the West Asian Championship in May and many ASU players are in the line-up.

At the other end of the standings, Jalil took the top position in the bottom four who played a separate round to decide the two teams to be relegated. Jalil beat Ghazzet Hashem 100-93 (81-81) in overtime and settled for 5th place while Ghazzet Hashem finished 6th leaving Nashama and Awdeh to be relegated. Nashama will be back in the League if ASU are relegated.

The Premier Basketball League which started in 1952 has had 58 editions with eight teams crowned champion. It was cancelled in three seasons and discontinued once. Orthodoxi have won 22 times, Ahli 21, Zain-Fastlink six times, ASU four times, Jazira-Aramex twice, Urdun, Watany and the Electricity Co. once each.

BEAVER CREEK, Colorado — Ted Ligety does not have a headline grabbing relationship like Lindsey Vonn nor does he court controversy like showman Bode Miller.

But he does have more alpine world championship medals than any American skier after a breath-taking giant slalom win on Friday.

Overshadowed by his more flamboyant team mates off the piste, Ligety again proved he takes a backseat to no one on the mountain by coming to the rescue in electrifying but familiar fashion to end a US gold medal drought at the posh Colorado resort.

The world championships had not unfolded as planned for the US on home snow as Vonn, the headliner at Beaver Creek and most successful women’s skier of all time, exited with a bronze and Miller crashed out early in his opening race.

Heading into the final weekend the only hardware American ski fans had to celebrate were a silver from Travis Ganong in the downhill and a pair of third-place finishes from Ligety and Vonn, who was cheered on by her golfer boyfriend, Tiger Woods.

But Ligety got the weekend party started early up and down the Vail Valley with a jaw-dropping second-leg charge down the plunging Birds of Prey track that carried him to the top of the podium ahead of first leg leader and three-time overall World Cup winner Marcel Hirscher of Austria.

Ligety has long believed there is no such thing as a perfect run but, for the thousands of American ski fans who packed the finish area grandstands on a sun-kissed afternoon, the 30-year-old American’s second leg was about as good as it gets.

“One of the cool things about ski racing is there is never a perfect run so it’s hard to be satisfied in that sense, you can always go that extra step,” Ligety told Reuters at the end of an autograph session for one of his sponsors, GoPro.

“I don’t think any of us have the realistic goal of having the perfect run. Ski racing is the most variable sport out there, conditions change run-to-run, we only get one chance at it and the margin for error is tiny.

“This is a tough sport because there are so many factors. It is really hard to have those factors converge and have that perfect run.”

Ligety a target

Ligety arrived in Beaver Creek with a target on his back, having recorded a gold medal hat-trick at the 2013 World Championships in Schladming by taking top spot in the Super-G, super combined and giant slalom.

Humbled on their home snow two years ago, the Austrians had already gained a good measure of revenge at Beaver Creek with Hannes Reichelt taking Ligety’s Super-G crown and Hirscher the combined title.

Known as ‘Mr. GS’ for his domination of the discipline, Ligety had seen his reign challenged this season with Hirscher stepping into the American’s territory by winning four-of-five World Cup giant slaloms.

Ligety, who has owned the giant slalom crown since the 2011 worlds, has 39 World Cup GS podiums and 23 wins.

This season he had reached the top of the podium just once, but that one win came at Beaver Creek on the same Birds of Prey course he ruled on Friday.

With his victory, Ligety put his name in the US skiing record books, his career total of seven world championship podiums (five golds) the most by any American alpine skier.

“I don’t know if I feel any extra pressure, it’s just really nice to race in the US. It’s so rare we get a race in the US,” said Ligety, who has posted five consecutive giant slalom wins at Beaver Creek.

“The World Cup in general is the central European Cup so we are living out of our duffle bags on a regular basis. It’s a nice advantage for us being on home snow, having those guys not being a couple of hours away from home and deal with the travel.

“I’ve always had a good track record racing in the United States. I don’t see it as a burden, I see it as more than advantage.”

There has been a “clear bias” against Qatar in the wake of Michael Garcia’s FIFA report into the bidding process for the next two World Cups, the Gulf state’s 2022 Committee chief Hassan Al Thawadi said on Friday.

FIFA’s Ethics Judge Hans-Joachim Eckert issued a 42-page summary of Garcia’s report in November, which identified cases of “inappropriate conduct” in a number of the bids but said there was not enough evidence to justify reopening the process.

Garcia immediately appealed against Eckert’s statement, saying it contained misrepresentations and resigned in protest, prompting speculation that evidence of wrongdoing may have been suppressed or diluted.

A lot of the media focus was on Qatar, whose World Cup organisers have been fending off allegations of corruption ever since the tiny Gulf state was awarded the 2022 tournament.

“I can’t say if there is a prejudice against Qatar but what I can say is there is a clear bias”, Thawadi, the Secretary General of the World Cup 2022 Committee told Al Jazeera.

“All the reporting on Michael Garcia, the description was, the focus was on us, on Qatar, and that was inaccurate.

“The simple fact was the investigation was on all bidding nations, 2018 along with 2022. We were very open and accepted an investigator coming from another nation that was a competitor to us for 2022.

“We never raised an issue because we were confident of our position, we embraced the process because it was an end to unfounded accusations and allegations.

“And yet nevertheless, somehow, the focus still seems to be on us and I think that, if nothing else, clearly shows there is a bias.”

Summer heat

The timing of the 2022 World Cup has been a contentious issue since the tournament was awarded to Qatar in 2010.

During the traditional hosting dates of June and July, the intense summer heat in the Gulf can soar as high as 50 Celsius.

FIFA President Sepp Blatter has ruled out the summer option, even though Qatar was awarded the tournament on the understanding that new technology would be used to cool the stadiums to an ideal temperature for football.

Thawadi said Qatar’s plans are proceeding on the basis that it will be held in the summer, although he said they could stage the event at any time.

“Since the first days of the bid we’ve always said a summer World Cup is feasible in Qatar, but whatever the football community decides we will fulfil it,” he said.

“If the decision is to change it to the winter our commitment to the cooling technology and the legacy it leaves is still strong.

“Currently our plans are moving forward with the assumption the World Cup will be taking place in the summer.

“Once the decision is made when the World Cup will be held we will be able to change and tinker with our plans to ensure we fulfil our requirements.”

Plans to implement the cooling technology remain on track, he added.

“The cooling technology was developed years before 2010. It was on the ground, it was something tangible. The evolution of that technology is being developed as we’re moving along now and the delivery of it is coming along,” he said.