SATURDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2018 SPORT 21 You will inspire us all to live together in peace QNB STARS LEAGUE and harmony despite Today’s fixtures all the differences Thomas Bach International Olympic Al Kharaitiyat vs Al Markhiya At Al Khor Stadium 4.40pm we have Committee President Al Arabi vs Al Ahli At Al Arabi Stadium 6.50pm FOOTBALL Qatar Total Open: Radwanska arrives as qualifying round begins THE PENINSULA with the qualifying round today and the final The tournament which will give away Polish tennis will be played on February 18. prize money worth $2.666m, will also fea- star Agnieszka DOHA: Former Wimbledon finalist and The qualifying round will see 32 players, ture 32 players in the doubles’ category of Radwanska former world number 2, Polish star including Qatar’s promising player Mubarka the competition. poses for a Agnieszka Radwanska arrived in Doha ahead Al Nuaimi taking part. Meanwhile, QTSBF executive director photograph of the 2018 Qatar Total Open yesterday. Qatar Tennis, Squash and Badminton and tournament director Saad Al Mohan- upon her She will be joining a star cast which fea- Federation (QTSBF) hosts the tournament nadi said that Khalifa International Tennis arrival at tures top players in the calibre of world No. at Khalifa International Tennis and Squash and Squash Complex is ready to welcome the Hamad 1 Caroline Wozniacki who recently won the Complex, with eight players progressing from the game’s best players as well as tennis fans. International Australian Open, Romanian Simona Halep, the qualifying round to the main round that He added that this year’s edition is Airport in Doha Ukraine’s Elina Svitolina, Spaniard Garbine begins on Monday. expected to be extremely competitive thanks ahead of the Muguruza, Czech Karolina Pliskova, Latvia’s QTSBF Secretary General Tariq Zeinal, to the inclusion of the world’s top seeds, 2018 Qatar Jeena Ostapenko, Frenchwoman Caroline who is also the tournament’s general coor- which will be a unique opportunity for fans. Total Open Garcia, German Angelique Kerber and Rus- dinator, said that all preparations are fin- Al Mohannadi also said that ticket sales yesterday. sian tennis queen Maria Sharapova. ished for the event, which sees the partici- are very promising, expecting the 2018 edi- The high profile tournament will start pation of the top 10 world seeds. tion of the event to be the best ever. Kremlin ‘regrets’ court’s rejection of Olympic athletes’ appeals AFP MOSCOW: The Kremlin said yesterday that it regretted the rejection of a last-minute appeal by dozens of its athletes to take part in the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics. “We regret this. We are taking this decision into consideration... and undoubtedly we will con- tinue to help athletes to stand up for their rights,” Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists after the ruling by the Court of Arbitration for Sport. “Now the main thing is to support our ath- letes: both those who remained in our country and those who went to Korea and will compete there,” Peskov added. On Friday, 47 Russians implicated in doping lost a last-minute court bid to take part in the A general view during the Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony at the Pyeongchang Pyeongchang Olympics, just hours before the Olympic Stadium yesterday. RIGHT: A torchbearer carries the Olympic torch during the opening ceremony. opening ceremony. The applicants, who included Korean-born speed skater Victor An, had asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport to overturn an IOC decision not to invite them to South Korea. The Russian Olympic Committee expressed Koreans unite as Pyeongchang “extreme regret” at the ruling. In a statement, it said “the athletes and the world sporting community as a whole still does not know the concrete reasons why such leaders Winter Games get underway of world sport as (biathlon gold medallist) Anton Shipulin, Victor An and (cross-country skiing world champion) Sergei Ustyugov did not receive AFP Pence sat directly in front of the the waist and with his chest heavily the spotlight in women’s figure invitations to the games.” North Korean delegation. oiled. skating, where a showdown is Earlier yesterday, Russian Deputy Prime Min- PYEONGCHANG: The two Koreas Kim Yu-na, South Korea’s Expectations are sky-high for expected with her fellow Russian ister Vitaly Mutko claimed that the court was marched together and South Korea’s former gold medal-winning figure an array of stars at Pyeongchang, teen, Evgenia Medvedeva. under pressure from Olympic officials when it president shared a historic hand- skater, wore skates as she lit the including American skiers Mikaela Another teenage breakout star rejected the bid. shake with Kim Jong Un’s sister as Olympic cauldron, after being Shiffrin and Lindsey Vonn, while the could be Chloe Kim, 17, the Amer- “It’s difficult for CAS to make decisions the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics handed the torch by two members drama in figure skating centres on ican whose parents are Korean and against the backdrop of an earlier pressure,” opened in a spirit of intense of the joint Korean women’s ice whether Japan’s “Ice Prince” Yuzuru who is tipped for gold in snowboard Mutko told Interfax news agency, referring to rapprochement yesterday. hockey team -- one player from the Hanyu can recover from injury to as well as adulation by the host objections from the International Olympic At a glittering but sub-zero cer- North and one from the South. retain his crown. nation. Committee. emony, South and North Korea Lee Hee-beom, head of the Potential winners also include Competition gets into full swing The IOC was swift to welcome the decision, brought the crowd to its feet as they Games organising committee, said French flag-bearer Martin Fourcade today with five gold medals avail- the latest twist in the Russian doping scandal, entered behind the blue-and-white “the North and South have become in biathlon, hoping to add to his two able, in ski jumping, cross country saying the ruling “supports the fight against Korean unification flag. one through the Olympics”. gold medals in Sochi in 2014. skiing, biathlon, speed skating and doping and brings clarity for all athletes”. South Korean President Moon “Pyeongchang Olympics will Alpine giant slalom great Marcel short-track speed skating. The Russian situation has proved highly con- Jae-in shook the hand of a smiling become the hope and light for eve- Hirscher of Austria is also among Ninety-one countries -- plus the tentious in the build-up to Pyeongchang, after Kim Yo Jong, the powerful sister of ryone that hopes for peace, not only the gold medal hunters. “Olympic Athletes from Russia” -- their team was banned. But a certain number of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, on the Korean peninsula but in The sensational 15-year-old are competing for 102 gold medals “clean” Russian athletes were allowed to take part as he entered the VIP seating sec- northeast Asia and the entire world,” Alina Zagitova of Russia will take in 15 different sports. as neutrals. tion, and again as the Korean ath- said Lee. letes marched. In contrast, Russia’s athletes It cemented what has been a entered the ceremony behind a neu- rapid improvement in Korean ties tral flag after their team was sus- since North Korea -- after months pended over a doping scandal. of fierce nuclear rhetoric and mis- Despite the ban, 168 “Olympic Ath- sile tests -- agreed last month to letes from Russia” will compete in attend its first Olympics in the Pyeongchang. South. Just hours earlier, 47 Russians Kim Yo Jong, the first member lost a court bid to take part in the of the North’s ruling dynasty to ven- Games after they were left off the ture South since the Korean War, list of athletes deemed clean from forms part of the highest level del- doping. egation ever to cross the border. Shivering athletes and specta- South and North Korea last tors are bracing for one of the marched together at the 2006 coldest Winter Olympics on record, Winter Olympics in Turin. They also with real-feel temperatures made the symbolic gesture at the plumbing minus 10C at the opening opening of the 2000 and 2004 ceremony. Olympics in Sydney and Athens. Japan’s speed skaters are among “You will inspire us all to live the athletes who decided it was too together in peace and harmony cold to brave the open-air cere- despite all the differences we have,” mony, while organisers handed out said International Olympic Com- heat packs, blankets and hats to mittee president Thomas Bach, keep spectators warm. before Moon declared the Games But Tonga’s Pita Taufatofua, open. echoing his eye-catching entrance A volunteer carries the IOC flag as Olympic Athletes from Russia march during the In highly unusual scenes, at the Rio Olympics, happily braved Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics opening ceremony. hawkish US Vice President Mike the chill as he appeared stripped to 22 SPORT SATURDAY 10 FEBRUARY 2018 Silva puts Lanka on top Coleman gets AFP another chance at DHAKA: Roshen Silva hit an unbeaten half-century to put Sri break ‘his’ record Lanka in command of the second Test after stretching their lead REUTERS to 312 against Bangladesh in Dhaka yesterday. BOSTON: World silver medallist sprinter Christian Coleman gets The visitors reached 200-8 another chance to break the 60 metres world record this week- at stumps on day two in their end, a mark he believes already belongs to him. second innings. The batting “I do believe I am the record holder, and I think a lot of peo- effort came after debutant spin- ple do as well regardless of if it is official,” the 21-year-old American ner Akila Dananjaya led an said in a telephone interview ahead of today’s Boston Indoor Grand inspirational attack to dismiss Prix.