SPORTS SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2013

Broncos rout Ravens Ghanaian seeks Manning tosses seven TDs US football fame

DENVER: Peyton Manning tied a league Ziggy’s shot at stardom record with seven touchdowns as the crushed the Super Bowl champion ACCRA: Ghana native Ziggy Ansah begins a promising Baltimore Ravens 49-27 in the NFL season career tomorrow, completing an unlikely opener on Thursday. The four-time most valu- odyssey towards a game watched by few and played by even able player became just the sixth player in his- fewer in his west African homeland. “The next thing I heard tory to throw seven touchdowns in a game. was he was now playing football. Football?” said Monica Manning looked like he is ready to guide Ohene Opare, one of the founders of a school Ansah attend- Denver to the playoffs just as he did last year ed and where he later worked as a teaching assistant. in his return from multiple neck surgeries. “I know football is kind of a rough game, so I was kind of “It was a great night. Great atmosphere,” worried.” Ansah’s journey from Ghana to the Detroit Lions of Manning said. “We had to be patient and we the in the United States involves his knew we could get some shots and our conversion to Mormonism, rare athletic talent and a bit of receivers made some big plays.” Denver also luck. He is considered one of the most promising young play- exacted revenge for a 38-35 loss to Baltimore in ers in the league, yet Ziggy, whose real name is Ezekiel, has the AFC divisional playoffs in January and they only been playing the sport for about three years. Ghana is a did it in style as the Broncos 22-point win football-mad nation-but football meaning soccer, not the Thursday was the biggest opening night victo- ry ever over the defending Super Bowl champs. American version. Five of Manning’s TDs came in the second half Some have even predicted he will end up as the NFL’s of the contest at Sports Authority Field which best first-year defensive player. He was the fifth pick of the was delayed 33 minutes before the opening NFL draft, the highest-ever for a player from an African coun- kick off because of a bad weather. try. “For someone who has played such little football, Ansah Manning joined Joe Kapp, George Blanda, has an unbelievable feel for the game,” NFL analyst Gil Brandt Sid Luckman and Adrian Burk as the lone play- wrote on the league’s website. “He can look like a 10-year vet- ers in league history to toss seven touch- eran out there.” Ansah will first however have to overcome a downs in a game. He is the first to do it since setback. There has been speculation over whether he will Kapp in 1969 when the former NFL and play in tomorrow’s season opener after suffering an injury in Canadian Football League star played for the practice. Whether he takes the field Sunday or later in the Minnesota Vikings. Manning said he is well season, expectations will be high, both in the United States aware of Kapp’s legacy. “Joe Kapp. No 11 from and among his friends and family back home. Ansah, 24, Cal A Canadian. Kicked the crap out of a guy grew up in a middle-class family in the emerging west African on YouTube a couple of years ago,” Manning nation of 25 million people, his mother a nurse and his father said. The Broncos turned a three-point half- a sales manager for a petroleum company. time deficit into a comfortable 25-point cush- Most Ghanaians think of football as a sport of goalkeepers ion by scoring 28 consecutive points to begin and strikers, and Ansah also enjoyed playing soccer in his the second half. “Fortunately we figured it out youth, Ohene Opare said. But by high school, he had become after halftime,” said John Fox, head coach of a standout in athletics and basketball, pursuing the latter Denver. “We got some new players. So just when a charity run by retired NFL Hall of Famer Steve Young like every team on opening day there are built a court at Ohene Opare’s Golden Sunbeam Schools, some things to figure out as you go.” Wes where he attended. At six-foot five-inches (1.98 meters), Welker, Julius Thomas and Demaryius Thomas DENVER: Baltimore Ravens running back Bernard Pierce (30) is tackled by Ansah would dominate pickup games and soon became a each caught two touchdown passes for the Denver Broncos’ Kevin Vickerson (99) and Nate Irving (56) during the first half hoops enthusiast. Broncos, who finished 13-3 last season and of an NFL football game on Thursday, Sept 5, 2013, in Denver. — AP He would return to Golden Sunbeam, located in a middle- had the No. 1 seed in the AFC before being class neighbourhood of quiet, dusty streets on the northern ousted by the Ravens in the playoffs. Welker Thursday by allowing a franchise-record 49 ing Trevathan accidently let go of the ball just edge of bustling Accra, to play on the court, even when he finished with nine catches for 67 yards in his points. Quarterback Joe Flacco, who signed a before he reached the goal line and the ball went to high school in another area. In school athletics com- first game as a Bronco after spending the past six-year, $120.6 million contract in March to rolled out of the end zone for a touchback to petitions, Ansah outran his competition in the 200-metre half dozen seasons with New England. The make him the league’s highest paid player, nullify the touchdown. Thursday’s contest was sprint and also participated in the long jump, said Paul Kofi Broncos signed Welker as a free agent. finished 34-of-62 passing for 362 yards. Flacco just a taste of what to expect in week one of Yesu Dadzie, his track coach in high school. Demaryius Thomas led all receivers with 161 also had two touchdowns and two intercep- the season as there are 13 games on tap for yards on five catches while Julius Thomas also By the end of high school, Ansah had his sights set on tions, while Ray Rice managed just 36 yards Sunday and two on Monday night. A heavy- being a professional basketball athlete. Recognizing this, had five catches for Denver. “Our defense can and a score on 12 carries for Baltimore. weight NFC showdown takes place in San Ohene Opare helped sponsor him for admission to Brigham answer the bell without some of their top “We made a number of mistakes,” said Francisco, where the Green Bay Packers face guns,” Manning said. “They were awesome John Harbaugh, who has reportedly agreed to Super Bowl runner-up Colin Kaepernick and Young University in the United States in 2008. The school is and made a lot of plays.” The Ravens are still a contract extension with the Ravens. “That the 49ers. On Monday night, Washington the pre-eminent university of Ansah’s Mormon faith and getting used to each other as they lost eight was the biggest issue. We gave them too quarterback Robert Griffin will test his surgi- home to top-level sports teams. He had converted to starters from last season. That list includes many things. We can get better.” The cally repaired knee as the Redskins face off Mormonism about a year before college. future Hall-of-Famer Ray Lewis, safety Ed Reed strangest play of Thursday’s contest saw against the Philadelphia Eagles. Other must The Ohene Opare family, themselves Mormon, would and wide receiver Anquan Boldin. Denver’s Danny Trevathan pick off a Flacco watch games include the allow missionaries to come to their school to check email and Baltimore, who beat San Francisco 34-31 pass and returned it 30 yards for what against New Orleans Saints and Cincinnati they ended up converting and baptising Ansah. “When I got to win the Super Bowl, struggled on defense appeared to be a touchdown. But a celebrat- Bengals versus the Chicago Bears. — AFP his results and he did so well, I thought that maybe (he) should go to school outside,” Ohene Opare said. With an aca- demic scholarship in hand, he headed to the university in the Hamilton sets practice pace at Monza US state of Utah, but soon found his dreams of basketball stardom falling short. Two try-outs for the basketball team MONZA: Last year’s winner Lewis Hamilton put Mercedes on top of with half an hour to go. ended in failure. But he excelled at sprinting on the BYU track the Italian Grand Prix practice times yesterday with Fernando Alonso Hamilton’s team mate Nico Rosberg was third fastest while former team, where an assistant coach recommended him for the keeping the Ferrari fans happy with the second-best lap only 0.035 Ferrari driver Kimi Raikkonen, the 2007 champion now with Lotus, football team. seconds slower. Red Bull’s championship leader Sebastian Vettel was was fifth on the timesheets. Raikkonen suffered his first retirement of He at first struggled with the unfamiliar equipment used fourth fastest. Hamilton, who will be chasing his fifth pole position in the season, ending a 27-race scoring run, at the previous race in by football players and often ended practices exhausted by a row today, roared around Monza’s classic ‘Pista Magica’ with a best Belgium and has fallen back to fourth in the championship behind the training regimen, remembers Eathyn Manumaleuna, a time of one minute 25.565 seconds on a sunny morning in the former Hamilton. A banner in the start/finish grandstand, written in large red teammate of his originally from the US state of Alaska. But royal park. The Briton, who was booed by some of the passionate letters and positioned next to a Ferrari flag, declared ‘Kimi in pole’ in when it came to running, Ansah would leave his competition Ferrari ‘tifosi’ when he won for McLaren last year, had said on what looked like a throwback to 2007 when the Finn finished third at in the dust. “He was fast,” Manumaleuna said. “He had a base Thursday that he hoped they would be booing him again if it meant a Monza for the Italian team. and a foundation in that sense which helped him a lot. All he return to the top step of the podium on Sunday. Raikkonen has a longer wheelbase car for the race, the fastest on really needed to do was learn the game.” He became an inte- The 2008 world champion certainly has a good chance, as one the calendar with speeds of up to 340kph, but has played down his gral part of BYU’s defence, at one point keeping a quarter- of only three current drivers to have won the final round of the chances. “It will be very difficult,” he told reporters. “The low down- back pinned down through sheer speed and laser-like focus, European season and with Mercedes looking increasingly com- force circuits are probably not the strongest for us. Last year was diffi- Manumaleuna remembered. Speaking of that game, petitive. Vettel and Alonso, the top two in the championship after cult, and last year at Spa was quite tricky, and it wasn’t easy this year Manumaleuna said that “with Ziggy there, (the quarterback) 11 of 19 races, are the other two past winners with the German either.” McLaren were sixth and seventh fastest with Mexican Sergio couldn’t go anywhere.”As Ansah rose through the ranks-from triple champion 46 points clear of the Ferrari driver. Alonso might Perez and Britain’s Jenson Button, who had a DRS problem with the his starting season in 2010 to an increasingly avid grasp of have gone quicker than Hamilton had he not run wide, kicking up rear wing, while Australian Mark Webber was eighth for Red Bull in the game-his friends in Accra kept watch from afar. —AFP a cloud of dust, at the exit to the Parabolica corner on a fast lap what will be his final F1 appearance in Europe. —Reuters