Asansol (WB), Nov 12: Army shooter Devendra Singh won two gold medals at the 23rd All India G V Mavalankar shooting championship here today.
The 25-year-old shooter from Services earned individual medals in 50-metre free pistol event of both senior and junior sections.
While scoring 269 points, he created a new meet record in his junior men 50-metre free pistol event, surpassing 266-point mark created by Sandeep Bhalotia at 2008 meet in Jalandhar.
Vitoria, Jul 20: Lionel Messi won a record seventh top scoring title in the Spanish league after netting twice in Barcelona's 5-0 rout of Alav s in the final round.
Messi ended with 25 goals, four more than Karim Benzema, who did not score in Real Madrid's 2-2 draw at Legan s.
Messi is the first player to finish as the league's top scorer in seven different seasons. He reached the milestone despite missing games because of an injury early in the season. The Argentine's 25 goals came in 33 matches.
Messi was tied with Telmo Zarra with six scoring titles. He has also now equaled Hugo Sanchez's feat of four straight top-scorer trophies.
"Individual achievements are always secondary," Messi said on Sunday.
"I wished it could have come along with the league title."
This is also the third successive season that Messi finished with the most assists 21 in the league.
Ansu Fati, Luis Su rez and Nelson Semedo also scored Sunday for Barcelona, which had already secured second place behind Madrid.
Fati opened the scoring in the 24th minute, Messi added to the lead 10 minutes later and Su rez closed the first-half scoring in the 44th. Semedo got on the board in the 57th and Messi in the 75th to help Barcelona rebound from a 2-1 home loss to Osasuna.
"Today things were different," Messi said.
"The team showed better attitude and commitment. It was an important step forward for us ahead of what's left in the season."
Barcelona now turns its focus to its Aug. 8 home game against Napoli in the round of 16 of the Champions League. The first leg, played before the break, ended 1-1.
Barcelona coach Quique Seti n finished under pressure after the team relinquished a two-point lead over Madrid when the league resumed following the pandemic break. It was four points back before Madrid's match at Legan s.
Barcelona defender Cl ment Lenglet had to be substituted early in the second half because of an apparent muscle injury.
Alav s, sitting in 15th, had already done enough to stay up.
BAR A "B" TEAM
American winger Konrad de la Fuente scored twice as Barcelona's "B" team beat Valladolid B to keep alive its hopes of reaching the second division next season. The victory put Barcelona in the second round of the promotion playoffs.
The 19-year-old De la Fuente, who recently had his contract with Barcelona extended through the 2021-22 season, scored in each half.
Islamabad, Aug 7: Former Pakistani fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar, known for his blistering deliveries on the cricket field, recently baffled many with a deadly off-field bouncer by claiming he is willing to eat grass if it enabled an increase in budget for his country's Army!
"If Allah ever gives me the authority, I will eat grass myself but I will increase the budget of the army," said Akhtar in an interview with ARY News.
The 'Rawalpindi Express', considered the fastest bowler in history said he does not understand why the civilian sector cannot work in collaboration with the Armed forces.
"I will ask my army chief to sit with me and make decisions. If the budget is 20 per cent, I will make it 60 per cent. If we insult each other, the loss is ours only," the once feared fast-bowler said.
Akthar had also claimed to ARY News interview that he was willing to take a bullet for his country and had turned down a county stint just because he wanted to fight the 1999 Kargil War.
Ties between India and Pakistan have been strained in the recent months over several issues, the latest being Pakistan's attempt to broach in the UNSC the issue of Kashmir on the first anniversary of the India's move to scrap the special status of Jammu and Kashmir and to split the erstwhile state into two union territories .
Pakistan also has not been in a good financial position and under prime minister Imran Khan, himself an all rounder cricketer, has added nearly USD 22 billion, that is 35 per cent to the nation's international debt pile in the last two years, according to an Asia Times report in July.
While Pakistan recently received USD 1.39 billion from the IMF to cushion the economic shocks caused due to COVID-19 outbreak, Akthar had a few months ago proposed that a joint cricket match be played between India and Pakistan to raise funds to fight the coronavirus. The suggestion that was put down by cricketers in India.
Meanwhile the 'Pindi boy' whose deadly pace and bounce was once dreaded by batsmen had recently taken to Twitter to deny former India cricketer Virender Sehwag's claim of sledging him.
Sehwag along with other Indian crickerters such as Harbhajan Singh and even Rahul Dravid had been at the receiving end of Akthar's sledging and antics during their playing days.
"Yes, totally self made story by him. Mujhe yeh bol k bach k jana kidhar tha us nay," Akthar tweeted to a report in which Sehwag claimed that he had sledged the 'Rawalpindi Express' by telling him that Sachin Tendulkar was his father.
During an awards ceremony Sehwag had recounted that fed up with Akthar's sledging and retaliated by telling him to say the same things to Tendulkar, who smashed the 'Pindi boy' for a six. Sehwag quipped that he told Akthar then that "Baap baap hota hai".
In the recent ARY interview, asked about the allegation made against him by former India cricketer Virendra Sehwag that he makes pro-India comments for greater following on social media channels, Akhtar said, "I cannot talk on the basis of hate."
Tokyo, Apr 14: Tokyo organizers said Tuesday they have no B Plan in the event the Olympics need to be postponed again because of the coronavirus pandemic.
Masa Takaya, the spokesman for the Tokyo Olympics, said organizers are proceeding under the assumption the Olympics will open on July 23, 2021. The Paralympics follow on Aug. 24.
Those dates were set last month by the International Olympic Committee and Japanese officials after the coronavirus pandemic made it clear the Olympics could not be held as scheduled this summer.
We are working toward the new goal, Takaya said, speaking in English on a teleconference call with journalists.
We don't have a B Plan. The severity of the pandemic and the death toll has raised questions if it will even be feasible to hold the Olympics in just over 15 months. Several Japanese journalists raised the question on the call.
All I can tell you today is that the new games' dates for both the Olympic and Paralympic Games have been just set up, Takaya said.
In that respect, Tokyo 2020 and all concerned parties now are doing their very best effort to deliver the games next year." IOC President Thomas Bach was asked about the possibility of a postponement in an interview published in the German newspaper Die Welt on Sunday.
He did not answer the question directly, but said later that Japanese organizers and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe indicated they could not manage a postponement beyond next summer at the lastest.
The Olympics draw 11,000 athletes and 4,400 Paralympic athletes and large support staffs from 206 national Olympic committees.
There are also questions about frozen travel, rebooking hotels, cramming fans into stadiums and arenas, securing venues, and the massive costs of rescheduling, which is estimated in Japan at 2 billion- 6 billion.
Tokyo 2020 CEO Toshiro Muto addressed the issue in a news conference on Friday. He is likely to be asked about it again on Thursday when local organizers and the IOC hold a teleconferene with media in Japan.
The other major question is the cost of the delay; how much will it be, and who pays? Bach said in the Sunday interview that the IOC would incur several hundred million dollars in added costs. Under the so-called Host City Agreement, Japan is liable for the vast majority of the expenses.
This is impossible to say for now, Takaya, the spokesman said.
It is not very easy to estimate the exact amount of the games' additional costs, which have been impacted by the postponement."
Tokyo says it's spending 12.6 billion to organize the Olympics. But a Japanese government audit published last year says the costs are twice that much. Of the total spending, 5.6 billion in private money. The rest is from Japanese governments.
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