SKIING
Mikaela Shiffrin has ruled out skiing the downhill at the world championships – keeping to her pre-announced schedule of four events.
Shiffrin inspected the course before the opening downhill training session Tuesday just to take a look at the layout ahead of Wednesday’s super-G race. But she did not enter the training session.
Then she performed a few runs of super-G training.
Shiffrin straddled a gate in the slalom leg and was disqualified from the combined race Monday that opened the championships.
After the super-G, she also plans to ski her preferred events of giant slalom and slalom at the end of next week. Shiffrin had left open a small possibility that she would race the downhill but now she has decided not to.
• Racing in his hometown, Alexis Pinturault ended a drought of nearly two years by winning the gold medal in the men’s combined at the world skiing championships at Courchevel, France.
In a tricky slalom run on a steep pitch, Pinturault retained his lead from the super-G portion to edge defending champion Marco Schwarz by 0.10 seconds.
Schwarz, second after the first leg, seemed headed for the victory when leading Pinturault by 0.30 seconds at the final split but he made a costly mistake at the fourth-to-last gate.
Pinturault is a Courchevel native and his family runs a hotel close to the L’Eclipse course.
Schwarz’s teammate, Raphael Haaser, finished 0.44 behind to win bronze, a day after his sister, Ricarda Haaser, also took bronze in the women’s combined.
SOCCER
LEIPZIG: Defender Willi Orban could miss a key game in his team’s Bundesliga title challenge because he is taking time out to make a potentially life-saving donation of stem cells to a cancer patient.
Leipzig said the Hungary international has been on the German donor registry since 2017 and was recently identified as a match for a patient with blood cancer.
He will donate cells Wednesday.
Leipzig said Orban has been taking injections since Saturday to boost his stem cell count and hasn’t trained with the team since Sunday. He is considered doubtful for fourth-place Leipzig’s Bundesliga game against second-place Union Berlin on Saturday.
MONTPELLIER: Montpellier suspended Coach Romain Pitau as the 2012 champions currently sit just two points outside the relegation zone.
The club said a press conference was planned for Wednesday.
Assistant coaches Pascal Baills and Frederic Mendy were also suspended, the southern club said.
AUTO RACING
NASCAR: IndyCar driver Conor Daly will attempt to qualify for the Daytona 500 with the NASCAR team owned by Floyd Mayweather.
The Money Team Racing raced its way into the Daytona 500 last year with driver Kaz Grala; Daly made his Cup Series debut for the team in October on The Roval at Charlotte Motor Speedway.
Daly will be among six drivers vying for four open spots in the 40-car field. Among those also trying to qualify for an open spot in the Feb. 19 season opener is seven-time NASCAR champion Jimmie Johnson and action sports star Travis Pastrana, a close friend of Daly’s.
UFC
MEXICO CITY: The UFC will open a multimillion-dollar, 32,000-square-foot MMA training facility in Mexico City late this year, the organization announced.
This will be the third institute. The first opened in Las Vegas in 2017 and is about the same size as the one that will be constructed in Mexico. College and professional athletes have used that facility for their workouts as well as those in the UFC.
A 93,000-square-foot facility opened in Shanghai in 2019 and serves as a training magnet for those in China and throughout Asia.
OLYMPICS
PARIS: Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo says there should be no Russian delegation allowed at the Paris Olympics next year if Moscow continues its war against Ukraine.
Hidalgo previously said Russian competitors could take part under a neutral flag but she backpedaled in an interview with French media France Info.
Acknowledging that a final decision belongs to the International Olympic Committee, Hidalgo said she wishes Russian athletes will be banned “as long as there is this war, this Russian aggression on Ukraine.”
BASKETBALL
WNBA: The Los Angeles Sparks signed former All-Star guard Layshia Clarendon to a training camp contract.
Clarendon has averaged 7.6 points, 2.7 rebounds and 3.2 assists during a nine-year career and was an All-Star with Atlanta in 2017.
USA TRAINING CAMP: Diana Taurasi said immediately after winning her fifth Olympic gold medal in Tokyo that she might try for a record sixth in Paris.
It’s still on her mind 17 months out of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
“It’s something that it’s on my radar,” Taurasi told The Associated Press in a phone interview after the first day of a USA Basketball training camp in Minnesota. “I’m still competitive, still driven, still want to play, I still love being a part of USA Basketball.”
Taurasi will be 42 at the time of the Paris Games, but said if she’s healthy enough she’d like to give it a go.
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