SPORTSARAB TIMES, WEDNESDAY, MAY 8, 2019

24

UNIMONI Exchange team

‘X’ Strikers

IBL Tigers

Bowler of the Week – Fatima Fernandes

KRAHS Team

Jordan Elite Team

Truex ‘wins’ second careerNASCAR Cup race at Dover

Bowman fi nishes 2nd as Larson, Harvick,Elliott rounded out top 5

DOVER, Delaware, May 7, (AP): Martin Truex Jr stood next to the 60-pound metallic gold Monster trophy on the Victory Lane stage and was uncertain about how many fi ngers he should fl ash for his celebratory photo.

“Two for the season or three for Do-ver?” Truex asked.

How about one of each?Truex solved his snapshot situation about as

effi ciently as he weaved through traffi c from the back of the fi eld to win a Monday race at Dover International Speedway for the second time in his Cup career. Truex won his fi rst ca-reer NASCAR Cup race on June 4, 2007, at Dover and 12 years later used another Sunday rainout to take the checkered fl ag.

“I’m going to lobby for all Dover races to be on Mondays,” Truex said with a laugh.

He knows how to win on Sundays, too. Truex is warming up in his fi rst season with Joe Gibbs Racing and won in the No. 19 Toyota for the second time in three races. Truex, the 2017 Cup champion, won at Richmond three weeks ago and is hitting his stride as the summer stretch approaches.

“We’ve had some really strong race cars at a lot of racetracks,” Truex said. “For a lot of reasons, we haven’t been able to show it, been having issues that set us back. It’s been tough. The last couple weeks I just feel it’s execution. We’re doing all the little things right.”

Truex and crew chief Cole Pearn didn’t let rain, an inspection failure that dumped the car to the rear or even a maligned race package affect their push toward the fi nish. Truex, who is from Mayetta, New Jersey has long considered Dover his home track, led 132 laps and dominated run-ner-up Alex Bowman by a breezy 9.5 seconds to win at Dover for the fi rst time since 2016.

He had no complains about the new high drag, high downforce, 750 horsepower package that led to track-record speeds posted in qualifying.

Kyle Busch, the 2015 NASCAR champion, peppered his comments on the package with profanity and said his complaints to NASCAR would fall on deaf ears. Kevin Harvick said cars are “hard to race” under the package. Team owner Bob Leavine tweeted he agreed with Busch and wrote “this package sucks.”

Truex brushed off the complaints.“We all had to deal with the same thing,”

Truex said. “Obviously, we dealt with it better than everybody else.”

Bowman fi nished second for the second straight week in the No. 88 Chevrolet. Kyle Larson, Harvick and Chase Elliott rounded out the top fi ve. Elliott gave Hendrick Motorsports and Chevrolet their fi rst wins of the season at Talladega last week. Bowman and Elliott made it another solid race for a manufacturer that was in dire need of a boost.

“We at least had a shot at it. It’s really all you can ask for,” Bowman said. “We had a miser-able start to the reason. We really did a good job resetting in the off week.”

But all the teams are chasing Gibbs.JGR has seven wins in 11 races this season

and has established itself as the team to beat.“It’s a big deal for us,” Gibbs said. “As eve-

rybody knows, in pro sports these things can go and come very quick. The hardest thing to do is to stay up there.”

Truex has been as reliable with Pearn in his fi rst season with Gibbs as he was for years at the since-shuttered Furniture Row Racing. Truex, who has 21 career wins, made it to vic-tory lane for the fi rst time in 2007 but didn’t win again until 2013. He hasn’t sniffed much of a victory drought since 2015, winning 19 races and a series championship over that span.

Driver Martin Truex Jr (19) celebrates in Victory Lane after winning the NASCAR Cup Se-ries auto race on May 6 at Dover International Speedway in Dover, Delware. (AP)

‘X’ Strikers, KRAHS, Tigers and IncrediBowlers post wins

Jordan Elite sweep Swooping Eagles as Pin Pals beat SKARZKUWAIT CITY, May 7: It’s hard to break the barrier between the inner and outer core of the teams’ circle due to lack of aptitude and enthu-siasm of the lower fi ve to make intrusion and eject the ‘Super 8’ cliff hangers in the elimi-nation round of the 2019 Philippine Bowling Association in Kuwait – Kuwait Bowling Federation Cup 2019 Tenpin Bowling League held at Kuwait Bowling Sporting Club Com-plex at Salmiya. The teams that posted victory were IBL Tigers, Pin Pals, Jordan Elite Bowl-ers, IncrediBowlers, ‘X’ Strikers and KRAHS while UNIMONI Exchange played bye.

Ali Hikmat and Jordan Elite bowlers once more steered their team to sixth wins after rap-id fi ring to strike the Swooping Eagles, sweep-ing the scheduled three-game series 930-765, 892-862, 905-876. Winning two consecutive weeks that kept their sixth rank, prolifi c scorer Hikmat scored 556 points, Waleed Al Bol-oushi and Basma Ammar contributed 477, 458 respectively while Colin Eric Nelson added 440 and Yousef Waleed chipped in 430. The Swooping Eagles with depleted lineup were Riz Roque (488), Clinton Cathers (442), Mona

Corpuz (437) and Alonzo Bush (350) whose fi ve weeks winning streak was infringed by a bye game then lost their Friday’s game. The defeat did not affect their seventh standing but closed the defi cit from 68 to 18 points to the cliff hanger Falcon Cargo.

Fifth week when NUSANTARA team lost their ‘Super 8’ membership, the succeeding four weeks were catastrophic due to bowl-ers diligence and lack of fervor. The team played with depleted line up and resulted to sink deeper in the tenth place. In its last game against IncrediBowlers the Indonesian team loss the fi rst two games 806-893, 800-904 but retaliated in game three winning the game with 870-797 result but lost the match 2,476-2,619. If NUSANTARA change their attitude, focus their interest with perfect 5-man team led by Arab top rated bowlers, there is a possibility to snatch the last seat. The top pointer for the the victorious team was Lito Michael (474), supported by Erick Chang (462), Melvin Al-abado (457), Sandy Panopio (456) and Adolfo Prena (383) while NUSANTARA had Ahmad Fahmi (454), Tanjung Gantosori (398), Nuki Winuka (397), Benyamin Hasan (312).

The battle of the cellar dwellers, the Pin Pals showed their supremacy when they dominated the SKARZ all throughout the three-game se-ries 911-838, 861-770, 935-876 (2,732-2,484). Top scorer was Vasant Harshan (484) assisted by Diago Camilo (482), Raj Reddy (308), Allan Fernandes (301), Agnello Fernandes (293), Avinash Matthew (274) and Neeta Fernandes (78) while SKARZ bowlers were Lionel Mendes (482), Melwin Isaac (427), Ignatius Fernandes (278), Stephen Sequiera

(265), Solomon Moras (261), Katy Fernandes (234) and Fatima Fernandes (127). The win-lose-bye game records of the two teams were Pin Pals 3-5-0 while SKARZ had 0-7-1.

‘X’ Strikers snapped the third winning streak of the dominant team Asian Air Safari 2,703-2,544. In the fi rst game of the 3-game series ‘X’ Strikers surprised the much rated team Air Sa-fari 930-771 but in the second game the Asian Air knotted their series at one game each 988-918. In the fi nal game, Air Safari fi elded more rated players while ‘X’ men took advantage of the ‘handicap points’ that paid off, winning the game due to team handicap 830-785. Best pointer was Ceddie Faa (481), Abel Nitikusu-mo (434), Bima Nitikusumo (389), Cris Carun-gay (344), Joe Presenta (344), Ronell Valencia (151) and Rocky Castil (137) while Asian Air top scorer was Farid Gabriel (521), Aqeel Al Farisy (496), Mohammad Karam (485), Fadhi Al Masri (344), Ghadeer Al Sarraf (311) and Sonia Mathews (151). The win-lose resulted to Asian Air Safari drop from second to third rank while ‘X’ Strikers keep holding the fi fth position.

The KRAHS team who were jolted by two successive shock defeat that crashed them from second to fourth spot came roaring back to subjugate the Falcon Cargo throughout on their way to a comfortable win 2,737-2,553 holding their present rank. The shark team were Joel Tizon (496), Pilar Patula (468), Moises Amahan (347), Eddie Pena (332), Mar Evangelista (274), Sam Behbehani (248) and Eden Anan (127) while Falcon Cargo were Gener Calingasan (508), Jayson Gamba (496), Jhon Narvasa (287), Jess Tolentino (284), Imelda Calingasan (263), Christine Moreno (246) and Jocelyn Barros (105).

Finally, the Dragon Bowlers who stepped on quicksand from day one and continued to sink and fi nd it diffi cult to extricate itself after suffering another defeat on the hands of the IBL Tigers (1,800-2,852). The two coura-geous Dragon bowlers were Mostafa Ahmad (356) and Anna Liza dela Sada (269) while Tigers merciless warriors were Joel Fernandes (513), Rudolph Castelino (479), Ulysses Me-nezes (473), Nadine Dias (465), Amam Agar-wal (326) and Jason D’ Souza (130). Reigning champion UNIMONI Exchange played bye with the score 2884 points led by Mohammad Khaled (605), Ibrahim Al Dubayan (591), Su-laiman Al Shuaibi (525), Rudy de Lima (484) and Ahmad Fadhil Karam (423) captured the weekly team high series for the third time and Ibrahim Al Dubayan as Bowler of the Week.

Eight Round Results: 1. UNIMONI Ex-change (22,835); 2. IBL Tigers (22,106); 3. Asian Air Safari (22,038); 4. KRAHS (21,840); 5. ‘X’ Strikers (21,840); 6. Jordan Elite Bowlers (21,762); 7. Swooping Eagles (21,233); 8. Falcon Int’l Cargo (21,215); 9. IncrediBowlers (20,816); 10. NUSANTARA (20,517); 11. Pin Pals (20,465); 12. SKARZ (20,108) and 13. Dragon Bowlers (18,293).

Bid to host 2026 Winter Games

Malago to lead organizing cmte if Milan-Cortina winsROME, May 7, (AP): Italian Olympic Committee president Giovanni Malago will lead the organizing committee if the Milan-Cortina d’Ampezzo bid wins next month’s vote to host the 2026 Win-ter Games.

Malago’s announcement on Tuesday came hours after a massive police opera-tion in the Milan area resulted in 43 people being arrested - many of them public offi cials – for alleged corrup-tion in assigning public construc-tion projects to “ M a f i a - l i k e ” groups.

“If someone has made mis-takes I don’t think it can affect the Olym-pic bid,” Lombardy president Attilio Fontana said.

Malago’s decision was made together with representatives of Milan, Cortina, and the two regions.

“The IOC wants a representative from the sports world,” Malago said, adding a business manager would take on the role of CEO.

While leading the organizing com-mittee, Malago would remain president of CONI, with his current term ending

in 2021. If re-elected, Malago could remain CONI president through 2025 and the body said he could also remain organizing committee head through the 2026 Olympics.

Malago was also recently elected as an IOC member, a position that will last at least through 2029.

With Stockholm-Are the only other remaining bid, the IOC will vote on the 2026 host on June 24 in Lausanne, Swit-zerland.

Skiing great Alberto Tomba will at-tend the vote to promote the Italian bid. Also attending will be Olympic champi-ons Sofi a Goggia (downhill skiing) and Michela Moioli (snowboard cross).

Bid members will wear clothing de-signed by Giorgio Armani and theme music will be composed by Academy Award winner Ennio Morricone.

The Milan-Cortina candidacy takes full advantage of more fl exible hosting rules provided by recent reforms from IOC President Thomas Bach.

The bid proposes to hold fi gure skat-ing, ice hockey and short-track speed-skating in Milan; sliding sports and curling in 1956 host Cortina; and speed-skating, biathlon and Nordic sports in Trentino-Alto Adige.

Malago

OLYMPICS

Maximum Security will not run in May 18 Preakness Stakes

Appeal over Kentucky Derby disqualifi cation deniedLOUISVILLE, Kentucky, May 7, (RTRS): An appeal fi led by the owner of Maximum Security, the horse that fi nished fi rst in the Kentucky Derby on Saturday but was later disqualifi ed for interference, was denied by the Ken-tucky Horse Racing Commission on Monday.

The appeal was fi led by an attorney for Gary West, whose horse became the fi rst winner to be disqualifi ed for an on-track infraction.

The racing commission called the request “moot” because the decision to disqualify Maximum Security and in-stall second-placed Country House as winner was not subject to appeal.

“The stewards unanimously dis-qualifi ed Maximum Security following two objections lodged immediately af-ter the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby and after a thorough review of the race replay,” the commission wrote in a letter.

“That determination is not subject to an appeal.”

After a 20-minute video review, of-fi cials found that Maximum Security, who was 4-1 favourite to win the 1-1/4 mile race, was guilty of a contact foul when he appeared to take a wide turn and impede other horses in the home stretch.

The disqualifi cation ruling handed the win to Country House, which had been a 65-1 long shot.

West told NBC’s “Today” earlier

on Monday that the dramatic turn on events at Churchill Downs left him “stunned, shocked and in total disbe-lief” and that his bay colt would not be in the fi eld for the May 18 Preakness Stakes, the second leg of US thorough-bred horse racing’s Triple Crown.

“Winning it was the most euphoric

thing I have probably ever had in our lives and disappointment when they took the horse down for the fi rst time in history, we were stunned, shocked and in total disbelief. It had never been done before.”

The decision even caught the atten-tion of US President Donald Trump,

who said on Twitter the disqualifi ca-tion of Maximum Security could only happen in “these days of political cor-rectness”.

West said he did see Maximum Security, who led from nearly start to fi nish, move over several lanes but felt such contact was inevitable given the number of horses allowed to race in the Kentucky Derby, which usually features 20 horses but this year had 19 year after a late scratch.

“Churchill Downs, because they’re a greedy organisation, has (20 horses) rather than 14 like you have in the Ken-tucky Oaks, the Breeders’ Cup, every other race in America,” said West.

“Just because they can make more money, they’re willing to risk horses’

lives and peoples’ lives to do that. I’m not a fan of that. I think they ought to have 14 like every other race.,” said West.

When asked for comment, Church-ill Downs Racetrack President Kevin Flanery said in an email to Reuters that the infraction by Maximum Security had nothing to do with the number of horses in the race and that there is no evidence to the contrary.

West said there would be no rematch with Country House when Baltimore’s Pimlico Race Course hosts the Preak-ness Stakes.

HORSE RACING

Luis Saez riding Maximum Security (second from right), goes around turn four with Flavien Prat riding Country House (left), Tyler Gaffalione riding War of Will and John Velazquez riding Code of Honor (right), during the 145th running of the Kentucky Derby horse race at Churchill Downs on May

4 in Louisville, Kentucky. (AP)

CAR RACING

BOWLING