Sports

LONDON: As the world’s top athletes compete at the London Games, Syria is wracked by civil war, and the country’s Olympic team is steering clear of the issue. The northwestern city of Aleppo has been under military forces’ fire for 12 days, with the army using warplanes to fire on opposition fighters in one of the most important battles of …

LONDON: Handball has never been big in Britain, hardly ever entering into the public eye in a country obsessed by football, cricket and rugby. Judging by the opening weekend of games at the London Olympics, though, it may be catching on – even though the hosts seem to have little chance of even winning a game. The 6,500-seat venue at …

LONDON: Tunisia may have missed out on its first medal at the London Olympics because of bad math. Weightlifter Khalil El Maoui was in second place of the men’s 56-kilogram competition after the snatch on Sunday but never showed up on the platform for the second lift, the clean and jerk. He blamed his coach afterward for submitting an entry …

BERLIN: “Even the Kazakhs are laughing at us,” screamed mass circulation Bild on its front page under an Olympics medal table showing sporting powerhouse Germany with nothing to show for its efforts. “Man (and woman), are we bad,” adds the paper, Europe’s most widely read, following a string of disappointments culminating in world record-holder swimmer Paul Biedermann’s failure to qualify …

LONDON: American Marti Malloy has eliminated second-seeded Telma Monteiro of Portugal in the Olympic judo competition and will fight for a medal in the women’s 57-kilogram competition on Monday afternoon. Monteiro defeated Malloy in their two last meetings, but on Monday Malloy fought off Monteiro’s aggressive attempts to grip her uniform and repeatedly tried to throw the Portuguese competitor. The fight went into overtime, when Malloy swept …

LONDON: Australia’s Lleyton Hewitt battled into the second round of the Olympics with a hard-fought 6-3, 4-6, 6-3 win over Ukraine’s Sergiy Stakhovsky at Wimbledon on Monday. Hewitt’s world ranking has sunk to 158 after several years of injury problems and the 2002 Wimbledon champion needed a wild card to make it into the Games. But the 31-year-old, who was …

LONDON: Michael Phelps opened defense of his Olympic title in the 200-meter butterfly with the fifth-fastest qualifying time in the preliminaries on Monday. Phelps has yet to have the quickest time in the morning heats at the London Games four years after he won a record eight gold medals in Beijing. He finished third in his heat at 1 minute, …

WIMBLEDON, England: Victoria Azarenka moved into the second round in the Olympics on Monday with a 6-1, 3-6, 6-1 win over Irina-Camelia Begu of Romania. Azarenka’s match at Wimbledon was rescheduled from Sunday because of rain. The world No. 1 from Belarus could end up on court six consecutive days if she reaches the gold medal round in singles. Azarenka …