MERIBEL, France (AP) — Marta Bassino beat Mikaela Shiffrin to win the women’s super-G on Wednesday and give Italy its second gold medal at the Alpine skiing world championships, with her American rival settling for silver.
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian tennis player and Olympic bronze medalist Elina Svitolina pushed for a total ban on Russian and Belarusian athletes from the 2024 Paris Games in an interview with The Associated Press on Wednesday.
LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AP) — The International Olympic Committee pushed back against the mayor of Paris on Wednesday, insisting there were no plans for "a Russian or Belarusian delegation” at the 2024 Games while also acknowledging that some athletes from those countries could be welcomed.
ZAGREB, Croatia (AP) — Miroslav “Ciro” Blazevic, who coached the Croatian national soccer team to the semifinals of the 1998 World Cup in France, has died. He was 87.
His family and friends said Blazevic died at a Zagreb hospital on Wednesday after a long battle with prostate cancer.
For Wrexham’s Hollywood owners, the sequel proved to be a heartbreaker.
The Welsh soccer club owned by celebrities Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney lost its FA Cup replay with Sheffield United 3-1 on Tuesday, conceding two goals deep into stoppage time.
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Pep Guardiola had enough to worry about even before Manchester City became embroiled in probably the biggest Premier League scandal of all time.
Off the field, City is facing accusations that the club breached a slew of financial regulations with its lavish spending.
Former Chelsea and Newcastle forward Christian Atsu was rescued from the rubble of a collapsed building following the deadly earthquake that struck Turkey, the Ghana Football Association said in a Twitter post Tuesday.
LONDON (AP) — Manchester City is not the first high-profile soccer club to be caught up in a scandal.
The Premier League has accused City of breaching a host of financial regulations, and the club could face a range of punishments including a fine or a deduction of points.
SINSHEIM, Germany (AP) — American coach Pellegrino Matarazzo was hired by Bundesliga club Hoffenheim on Wednesday, four months after he was fired by relegation rival Stuttgart.
The New Jersey-born Matarazzo spent just over two years at Hoffenheim as an assistant coach and youth coach from 2017 through 2019 before taking the Stuttgart job.
MUNICH (AP) — Bayern Munich signed goalkeeping coach Michael Rechner from Bundesliga rival Hoffenheim on Wednesday to replace the fired Toni Tapalović.
The Bavarian club said the 42-year-old Rechner was joining the team's staff, but didn’t give any details regarding the length of his contract.
LONDON (AP) — The world test championship final will be held at The Oval in London from June 7-11, the International Cricket Council announced Wednesday.
The match being billed as the “Ultimate Test” will be the second edition of the final.
BRUSSELS (AP) — Domenico Tedesco has been appointed head coach of Belgium's national team with a mission to rebuild in the aftermath of the Red Devils' World Cup disappointment.
The Belgian federation said Wednesday that the 37-year-old German-Italian, who previously coached Schalke, Spartak Moscow and Leipzig, has signed a deal until after the European Championship next year in Germany.
LONDON (AP) — Richard Cockerill will leave England's coaching staff to join French rugby club Montpellier, a departure that ends all ties to Eddie Jones' era in charge of the national team.
Since Steve Borthwick replaced Jones as head coach, members of the Australian's backroom staff — Matt Proudfoot, Brett Hodgson, Martin Gleeson — have left one by one and Cockerill is the last to go.
COURCHEVEL, France (AP) — Ukrainian skier Ivan Kovbasnyuk, a two-time Olympian, can’t train at home in the Carpathian Mountains because war in the country has damaged the power grid so severely that there’s not enough energy to make the chairlifts operate.
MADRID (AP) — The hate attacks against Vinícius Júnior are a problem of Spanish soccer and must be dealt with, his Real Madrid coach Carlo Ancelotti said on Tuesday.
Vinícius, a Brazilian forward who is Black, has been subjected to hate attacks since he arrived in Spain in 2018.
COURCHEVEL, France (AP) — The family legacy in Courchevel began nearly half a century ago when Andre and Christiane Pinturault opened the high-altitude Hotel Annapurna.
On Tuesday, Alexis Pinturault won a gold medal on home snow just down the road at the world championships to enrich the family imprint on the posh French resort where his grandparents laid their foundations in 1974.
PEBBLE BEACH, Calif. (AP) — What was shaping up as one the biggest controversies in golf this year also turned out to be the shortest one.
The Swilcan Bridge on the 18th hole at St. Andrews will be left alone.
A look at what’s happening in European soccer on Wednesday:
ENGLAND
Manchester United can gain ground on Premier League leader Arsenal when it hosts manager-less Leeds. Relegation-fighting Leeds fired Jesse Marsch on Monday ahead of a double-header against third-place United.
After taking a back-seat role at Mercedes for so long, Valtteri Bottas is relishing his position as Alfa Romeo leader.
The Finnish driver is in his second season with the Formula One team after being replaced by George Russell at Mercedes.
MERIBEL, France (AP) — Mikaela Shiffrin has ruled out skiing the downhill at the world championships — keeping to her pre-announced schedule of four events.
PARIS (AP) — 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 on Tuesday in an interview with French media France Info.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — The five Olympic committees in the Nordic region on Tuesday urged the International Olympic Committee to ban Russian and Belarusian athletes and officials from “international sports participation” because of the war in Ukraine.
Jesse Marsch must have thought he had more time at Leeds.
After all, he had just been allowed to bring in a close friend and fellow American, Chris Armas, to work alongside him in the coaching staff.
MILAN (AP) — Lazio was held at relegation-threatened Hellas Verona to 1-1 on Monday to hamper its hopes of consolidating its place in the top four in Serie A in a tight race for the Champions League spots.
Former Chelsea and Newcastle forward Christian Atsu is missing and believed to be trapped under rubble following the powerful earthquake that struck Turkey on Monday and left more than 2,500 people dead.
BARCELONA, Spain (AP) — Spanish prosecutors oppose the appeal by Dani Alves' defense team for him to be free on bail while the investigation continues into sexual assault accusations against the footballer.
GENEVA (AP) — The English Premier League vs. Manchester City: a legal fixture for the ages.
Soccer’s richest and most watched league challenged its defending champion on Monday with more than 100 charges of alleged financial wrongdoing and failures to cooperate with an investigation that took more than four years.
Jesse Marsch didn't get the chance to save Leeds from relegation again.
The American coach was fired on Monday after nearly a year in charge of the English team, which looks set to be battling against relegation for the second straight season in the Premier League.
MERIBEL, France (AP) — Practically the only person not asking Mikaela Shiffrin if this was the Beijing Olympics all over again was herself.
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin awarded figure skating coach Eteri Tutberidze one of the country's highest honors Monday, nearly a year after a doping case involving one of her skaters overshadowed the Winter Olympics.
Manchester City was accused by the Premier League on Monday of providing misleading information about its finances over a nine-year period when the club was attempting to establish itself as a force in English and European soccer following its takeover by Abu Dhabi’s ruling family.
MERIBEL, France (AP) — Leaning on her ski poles and shaking her head, Federica Brignone thought she had squandered her chance for a gold medal in the women's combined.
PRAGUE (AP) — Jaromír Jágr celebrated his 51st birthday about a week early by scoring his 1,099th goal to overtake Wayne Gretzky at the top of the chart.
Jágr, who will turn 51 on Feb. 15, scored for the Kladno Knights on Sunday in 5-4 loss at Trinec in the Czech league.
MADRID (AP) — The hate attacks against Vinícius Júnior continued in Spain over the weekend, with the Brazil forward again being targeted by racist insults in a league match.
The Spanish league said Monday it will investigate the latest attacks after television images showed someone calling him a monkey during Real Madrid’s 1-0 loss at Mallorca on Sunday.
SINSHEIM, Germany (AP) — Struggling Hoffenheim fired André Breitenreiter as coach on Monday after seven months in charge and a run of nine Bundesliga games without a win.
Hoffenheim hasn’t won since beating last-place Schalke in the league and then the cup in mid-October.
BERLIN (AP) — Bayern Munich CEO Oliver Kahn, sporting director Hasan Salihamidžić and team coach Julian Nagelsmann have all criticized injured captain Manuel Neuer for publicly expressing his disappointment with the club.
MADRID (AP) — Barcelona took advantage of Real Madrid's stumble to kick off the second half of the season with another win and enjoy its biggest lead so far at the top of the Spanish league.
After Madrid's 1-0 loss at Mallorca, Barcelona extended its 10-game winning streak in all competitions with a comfortable 3-0 victory over Sevilla on Sunday to open an eight-point lead over Madrid after 20 of 38 rounds.
MILAN (AP) — World Cup winner Lautaro Martínez continued his roaring start to the year as he set Inter Milan on its way to a 1-0 victory over AC Milan in the Derby della Madonnina on Sunday.
Martínez has been in fantastic form since helping Argentina win the World Cup in December and he netted his seventh goal in his last eight matches as Inter consolidated second spot in Serie A with a second win over its fierce rival in less than three weeks.