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In the 11th round of the 2011 Brazilian Championship, host Bahia battled to a scoreless draw against Coritiba on Sunday.

The result led to Coritiba\’s first point earned as a visiting team in this year\’s competition.

The draw was not beneficial for either team as both clubs remain in an intermediate position on the leader board.

The result keeps Coritiba stationed in 12th place with 14 points while Bahia remains in 16th place with 11 points.

In the next round of play, Coritiba will receive second place Sao Paulo on July 27. On the following day, Bahia will travel to face Vasco da Gama.

Source:Xinhua

UEFA Euro 2012 Cup was officially presented in the Ukrainian capital Kiev on Wednesday. Representatives of UEFA and Ukraine Euro 2012 Executing Committee attended the ceremony.

Commenting on the cup design, UEFA Events CEO David Taylor said that the cup weighs 7.6 kilograms, its height is nearly 60 centimeters. It was redesigned for Euro 2008 championship in Austria and Switzerland. The silver base of the cup has been increased, and all the winners of European championships placed on the back of the trophy.

Taylor expressed his confidence that Ukraine is able to become a constant Cup owner for the next four years.

"Ukraine has a chance to become European Champion. Your team plays at home, so you should try to win the tournament," UEFA Events CEO said.

Continuing expressing UEFA ideas Taylor emphasized that Euro 2012 Cup currently exists in a single copy in order to prevent counterfeiting. There are no other such trophies in the world. Therefore, the Ukrainians are lucky because they were able to see the cup.

From June 8 to July 1, Ukraine and Poland will host the European Football Championship 2012 final matches. The tournament will take place in four Ukrainian cities of Kiev, Lvov, Donetsk and Kharkov as well as four Polish cities of Warsaw, Gdansk, Wroclaw and Poznan.

Source:Xinhua

Vietnam will participate in the 6th WTF World Taekwondo Poomsae Championships starting in Russia on July 29, announced the Vietnam Sports General Department on Tuesday.

The tournament is expected to attract 700 athletes from 70 countries and regions. The Vietnamese players will compete in nine categories and for three age groups.

Last year, the tournament was held in Tashkent (Uzbekistan), where Vietnam won two gold, one silver and one bronze medals.

Source:Xinhua

A day after the 10th anniversay of his election as the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC), Jacques Rogge said on Sunday that he is not satisfied with his job over the past decade.

"I have the mentality of an athlete as I used to be an athlete. Athletes are never satisfied with their performance. You can always do better," said Rogge, who competed in yachting in the 1968, 1972 and 1976 Olympics and played on the Belgian national rugby union team.

"There is, for me, an inner desire for perfection. Perfection is very difficult to get," he said to Xinhua in an interview during his visit to Shanghai for the 14th FINA World Chamionships.

Rogge was elected on July 16, 2001, at the 112th IOC Session in Moscow and is the IOC\’s eighth president after the 21-year leadership of Juan Antonio Samaranch who passed away last year.

"I would say the worst day was when the Georgen luge athlete (Nodar Kumaritashvili) died in Vancouver. This is the worst moment in my Olympic life," said Rogge.

After taking over the IOC he has strived to keep the Olympic Games at the pinnacle of world sport and to further enhance the value of the Olympic brand.

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) were launched and Singapore successfully hosted the first summer edition in 2010 and Innsbruck, Austria is preparing to stage the first winter edition in February of 2012. Nanjing of China will host the second summer edition in 2014 utilizing the sports on the London 2012 program.

The IOC has decided to explore new areas by choosing Rio de Janeiro to host the first South American summer Games in 2016 and Russia is in the process of developing Sochi for the 2014 winter edition. PyeongChang was just elected for the 2018 winter Games and will undoutedly boost the development of winter sports in Asia.

Rogge said that the tremendous positive effects brought by the Olympic Games result in a growing global enthusiasm for hosting the world\’s premier sport event.

"It allows not only the staging of great competition, but also it allows for the development of the city – new sport venues will be built, and there will be better transport and infrastructure, maybe a new airport, maybe new ring roads, so it is a legcy for the citizens of the city," said the 69-year-old Belgian.

"It\’s not just a competition of one or two weeks. It will leave a lasting legacy. Look at the changes after the Beijing Olympic Games, the people of Beijing are benefiting from that."

With the 2008 Olympics still lingering in the memonies of millions of Chinese people, there are already speculations about the possibility of a second bid for the event.

"I think in future there is a possibiltiy, but you know, you just organized the Games in 2008, so if Shanghai has the ambition to stage the Games, you have the potential to do it, that\’s not an issue, but time will be needed," said Rogge.

"You can\’t get two Olympic Games within a couple of years. There is a lot of competition with other countries around the world … Certain time will be needed, because we have to distribute the Games to the entire world, not just to one country," added the IOC chief.

Rogge watched the men\’s 10-meter platform synchronized final Sunday afternoon at the Oriental Sporst Center and he said that he was impressed by the atmosphere.

"I would say, from what I\’ve seen now, these are definitely truly friendly championships, " he said.

Source:Xinhua

The 11th Chinese Middle School Games will kick off Saturday night in the city of Baotou in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Some 3,000 student-athletes from 34 delegations around the country will compete in nine events: track and field, swimming, basketball, volleyball, football, table tennis, martial arts, shuttlecock and aerobics.

It is the largest edition in the history of the bi-annual sports gala for the middle school students.

The six-day games will conclude on July 21.

Source: Xinhua

On the road against Internacional, Sao Paulo had no problem confronting the cold weather on Sunday in the 10th round of the 2011 Brazilian Championship, cruising to a 3-0 win.

Recently signed head coach Adilson Batista was on hand to observe his new cast of athletes at Sao Paulo.

The game\’s first goal came in the 19th minute. Off a free kick, Rivaldo delivered the ball perfectly to a charging Casemiro who drove a header past a helpless keeper Muriel.

Fernandinho scored his team\’s second goal in the 39th minute, tapping the ball past an approaching Muriel off a great pass from Dagoberto. Carlinhos Paraiba scored Sao Paulo\’s third goal in the injury time, taking advantage of a defensive meltdown to angle the ball past a defenseless Muriel.

After suffering three straight losses that led to the dismissal of head coach Paulo Cesar Carpagiani, Sao Paulo had collected two consecutive wins and now provisionally stands in a joint second place with Flamengo, both with 21 points. In the next round of play, Sao Paulo will receive Atletico-GO on July 23.

Internacional suffered its third consecutive loss of the competition.The team now stands in eighth place with 15 points. Internacional will next travel to face Avai on July 21. Following the match, the team will travel to Germany where it will participate in the four-team friendly tournament, the Audi Cup.

Source:Xinhua

Charl Schwartzel reached a career-high ninth in the latest world golf rankings released on Monday.

Schwartzel carded a tournament score of level-par and shared ninth place in the RBC Canadian Open in Vancouver last week, climbing three places up the rankings.

Countryman Jaco van Zyl displayed good form in the Nordea Masters in Sweden and tied for 13th when Swede Alex Noren used home ground advantage to win the tournament by seven shots.

Van Zyl was tied for third at eight under par going into the final day, but struggled in the last round and dropped seven shots to finish at one under par.

At the Worldwide Holdings Selangor Masters on the Asian Tour, Tjaart van der Walt recorded a top-10 finish with a final score of 11 under par and a tie for eighth, four shots behind the lead.

David Frost came sixth in the Senior Open Championship in Surrey, England, where he carded a tournament total of seven under par and earned a cheque large enough to take him to ninth place on the tour\’s Order of Merit.

Source:Xinhua

The mayor of Madrid, Alberto Ruiz Gallardon this Wednesday confirmed that the city would be a candidate to host the 2020 Olympic Games.

The 2020 bid will be the third time in succession Madrid has competed to host the Olympic Games and the city will be hoping for better luck than for 2012 when it finished third behind London and Paris and for 2016 when the city was beaten by Rio de Janeiro.

A powerful factor in Madrid\’s favor is that the city has venues already constructed and little investment would be needed to prepare sites for events such as show jumping, tennis, football and cycling..

"Madrid has a high percentage of the infrastructure intact and the work that has been done means that the cost of 2020 will be significantly lower, while guaranteeing the maximum returns," confirmed Gallardon at his midday press conference

"Madrid counts on the support of the world of sport and the Olympic spirit continues to be alive in our city," assured the Mayor.

The city of Madrid is suffering from financial problems, but it is hoped that the previous two attempts to host the Games have built up a store of goodwill for the city, reducing the cost of any campaign, while the benefits of hosting the Olympics would far outweigh any short term losses.

"It would provide an economic impulse for Madrid and for Spain," confirmed Gallardon who added that the proposal was signed by both the Popular Party, which controls Madrid as well as the opposition, Socialist (PSOE) Party.

Madrid\’s hopes were also boosted by the decision taken by the International Olympic Committee a week ago Wednesday to name the South Korean city of PyeongChang as the venue for the 2018 Winter Olympic Games.

The choice of PyeongChang to host the Winter Games is thought to reduce Tokyo\’s chances of hosting the 2020 summer Olympics as the IOC may not want to name two Asian host cities in such quick succession.

Source:Xinhua

China\’s Zhao Jing celebrates with her gold medal after winning the women\’s 100 meters backstroke at the 14th FINA World Championships in Shanghai yesterday.

AN intensive study of tapes of previous races helped propel China\’s Zhao Jing to the women\’s 100 meters backstroke world title in Shanghai yesterday, overhauling Olympic champion Natalie Coughlin in the process.

American Coughlin, the two-time Olympic champion in the discipline, had turned for home under world-record pace at the Oriental Sports Center but was swum down by the 20-year-old Zhang and Russia\’s Anastasia Zueva.

"I didn\’t swim at my full strength in the semifinal and after the semi, my coach and I studied video replays carefully and he asked me to pay more attention to details," Zhao said after she won gold in 59.05 seconds.

"The gold medal has significant meaning to me. It is definitely a huge boost to my confidence in the build-up to the (2012) London Olympic Games."

Zueva, who won silver in both the 100 and 200 backstroke at the last world championships in Rome in 2009, was forced to settle for second-best again, although she was desperately unlucky not to take gold, touching in 59.06.

"I am happy with the result, but I just lost by 0.01 second," Zueva said. "I made a mistake at the start."

The 28-year-old Coughlin, who has now won 17 world championship medals in total, six of them gold, faded over the last 15 meters to take the bronze in 59.15.

"It\’s my tendency to go out quick. The last 10 meters I felt very good," said Coughlin, who took 18 months off from swimming after the Beijing Olympics.

"It\’s my best time since my break from Beijing and I am satisfied with today\’s performance. Definitely, I can go faster and next year will be quite promising."

Food poisoning

Gemma Spofforth of Britain, the defending champion and world record holder, didn\’t make the final because of a bout of food poisoning in Shanghai over the weekend.

It was the second swimming gold for China at the 14th FINA World Championships after Ye Shiwen sprung a surprise in winning the women\’s 200 individual medley on Monday.

She beat Australia\’s Alicia Coutts and defending champion and world record holder Ariana Kukors of the United States.

Adding to the host\’s happiness were two bronzes in the other two women\’s finals yesterday.

Li Xuanxu (15:58.02) took the bronze in the 1,500 freestyle behind Lotte Fris (15:49.59) of Denmark and American world champion Kate Ziegler (15:55.60) while Ji Liping (1:06.52) snatched third place in the 100 breastroke, a race that was won by American Rebecca Soni (1:05.05), with Australia\’s Olympic champion Leisel Jones (1:06.25) finishing runner-up.

Source:Shanghai Daily

French top league club Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) said Monday it signed Italy-based midfielder Jeremy Menez and Saint-Etienne club\’s player Blaise Matuidi.

The new recruited, aged 24 years, will defend PSG jersey till 2014, according to the club statement. St-Etienne is also among French first league clubs.

"We are very happy to welcome two new talented players, both French internationals Blaise Matuidi and Jeremy Menez. These two new (players) show all the ambitions we have for PSG. More than ever, we want to build a strong and talented team", said Nasser Al Khelaifi, chairman of the Supervisory Board of PSG.

No details were given on the deal\’s value. Four new faces joined the French club since the beginning of this transfer window, a period when clubs buys or lend players. PSG ranked fourth last season after scoring 60 points.

Source:Xinhua