Guongzhou Asian Games News Briefs

Guangzhou - Following are news briefs from the 16th Asian Games taking place here.

FOOTBALL
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K.Rajagobal's boys bid goodbye to the Guongzhou Games when they went down 1-2 to defending champions Iran in the knockout stage at the Yue Xiu Stadium here.

Karim Ansari Fard opened scoring for the Iranians in the 53rd minute followed by goals form Syed Hosseini (59th) and Amir Sharafi (67th).

Malaysia received a penalty in the 86th minute which was converted by Norshahrul Idlan Talaha.

HOKI (MEN)
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The men's hockey team opened their Group A campaign by defeating Singapore 3-0 the Aoti Sports Centre here.

Hafifihafiz Hanafi opened accounts in the seventh minute while Azlan Misron put in Malaysia's second in the 14th minute.

Muhamad Razie Abd Rahim put the match beyond all doubt when he slammed home a penalty corner in the 35th minute.

Besides Malaysia, the other teams in the group are China, Oman, South Korea and Singapore.

BOWLING
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The men's bowling team got off to a dismal start when the bowling competition opened at the Tianhe Bowling Hall here today.

Senior bowler Alex Liew was the best performer among the Malaysian bowlers when he scored 1,354 pinfalls but it was a good 60 pins off the 1,414 pins scored by the eventual gold medallist, Engelberto Rivera of the Philippines.

Alex finished in 10th place while of his compatriots, Aaron Kong was 12th (1,339 pinfalls), Khairuddin (22nd), Adrian Ang and Muhamad Syafiq Ridhwan Abdul Malek (joint 23) and Zulmazran Zulkifli (46th).

The national women bowlers open their campaign tomorrow.

ARTISTIC GYMNASTICS
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Tracie Ang has advanced to the final of the balance beam event, which will be held on Wednesday.

In the women's individual all around event held at the Asian Games Town Gymnasium here today, Tracie managed to finish in 10th place after collecting 51.150 points.

The event was won by Sui Lu of China who garnered 58.400 points.

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Solskjaer leaves Manchester United to coach Molde

Oslo - Ole Gunnar Solskjaer ended a 14-year association with Manchester United on Tuesday when he agreed to move back to his home country as coach of Norwegian club Molde.

The 37-year-old Solskjaer, who scored United's injury-time winner in the 1999 Champions League final, signed a contract with a yearly salary of 2.4 million Norwegian kroner ($410,000), plus marketing income.

Solskjaer is quitting his job as coach of United's reserves and will begin his new job Jan. 10. Solskjaer, who has three children, said family reasons were the main factor in his decision to return to the club where he played for 18 months before joining United in 1996.

Solskjaer arrived at Old Trafford as a youthful-looking striker and quickly became a fan favourite for his knack of scoring quickly as a substitute -- earning the nickname "the Baby-Faced Assassin."

He scored 128 goals in 367 matches, including one against Bayern Munich in United's 2-1 Champions League final win. The same year, he scored four goals in 10 minutes after coming on a substitute in an 8-1 Premier League win over Nottingham Forest.

He retired to a coaching role in 2007 after failing to recover from a knee injury.

"He's been a fantastic servant, and he's contributed to the development of our young players," Manchester United manager Alex Ferguson said in a statement. "I think that his career as an outstanding professional footballer gave him a foundation to get into coaching. He's had a great introduction with our reserves and this is the right time for Ole to take up his first managerial position."

Solskjaer's colleagues from Manchester United -- Mark Dempsey and Richard Hartis -- will accompany him to Molde as his assistants. The club has won the Norwegian league title twice but finished 11th this season.

Solskjaer said he was confident that next year will be big for the club, which celebrates its 100th anniversary in 2011.

"It will be a year of celebrations and the team is certain to win titles," Solskjaer said. "This is a dream job. I discussed my future career with Sir Alex Ferguson and he advised me to choose a club where there are people that you would like to work with. The choice was therefore easy.

"After 14 years in Manchester, I look forward to coming home to Molde."

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Gresini & San Carlo Continue

Team Gresini has renewed its agreement to continue with San Carlo as its main sponsors in MotoGP for 2011, when Marco Simoncelli will be joined by Hiroshi Aoyama.

The continuation of a partnership that already stretches back five years is born through a mutual passion and love for MotoGP racing, good faith, team spirit and shared objectives.

The positive experience of this season, which saw Marco Simoncelli gradually emerge as a front runner in MotoGP, has provided a huge incentive for the campaign to come. "Super Sic" is the team's great hope for 2011, when he will be joined by the Japanese rider Aoyama.

Lining up the last two 250cc World Champions in history is a key part of an ambitious project that has been outlined together with San Carlo and both riders have the talent and determination to become the future of the MotoGP class.

Hiroshi Aoyama was born in Chiba (Japan) on the Oct. 25, 1981. He was crowned the 250cc World Champion in 2009 thanks to four victories, seven podiums and two pole positions. He made his MotoGP debut this year, scoring a best result of seventh place in the Malaysian Grand Prix.

Fausto Gresini (Gresini MotoGP Team Owner) says: "I am proud to announce that San Carlo will be together with us again in 2011 as we continue to chase our shared objectives. Next season we aim to build on the progress shown by Marco Simoncelli throughout the course of 2010 as he has gradully forced his way to the front of the MotoGP pack.

'Super Sic' is ready to be a consistent contender at the highest possible level of motorcycle road racing and primed to give the team and San Carlo plenty to celebrate. In 2011 our other objective is to bring along another 250cc World Champion in the shape of Hiroshi Aoyama."

"We are determined to show him how to make the same progress as Marco Simoncelli. Aoyama has shown in the past that he is a reliable and fast rider and he has all the necessary characteristics to be a serious contender in MotoGP."

"At Team San Carlo Honda Gresini he will be given the chance to establish himself amongst the best in the class. So we have a twin objective for next year and it is a project that is being enthusiastically supported by Honda and also by San Carlo."

Alberto Vitaloni (President of San Carlo Gruppo Alimentare) says: "Continual improvement is an objective that the Gruppo Unichips targets everyday in everything we do. The concept is that it is never enough to be happy with the level you have reached, but to believe that there is always room for improvement with a constructive attitude. That is something we have seen this year with Marco Simoncelli, who has shown a very pleasing level of development on the track."

"The involvement of the entire structure, the adoption of a results based strategy, professionalism and passion are the qualities that unite San Carlo and Team Gresini. That is why we decided to support Fausto's project for another year, because we want to see the team and the riders grow again."

"Hiroshi Aoyama will be a part of that and I would like to welcome him with a word in Japanese: 'Kaizen', which is made up of two important words, Kai, which means change, and Zen, which means good. I hope he can follow in the footsteps that Marco has trod this season."

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Vemeulen Injury Update

Chris Vermeulen is on schedule to take part in his first test of the 2011 Kawasaki Racing Team Ninja ZX-10R at Sepang in January, but he still faces the prospect of a few more weeks on crutches before the World Superbike test.

Having suffered extensive knee damage in a Superbike crash at Phillip Island, and then having an operation to repair cartilage and ligament damage mid-season. Vermeulen has not ridden since Brno in July, and he remains on crutches at present.

He had hoped to be off them last week, but his specialist has advised him to wait a while longer, as it will help with his ultimate recovery. Vermeulen headed to the sun in Australia last weekend to continue his path back to full fitness.

Chris Vermeulen says: "Everything is good, but I am still on crutches, which is driving me nuts! The real safe time for this kind of recovery is five months, so I have about a month left to run. The Doctors know what they are doing with it and I asked them if I would still be OK to ride the superbike in January."

"He is confident with that. It will not be easy, but I will not do any damage by riding the bike in January. After my last bit of physio in Barcelona this week we will be going to the UK to visit the team's workshop, then we will go and see Toni's parents and then we head off to Australia."

Vermeulen was a more than interested visitor at the recent Aragon World Superbike tests, watching Tom Sykes and Katsuaki Fujiwara put the new Kawasaki ZX-10R through its paces around the Spanish circuit.

Chris Vermeulen says: "The new bike looks good on track. Tom and Katsuaki have completely different riding styles but they were both going well on the bike, so that is good news all round."

Vermeulen will be part of a three rider official Kawasaki Superbike push in 2011, with Joan Lascorz joining Sykes and Vermeulen.

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Leader Alonso not worried about title race outcome

Abu Dhabi: Front-runner and two-time world champion Fernando Alonso of Ferrari said even if he loses the title race on Sunday he will long remember the 2010 championship while another former champion Lewis Hamilton of McLaren said he has nothing to lose.

When the title contenders were asked on how they would react to lose out on the final day, Alonso said, "Obviously, you feel sad if you lose in the last moment. In my case, I will not really have anything to be disappointed about in 2010. The last two years I was fighting to be third most of the times."

Alonso, who takes an eight-point lead into the final race at the Yas Marina Circuit said: "Ferrari had a tough year in 2009 as well, so this first year of the relationship we are fighting for the world championship in the last race of the championship against two Red Bulls who are dominating by far the season in terms of speed."

Great memory
"So overall I think it doesn't matter on Sunday. It will be a great memory of 2010 to have challenged," the Spaniard said.

Commenting on the strengths of his car, Alonso said, "Well, I think we don't have the cornering speed of Red Bull and maybe we don't have the straight line speed of McLaren. We are not the best in the straight line, we are not the best in the corners, but in general overall we are always quite competitive. We can adapt to any circuit in a good way, so I feel relatively confident for the performance of the car but let's see how it is going."

The Ferrari driver said he would decide what approach to adopt only on Sunday depending on his grid position.

"I think we will still see how Friday goes, how Saturday goes as to how we approach the race on Sunday. I think it will depend on how the weekend is going. We will change the tactics depending on how competitive we are or which positions we are," Alonso said.

Competition
McLaren's Hamilton, who is 24 points off the leader with Red Bull dup Mark Webber and Sebastien Vettel also ahead, said, "For me, I have nothing to lose. The guys in front of me have everything to lose, so for me I am going to be flat out as always."

"They have got generally faster cars than me but that doesn't mean that we cannot fight for a win. Obviously I have to win this race. That's what we plan to do," said the Briton, whose McLaren teammate and defending champion's Jenson Button saw his hopes end in Brazil.

"We are in quite a strong position with engines. Mercedes have done a great job. We have worked very hard over the last few years with the engines, so we have been very, very fortunate this year.

"The reliability has been fantastic. We have got quite a fresh engine that hasn't done many miles, so hopefully in a slightly better position than the guys in front," warned Hamilton.

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Proteas star Prince ready for Pakistan Test

Dubai - South Africa's star batsman Ashwell Prince, who has cracked 11 Test centuries and ten half centuries from his 57 Test matches has joined the squad for the Test series against Pakistan.

After a long training session at the ICC Global Cricket Academy, Prince said: "I feel I am in good nick. I had four four-day games so far and have hit three hundreds. So I feel I am in good form. Test match cricket is a different level but I am hoping to do well."

Left-handed Prince, who had captained South Africa in the absence of an injured Graeme Smith in July 2006, is a good reader of the game.

"We are expecting the wicket to be slower than South African pitches; probably it may spin a bit. We are not expecting bouncy and fast pitches here and it could be similar to sub-continent conditions," said Prince, who has high regard for the Pakistan team.

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Top clubs gear up for third round of Etisalat Cup

Abu Dhabi - The professional clubs in the UAE are competing today and tomorrow without top players in the third round of Etisalat Cup.

The competition is held without the players of the national teams who are either busy with the Olympic team in the Asian Games or preparing with the senior team for the Gulf Cup.

The top match of the week will be between Bani Yas, the leaders of the first group and the only team, from 12, which won full six points from their past two matches, against Al Ain, second in the group with four points.

Bani Yas, who are missing the services of nine players, have defeated Al Wahda 2-1 in the second week and will consolidate their leadership if they win the three points in the encounter tomorrow at Tahnoon Bin Mohammad Stadium.

Bani Yas have defeated Al Ain in the UAE Pro-League some weeks ago 3-0.

Al Jazira, leaders of the UFL, are not doing good in this competition and have already lost five points in two matches and they will host the leaders of the second group, Al Ahli, today.

Al Jazira have a single point while Al Ahli have 4, the same tally of second placed Al Shabab who will host Al Wasl in the late night show today. Al Wasl have two points.

Dubai will host Al Nasr and is crucial for both teams to advance in the standings.

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