Page 44
PEOPLES DAILY, tuesday, march 10, 2015
Sport
WGC-Cadillac Championship: Holmes hits hole-in-one atMiami
JB Holmes Jimmy Thoronka competed for Sierra Leone in the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games
Homeless Sierra Leone athlete arrested in London
A
sprinter from Sierra Leone who has been sleeping rough on the streets of London is facing deportation after being arrested. Jimmy Thoronka, 20, was his country’s top 100m runner but did not return home to Africa after the Commonwealth Games in Glasgow last year amid Ebola fears. Homeless Thoronka says Ebola has killed his immediate family in Sierra
Leone. The Met Police said he was arrested on Friday for immigration offences and is now with the UK Border Force. Jimmy’s chances to become one of the world’s greatest sprinters would be much better if he could stay in the UK and find someone to sponsor his training” An appeal started by Cambridge student Richard Dent on Friday afternoon to raise money for Mr Thoronka stood at £12,000
Tete defeats Butler at world super-flyweight title bout
P
aul Butler failed in his bid to become a two-weight world champion, suffering a first career defeat by South Africa’s Zolani Tete in Liverpool. Tete stopped his opponent in the eighth round of the IBF superflyweight title fight after landing with an uppercut. Butler, also 26, dropped a division for Friday’s
contest at the Echo Arena but lost his 18th professional fight. The South African southpaw, who has held the title since July, now has a fight record of 20-3 with 17 knockouts. Chester-born Butler won the IBF bantamweight title from British rival Stuart Hall last year but relinquished it immediately.
just over 24 hours later. Thoronka arrived in Glasgow with his teammates in July, just as the Ebola outbreak in his home country was declared a public health emergency. The death toll from the virus in Sierra Leone is now more than 3,500. Thoronka said his visa ran out last year and he had not been working illegally, nor claiming benefits or housing and understood the legal implications of remaining in the UK after
his visa had expired. Up to 30 of the country’s athletes wanted to extend their visas past September last year to stay in the UK two were tested and given the all-clear for the disease on their arrival in Scotland. Thoronka won medals in African competitions and received the Sports Writers of Sierra Leone’s best male athlete award in 2013. He was the first athlete in Sierra Leone to carry the Queen’s baton in the run-up to the Games.
Joe Joyce
L
S
outh Korea’s Inbee Park held off world number one Lydia Ko and American Stacy Lewis to claim the Women’s Champions title. The five-time major winner recorded a twounder-par 70 to finish on 15 under, two strokes ahead of
17-year-old Ko. Park was consistent throughout in Singapore, with the 26-year-old hitting four bogey-free rounds in the event. “This is a good sign for the season and hopefully many more to come,” said Park.
before in Miami. Johnson and Bubba Watson are the nearest challengers to Holmes, while Rory McIlroy is well back on one under. After a second round where he threw his three iron into a lake by the fifth, the world number one managed to keep his temper in check on Saturday, carding a 72.
World Series of Boxing: Joyce wins to keep Olympic hope alive
Park beats Ko to claim Women’s Champions title
Inbee Park
Zolani Tete
A
merican JB Holmes hit a hole-in-one at the par-three fourth as he built up a five-shot lead going into the final round of the WGC-Cadillac Championship. It was the second holein-one in quick succession with Dustin Johnson, who lies second, having aced the same hole a few minutes
ondoner Joe Joyce stayed on target for Olympic qualification with another victory in the World Series of Boxing (WSB), but the British Lionhearts lost 4-1 to the China Dragons in Sanya. The 29-year-old’s fourth win of the series, over Vladan Babic, put him top of WSB’s super-heavyweight rankings. The British boxers are using the series individually to qualify for Rio 2016. Only the top-ranked super-heavyweight at the end of the season will automatically qualify. However, most boxers will still qualify through more traditional routes, including world and continental championships. Joyce’s two main rivals, Croatia’s Filip Hrgovic, who represents Kazakhstan, and Arslanbek Makhmudov, who represents Azerbaijan, box on Saturday. Joyce’s first-round
stoppage of Babic was the high point of an otherwise frustrating evening for the visitors, with the Lionhearts on the wrong end of three split decisions. At welterweight, another strong performance by Nottingham’s Ekow Essuman went unrewarded as he lost to Wei Liu. At light-heavyweight, John Newell lost out despite a fine performance against Yibulayin Abudureyimu, with one judge scoring all five rounds for the Oldham boxer. Defeats for the Lionhearts’ two overseas boxers, flyweight Jose Kelvin De La Nieve and lightweight Oualid Belaoura, ensured the China Dragons avenged the defeat inflicted upon them in London in January. Next-up for the Lionhearts are two home matches against the Ukraine Otamans on 12 March and the Morocco Atlas Lions a week later.