Digest

SOCCER

Qingdao and Shenzhen bag opening victories

Qingdao and Shenzhen opened their 2021 Chinese Super League campaigns with victories in Guangzhou on Wednesday night.

Qingdao narrowly avoided relegation last term, and started the new campaign on a positive note as a superb 68th-minute strike from Croatian forward Dejan Radonjic earned a 2-1 victory over the Cangzhou Mighty Lions. Cangzhou, from Hebei province, has replaced last season's CSL champion, the now-dissolved Jiangsu, in the league.

In the night's other game, Shenzhen overcame Henan SSLM, also on a 2-1 scoreline. Colombian Juan Fernando Quintero pulled the strings in midfield for Shenzhen, assisting both his team's goals, scored by Ghanian Frank Acheampong and Brazilian Alan Kardec.

"Everybody did a great job. We supported each other. Certainly, there are a lot of details we need to take care of, but overall I am satisfied with the performance," said Shenzhen head coach Jordi Cruyff.

Super League project not dead, says Perez

The president of Real Madrid, Florentino Perez, defended the moribund European Super League on Thursday, saying he was open to altering the format as long as the clubs with "most fans and most social media followers" were guaranteed a place.

Perez said "four from each place" could qualify but did not explain more fully.

However, he was adamant the Super League project was not dead and that he was still talking with the four remaining clubs－Madrid, Barcelona, Juventus and AC Milan.

"The project is on standby," Perez told a Spanish radio show. "We are going to keep working.

"I'm convinced that if this project doesn't work, another similar one will."

Twelve of Europe's top soccer clubs－six from England, and three each from Spain and Italy－announced on Sunday they were launching the controversial breakaway Super League in the face of widespread opposition from within the game and beyond.

BASKETBALL

Brown recovering after attack near strip club

Rockets guard Sterling Brown is back in Houston recovering from injuries sustained from an assault outside a strip club in Miami early Monday morning.

"He's recovering," Rockets coach Stephen Silas said."He was assaulted and he has bumps and bruises and stuff like that, so stuff like that usually gets a little bit worse ...before it gets better."

The Rockets were in Miami to play the Heat when the incident occurred. Silas said that he spoke to Brown on Tuesday and reached out to him Wednesday but had not gotten in touch with him. He said Brown is seeing doctors and working with the team's training staff as he recovers.

"The main thing is that he knows that we are 100 percent behind him and have his back and want him to get healthy soon, get back and get back with his teammates and all of those things," Silas said.

Miami-Dade Police Department said it responded to an anonymous call about a parking-lot fight and found Brown at around 7 am with multiple lacerations on his body.

ICE HOCKEY

Women's worlds in Canada postponed

The International Ice Hockey Federation is scrambling to reschedule the women's world championships after health officials in Nova Scotia, Canada, on Wednesday scrapped plans to hold the tournament next month because of COVID-19 concerns.

IIHF chief Rene Fasel told Associated Press he was blindsided by the decision, which was made at essentially the last minute. Teams were preparing to travel to Canada over the next two days to satisfy the nation's quarantine regulations for foreign travelers.

"At 5 o'clock this morning, this was a go. At 7:30 it was not," Hockey Canada CEO Tom Renney said on a video call with reporters.

"Some of this is much, much further beyond our control than we would like."

The 10-team tournament was scheduled to be held from May 6-16 in Halifax and Truro, the same communities that were supposed to host the event a year ago before it was called off. The IIHF had already pushed back the event's opening by a month due to recommendations from health officials.

MOTOR SPORTS

Indy 500 set to host 135,000 spectators

The Indianapolis 500 is set to be the largest sporting event in the world since the start of the pandemic with 135,000 spectators permitted to attend the race next month.

Indianapolis Motor Speedway said Wednesday it worked with the Marion County Public Health Department to determine that 40 percent of venue capacity can attend the May 30 race. The speedway is the largest sporting facility in the world with more than 250,000 grandstand seats and the ability to host close to 400,000 on race day throughout the entire property.

The attendance figure was determined after Indianapolis hosted the NCAA men's basketball tournament through March and into April, with 8,000 fans allowed entry for the April 5 men's championship game.

Xinhua - Agencies