Top Shot
CAF poll picks Milla as best African footballer
CAIRO: Former Cameroon star Roger Milla has been voted the best African footballer of the last 50 years.
The striker who took the 1990 World Cup in Italy by storm collected 2,246 votes in a public poll by the Cairo-based Confederation of African Football as part of its 50th anniversary celebrations.
Mahmoud al-Khatib, an Egyptian striker of the 1980s, finished second just 81 votes behind and compatriot Hossam Hassan, still playing as he approaches 40, was third with 2,011 votes.
Milla abandoned semi-retirement on the Indian Ocean island of Reunion to play a pivotal role as Cameoron beat defending champions Argentina, Romania and Colombia before bowing out to England after extra time in the 1990 quarter-finals.
The Cameroonian danced around the corner flag after each of his four goals and the celebration is copied by millions of players around the world to this day.
Milla returned to the World Cup four years later, scored the consolation goal in a 6-1 drubbing by Russia in the United States, and created history at 42 by becoming the oldest footballer to play in the finals.
Matt wins World Cup super combined
WENGEN, Switzerland: Austria's Mario Matt produced a stunning slalom run to win the men's World Cup Alpine skiing super combined race here on Sunday.
The 2001 world slalom champion had been trailing in 34th after the downhill, 2.37 seconds behind leader Peter Fill of Italy.
But the Austrian took advantage of starting first in the slalom as warm weather resulted in a deteriorating piste.
He claimed victory in a combined 2min 27.87sec to finish 0.38sec in front of Swiss pair Marc Berthod with Silvan Zurbriggen at 0.41sec.
Fill dropped to 21st position, 2.38sec behind Matt after the slalom.
"I was definitely very lucky to be the first starter because the conditions at the start were perfect for me," said Matt.
It is the sixth World Cup win for Matt but his first since his slalom success at Lenzerheide, Switzerland in March 2006, and his first ever super combined victory.
Ullrich blood samples compared
BERLIN: German prosecutors are to compare blood samples of former Tour de France champion Jan Ullrich who is suspected of doping and accused of sporting fraud, Monday's weekly magazine Focus reported.
The German judiciary are expected to receive from their Spanish counterparts a blood sample found in the surgery of Dr Eufemiano Fuentes, allegedly the head of a blood-doping scandal revealed by Spanish police in Operation Puerto last May.
They will compare this sample with one given by Ullrich in September last year in an attempt to once and for all find out if the sample in Fuentes's keeping, which had a code number, had indeed come from the 1997 Tour de France winner.
(China Daily 01/16/2007 page23)
