Moukoko out 6 weeks with ankle injury
DORTMUND, Feb 14: Borussia Dortmund will be without Youssoufa Moukoko for about six weeks, ruling the Germany forward out of the Champions League match against Chelsea on Wednesday.The 18-year-old Moukoko sustained an ankle ligament injury in Saturday’s Bundesliga game with Werder Bremen, the club said Monday.“It’s a bitter message for him and for us, especially now at this stage,” Dortmund sporting director Sebastian Kehl said.(AP)
Villarreal lose midfielder Coquelin for the season
MADRID, Feb 14: Villarreal will be without French midfielder, Francis Coquelin after confirming on Monday that he needs surgery on a torn cruciate ligament in his right knee.The 31-year-old former Arsenal and Valencia player suffered the injury during Sunday night’s 1-0 defeat at home to FC Barcelona after a collision with Barca midfielder, Franck Kessie and had tests on Monday morning that confirmed the extent of his problem.Villarreal have confirmed that he will need an operation on the injury and the usual recovery time for this kind of problem.The injury comes at a difficult moment for Villarreal, who have slipped to eighth in the classification after a run of three successive defeats.(IANS)
Akshdeep, Priyanka win gold, qualify for Worlds & Olympics
RANCHI, Feb 14: Tokyo Olympian Priyanka Goswami and Akashdeep Singh qualified for the Paris 2024 Olympics and World Athletics Championships 2023 after meeting the qualification mark in the women’s and men’s 20km race walk, respectively, at the National Open Race Walking Championships on Tuesday.In the women’s 20km race walk event in Morabadi, Priyanka clocked 1:28:50s to beat the qualifying standard of 1:29.20s set for the Athletics Worlds in Budapest and Paris Olympics and clinched the top spot. In the men’s 20km event, Akshdeep clocked 1:19.55 seconds and breached the 1:20.10 qualification mark to qualify for both events. In the process, he beat the national record of 1:20:16, set by Sandeep Kumar at the 2021 National Race Walking Championships at Ranchi.On the other hand, Suraj Panwar came close to qualifying for the Worlds and Paris Olympics but narrowly missed the berth by 0.01s after clocking 1:20.11s. (IANS)
