Best of the Rest
Bremen suspend Keïta:
Werder Bremen suspended former Liverpool midfielder Naby Keïta for the rest of the season after he skipped the team’s last Bundesliga match.
Bremen said in a statement that it also gave Keïta “a substantial fine” and that he will no longer train with the team.
On Sunday, Keïta chose not to travel with the rest of the team to the game at Bayer Leverkusen and instead went home after he found out he was not going to be in the starting lineup, the club said.
“As a club, we won’t tolerate Naby’s behavior. He let his team down in a time of difficulty surrounding our recent run of form and squad availability and put his own interests above those of the team. We can’t allow that,” Bremen sporting director Clemens Fritz said. “At this stage of the season, we need full focus on the remaining games and a team who stick together. That’s why we’ve been left with no alternative.”
Keïta joined Bremen from Liverpool last summer but struggled to make an impact in an injuryplagued season. The 29-year-old Guinea midfielder made only five Bundesliga appearances all season, four of those as a substitute.
Bremen has other worries after seven games without a win in the Bundesliga. Keïta missed the 5-0 defeat that confirmed Leverkusen’s first league title on Sunday - a loss that left Bremen just five points above the relegation zone with five rounds remaining.
Bremen next hosts third-placed Stuttgart, which is closing in on Champions League qualification after nine wins in 11 games in the Bundesliga. (AP)
❑ ❑ ❑ Jeruto faces hearing in June:
Former steeplechase world champion Norah Jeruto faces a doping case hearing in June, five weeks before the Paris Olympics open.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport said Wednesday it will hear an appeal by World Athletics on June 17 against a ruling last year that cleared the 2022 world champion of suspected blood doping.
Jeruto had argued that ulcers and a bout of COVID-19 could explain her blood test results in 2020 and 2021 that were later judged to be irregular. She did not test positive for a banned substance.
The Kenya-born Jeruto competed for Kazakhstan when she won gold in the 3,000-meter steeplechase at the worlds in Eugene, Oregon, but could not defend her title last year as she was suspended during an investigation.
The Athletics Integrity Unit implicated the 28-year-old Jeruto in banned blood transfusions and taking the endurance-boosting hormone EPO.
An independent tribunal judging the case said a COVID-19 infection in late 2020 raised “sufficient doubt on this part of the case that it would be unfair to convict (Jeruto).”
An expert witness said internal bleeding from Jeruto’s ulcers could explain why some of her samples indicated she had lost blood, and there was no evidence she received any transfusions.
Jeruto became an African champion while representing Kenya and won on the top-tier Diamond League circuit in 2021. She missed the Tokyo Olympics that year while her change of allegiance to Kazakhstan was processed.
An urgent CAS verdict is likely before the women’s steeplechase is raced at the Paris Olympics on Aug. 6-8 at Stade de France. (AP)