Short-handed Mercury hold off Dream for 10th straight victory
IOC suspends NKorea from Beijing Oly for Tokyo no-show
COLLEGE PARK, Georgia, Sept 9, (AP): Shey Peddy made three free throws with 3.8 seconds left and the short-handed Phoenix Mercury rallied to beat the Atlanta Dream 76-75 for their 10th straight victory.
Peddy scored 10 of her 18 points in the fourth quarter, with her last free throw giving Phoenix - playing without stars Diana Taurasi (ankle) and Brittney Griner (personal reasons) - its first lead of the game. The Mercury trailed by 16 points in the second half.
BASKETBALL
Atlanta’s Courtney Williams went 1 for 2 at the line with 33.9 seconds left to give Atlanta a 75-71 lead. Peddy made a floater in the lane at the other end and Williams missed a long jumper, setting up Peddy’s play in transition. Peddy dribbled down and stopped at the top of the 3-point line before getting fouled from behind by Elizabeth Williams as she was shooting a shot that nearly banked in.
Peddy started for just the second time this season. Skylar Diggins-Smith added 13 points for Phoenix (19-10), and Sophie Cunningham had 10.
Atlanta (7-21), which ended an 11game losing streak Sunday, was looking to win consecutive games for the first time since May.
Courtney Williams had 20 points, 14 rebounds and five assists for Atlanta. Monique Billings scored 13 points, and Elizabeth Williams added 12 points and nine rebounds.
Atlanta built a 48-34 lead at halftime after shooting 59.5% from the field.
Aces 102, Lynx 81
In Las Vegas, Jackie Young scored a career-high 29 points and had 10 rebounds, A’ja Wilson added 20 points and the Las Vegas Aces beat the Minnesota Lynx.
Young, in her third season out of Notre Dame, went 14 for 19 from the field to top her previous best of 27 points set in May.
Riquna Williams scored all 16 of her points in the first half for Las Vegas. Chelsea Gray had a season-high 14 assists and Dearica Hamby returned from injury to score 14 points. Las Vegas was without center Liz Cambage after she was diagnosed with COVID-19 last week.
GENEVA, Sept.9, (AP): North Korea was formally suspended from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics by the IOC on Wednesday as punishment for refusing to send a team to the Tokyo Games citing the COVID-19 pandemic.
IOC president Thomas Bach said the North Korean national Olympic body will also now forfeit money it was due from previous Olympics. The unspecified amount - potentially millions of dollars - had been withheld because of international sanctions.
Individual athletes from North Korea who qualify to compete in Beijing could still be accepted by a separate decision in the future, Bach said.
The suspension marks a steep drop in North Korea’s Olympic status since the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, where the International Olympic Committee tried to aid a diplomatic breakthrough.
OLYMPICS
Athletes from the Korean neighbors marched together in the opening ceremony at Pyeongchang and joined together in a women’s ice hockey team.
North Korea withdrew its team in April from the Tokyo Olympics citing a need to protect athletes from the “world public health crisis caused by COVID-19.”
“They were violating the Olympic Charter and did not fulfill their obligation as stated in the Olympic Charter to participate,” Bach said at a news conference after an IOC executive board meeting.
The North Korean Olympic committee is suspended through 2022 and the exclusion could be extended, he said.
North Korea sent 10 competitors to the 2018 Winter Games, none in 2014
at Sochi, Russia, and two to Vancouver in 2010.
Asked what the IOC’s message would be to countries like North Korea and Afghanistan - where women risk losing the right to play sports - Bach
said taking part in the Olympics can “show to the world how it could look like if everybody would respect the same rules, if everybody would live together peacefully without any kind of discrimination.”
Bach had earlier talked about the IOC supporting efforts to help athletes and officials leave Afghanistan with humanitarian visas and extending financial help for the country’s potential Olympic competitors.
Less than five months from the start of the 2022 Winter Games, it was suggested to Bach that China’s treatment of its Muslim minority Uyghur people was also a humanitarian issue and not yet directly addressed by the IOC.
“There are limitations in our influence,” the IOC president said. “It’s to take care of humanitarian issues within the Olympic community. This is what we are doing.”
Bach was reluctant to comment on FIFA’s plan to play men’s and women’s World Cups every two years - a move that would see soccer absorb billions of dollars more in commercial revenue and global media attention.
If FIFA can get its proposal approved, it would likely mean moving its marquee event to odd-number years to avoid a near-direct clash - including for broadcasters, sponsors and fans with the Summer Games in 2028, 2032 and beyond.