Five things to know from what happened in the world of sport. November 17-23, 2020.
- Bob your Skeleton. Martins Dukurs (LAT) won both Skeleton races at the IBSF BMW World Cup for Bobsled and Skeleton at his home track in Sigulda, Latvia. He now has a total of 55 World Cup wins. Francesco Friedrich (GER) also won two World Cup races at the track, but in the 2-am Bobsled Category and with a different breakman each time (Alexander Schueller and Margis Thornsten). Meanwhile in Finland, Petra Vlhova (SVK) won both Slalom races at the FIS Alpine Skiing World Cup in Levi and now has a record five consecutive World Cup Slalom wins. (Watch – FIS SKI)
- The Dragon is back. Ma Long (CHN) defeated Fan Zhendong (CHN), in a fantastic match (13-11, 11-7, 12-10, 9-11, 11-8) to take the ITTF Finals in Zhengzhou, China. Fan was the defending Champion that last week won the Men’s Table Tennis World Cup. With this title, Ma now was a record of six ITTF Finals won. In the women’s division, Chen Meng (CHN) beat young Wang Manyu (CHN) (11-9, 11-13, 14-12, 11-8, 11-5) to become the first player to win four consecutive ITTF Female Finals (Watch Long vs Zhendong’s Final highlights – ITTF).
- Iberian wins. Spain had a good week with their national football team defeating Germany 6-0 in a UEFA Nations League game, the largest defeated suffered by Germany in over 50 years, albeit this game did not have all of their top players, but superstar Manuel Neuer was the goalkeeper, indeed. In Motorcycling, Albert Arenas (ESP) clinched the Moto3 World Championship while Miguel Oliveira (POR) took the MotoGP season finale at home in Portugal. Enea Bastianini (ITA) won the Moto2 World Title (Watch the last laps of the MotoGP of Portugal).
- Russian wins. Dmitry Medvedev (RUS) had the best tournament of his life to win the ATP Finals, by beating Rafael Nadal (ESP) and Novak Djokovic (SRB) before facing US Open Champion, Dominic Tiem (AUT) in a very good Final that he won. Wesley Koolhof (NET) and Nikola Mektić (CRO) won the Doubles Title. In Paralympic Sport, Vera Muratova (RUS) won the Online Powerlifting World Cup Final, which utilized a system that combined all men’s and women’s weightclasses compete together in a single points-based tournament. She was followed by fellow Russian Anastasiia Mamadamirova and by Jainer Cantillo (COL) (Paralympic).
- Feeling fresh? Deiveson Figueiredo (BRA) quickly defeated Alex Perez (USA) with a submission to defend his UFC Flyweight Championship and it looks like he might be fighting again on December 12th, against #1 ranked Brandon Moreno (MEX), who defeated Brandon Royval (USA) by TKO in the first round as well, as part of the undercard. Valentina Shevchenko (KYR/PER) won defeated Jennifer Maia (BRA) with an unanimous decision to successfully defend her UFC Women’s Flyweight Championship (Fight recap – MMA Weekly).
