Ali Mazaheri

BANGKOK, Thailand, Feb. 2--Iranian boxer, Ali Mazaheri booked a place in the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games on Saturday.
The 91 kg category won 14-5 over Uzbekistan rival in Bangkok to qualify for the prestigious event, IRNA wrote.
Forutan Golara and Hooman Karami in 57 and 60 kg respectively, who earlier won bronze medals in the tournament, however failed to qualify for the Olympics.
More than 300 pugilists from 31 nations are taking part in the King Cup tournament in Bangkok, Thailand.
Iran’s Morteza Sepahvand has already secured an Olympics in the 64 kg class.

Iran's football team's goalie dives for the ball in a training camp. (File Photo)

TEHRAN, Feb.2--Shahrzad Mozaffar remains the head coach of Iran’s Women’s National Football Team.
Announcing this, Farideh Shojaei, vice president of Iran’s Football Federation further told IRNA that 30 former national players as well as 25 new footballers have been invited to a one-week training camp.
“Another camp has been scheduled by the end of the next week to pick the best players for the Asian Nations Cup in March 2008,“ she said.
Saleheh Soufi and Zahra Hosseini will assist Mozaffar as coach and bodybuilding trainer, respectively, she added.
Shojaei also stated that the federation is seeking a foreign coach to take charge of the team. “We have held talks with a number of German coaches, but have not yet reached final agreement.“
Women’s team has been drawn against Myanmar, Taiwan, and Vietnam in next year’s Nation Cup.

TEHRAN, Feb. 2--25 teams will take part in the 20th Fajr International Taekwondo Tournament.
According to IRNA, the two-day competitions will kick off on February 9 in Bandar Abbas and 17 foreign and domestic teams will participate in the men’s section while eight teams are scheduled to compete in the women’s section.
Some 17 teams, namely South Korea, Russia, Lebanon, UAE, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Jordan, Iraq, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Armenia (two teams), Iran’s U-21, Azad University, Shahrdari of Bandar Abbas and Mojtama’e Javaneh will take part in the Fajr Taekwondo Tournament’s men section.
Russia, Lebanon, India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran’s National and Youth teams will compete in the women’s section.
World’s taekwondo officials will attend the event. Since this is an official tournament, World Taekwondo Federation technical delegates will supervise the event.

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, Feb. 2--Iran’s futsal team’s hope of reaching the KL Futsal Tournament semifinal went off following a loss to Thailand on Friday.
Iran was beaten by Thailand 3-2 at Kuala Lumpur’s Nagara Stadium, Mehr News Agency wrote.
The team had earlier defeated China 6-0 on Friday morning and could have booked a place in the semifinal with a draw against Thailand.
The KL, the most lucrative futsal tournament in the world with a prize purse of $150,000, is organized by ESPN Star Sports, Asia’s No. 1 sports broadcaster.
A total of 10 teams, including Brazil, Argentina and England are participating in the six-day competitions.

Frederic Kanoute

LOME, Togo, Feb. 2--Mali striker Frederic Kanoute won the 2007 African Footballer of the Year award on Friday, the Confederation of African Football (CAF) announced.
According to Reuters, the Sevilla forward is the first European-born player to win the award after beating off competition from Ivory Coast captain Didier Drogba and Michael Essien of Ghana.
Kanoute was nominated for his role in helping Mali qualify for this year’s African Nations Cup finals and triumphs last season with Spanish club Sevilla in the UEFA and King’s Cups.
The African Footballer of the Year award is voted for by the national coaches of the 53 CAF associations.
Kanoute played for his native France as a junior international before switching allegiance in 2004 to Mali, his father’s country.
He is the first Malian to win the award since Salif Keita took the inaugural title in 1970.
Drogba had been nominated mainly on the strength of his form in the English league and European competition.
His goals kept Chelsea in the Premier League title race last season and also helped them lift the FA Cup, with the Ivorian scoring the only goal of the final against Manchester United at Wembley.
The timing of this year’s ceremony drew criticism with Essien refused permission by Ghana to travel the short distance to neighboring Togo for the ceremony.
Other awards were given to the Ivory Coast as the African team of the year and Champions League winners Etoile Sahel of Tunisia as the club of the year.
Etoile Sahel striker Armine Chermiti was named the best African club competition player and Zambian Clifford Mulenga Young African Player of the Year.

TEHRAN, Feb. 2--Iran’s National Judo Team will participate in International Judo Tournament in Germany. The two- day tournament is to start on February 20, Mehr News Agency reported.
All participants will take part in a joint training camp after the competitions.
The team will leave Iran for the event with seven participants: Masoud Haji Akhund-Zadeh, Ali Ma’loomat, Hamed Malek Mohammadi, Hossein Qomi, Ehsan Rajabi, Seyyed Mahmoud Miran and Mohammad Reza Roudaki. The world gold medalist Arash Mir-Esmaeili will travel to Germany to participate in the camp.
Iran’s judo team will be headed by Mohammad Reza Haj Yusef-Zadeh and Majid Zare’ian will assist him in the tournament. Alireza Amini is the team’s supervisor.

TEHRAN, Feb. 2--Iran’s Football Federation’s secretary general has announced that the national team will play Oman prior to the 2010 World Cup qualifiers against Kuwait.
“Talks with Oman’s officials to hold the friendly match continue, howeverÊwe have not yet reached an agreement,“ Mehdi Mohammad Nabi told Mehr News Agency.
He foresaw the test match will be held by mid-March. The football team will face Bahrain on March 22 as the second preparatory match.
Iran’s national football team will play Kuwait on March 2 in Kuwait.
The team has been drawn against Syria, Kuwait and UAE in Group E in the 2010 World Cup qualifications.

NEW YORK, Feb. 2--Kenyan-born American Bernard Lagat out-kicked Australia’s Craig Mottram in the year’s fastest mile and Adam Nelson dominated the shot put with the season’s top performance at the Millrose Games on Friday.
According to Reuters, Lagat, the world 1,500 and 5,000 meters champion, passed Mottram with less than two laps to go on the Madison Square Garden track and won in 3:57.51. Mottram was second in 3:57.90.
Lagat is using the indoor season to help him prepare for his first Olympics as a US competitor. He won the silver medal in the 1,500 meters representing Kenya at the 2004 Athens Games.
Mottram expressed disappointment at the slow pace of the race in the early stages.
Nelson’s shot put of 22.07 meters bested a strong field that included reigning world indoor and outdoor champion Reese Hoffa and 2004 world indoor winner Christian Cantwell.
Cantwell finished second with a put of 21.33 meters with Hoffa third with 21.13.
World indoor champion Leonard Scott returned from surgery on both knees to win the 60 meters, blowing past the field in 6.59 seconds. Carmelita Jeter edged fellow American Miki Barber in the women’s 60, winning in 7.29 seconds.
Jillian Schwartz upset world leader Jenn Stuczynski to win the women’s pole vault. Both cleared 4.63 meters but Schwartz prevailed on fewer misses.
American Tommy Skipper out-dueled countryman Derek Miles to win the men’s pole vault by clearing 5.7 meters. World outdoor champion Brad Walker finished a disappointing fifth.

ST. LOUIS, USA, Feb. 2--Andy McDonald and Brad Boyes scored in the first two rounds of a shootout and Manny Legace stopped Anaheim’s first two chances, giving the St. Louis Blues a 1-0 victory over the Ducks on Friday night.
According to AP, Legace, the Blues’ lone representative in the All-Star game, made 30 saves through overtime and then handled Ryan Getzlaf and Todd Bertuzzi in the shootout for his fourth shutout of the season.
The Ducks had the majority of chances in the game, including a second-period power play when Legace had to make six saves.
McDonald, traded by the Ducks to St. Louis in mid-December with Doug Weight going to Anaheim, beat Jean-Sebastien Giguere with a high shot to the stick side. Boyes slipped the puck in on the other side in the second round.
Entering the game, the Blues had been 1-for-16 on shootout chances all season, the only goal coming on a game-winner by Boyes in a 3-2 victory over Nashville on Nov. 17.
The Blues have won a pair of one-goal games since the All-Star break, ending a seven-game winless slump. The Ducks have dropped five in a row, totaling five goals in that span.
The game was penalty-free until the final minute of the first, when McDonald and Bertuzzi were whistled for coincidental minors. The teams combined for seven penalties in the second, and the best chance on the Ducks’ six-shot power play early in the period came when Legace stopped Getzlaf in front.

Arsene Wenger

LONDON, Feb. 2--Arsene Wenger believes he has the Premier League’s best striker in Emmanuel Adebayor.
The Togolese front man is bang in form at the moment with nine goals in his last seven games. His 16 strikes put him second in the top-flight scoring charts behind only Cristiano Ronaldo, Arsenal’s website wrote.
And, when you consider that Robin van Persie has been out for much of 2007 while Eduardo and Nicklas Bendtner have been undergoing a process of adaptation for much of the current campaign, it is easy to see why Wenger heaped praise on the 24-year-old at his pre-match press conference ahead of the Manchester City game.
“Adebayor is the best striker in the Premier League at the moment,“ said the Frenchman. “He’s mobile, he’s quick, he’s not scared and he’s brave. For me that’s a fantastic quality, especially in England .He can still improve the timing of his runs as he sometimes gets caught offside, and, just with that, he can score 10 more goals each season.“
Wenger said, “Adebayor is a strong character in the dressing room and a winner. He’s a guy who made mistakes at the start of his career, and has realized here that there’s another life rather than being easy. He smells that he can win, and is a winner. When he realized that he could live in the big world of top-class football players it changed him.

GENEVA, Switzerland, Feb. 2-- Former World Anti-Doping Agency chief Dick Pound has been nominated for president of the highest court in sports.
According to AP, Pound is one of two candidates put forward by the International Olympic Committee to lead the Court of Arbitration for Sport in Lausanne, Switzerland.
The other candidate is Geneva-based lawyer Robert Briner.
The IOC is the only group that can nominate candidates, but the tribunal’s 20-member board makes the final decision. The vote could come in April.
“It’s up to CAS to get on with the elections, but we do respect their autonomy so it’s all in their hands in terms of moving things forward,“ IOC spokeswoman Emmanuelle Moreau said Friday.
Pound, a Canadian lawyer and senior IOC member, served as the leader of WADA from 1999-2007. If elected, he would be in charge of overseeing the work of the sports world’s top appeals body. He also would control the appointment of arbitrators who rule on disputes.
CAS has nearly 300 arbitrators from 87 countries and handles about 200 cases a year.
The presidency has been vacant since Senegalese judge Keba Mbaye died in January 2007, a few months into his latest four-year term. The 82-year-old Mbaye had been the group’s only president since its creation in 1984.
Matthieu Reeb, who runs the court’s day-to-day operations, said he had not yet received any official nominations and no date for elections has been set.
CAS’s governing board will convene next week to set the agenda for an April 3 meeting in Monaco, he said.