Daily Mail - 16.08.2019

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Daily Mail, Friday, August 16, 2019

Brit duo disqualified for finishing hand in hand

Football

THE WoRLD Triathlon olympic

qualifier event in Tokyo ended in

farce yesterday after Britain’s Jessica

Learmonth and Georgia Taylor-

Brown were disqualified for crossing

the finish line hand-in-hand.

Learmonth was given the victory on

a photo-finish ahead of Taylor-Brown

but they were later told their results

were being scratched because of a rule

preventing deliberately tied finishes.

The British team had an appeal

rejected, which saw Bermuda’s Flora

Duffy gain top spot ahead of Italy’s

Alice Betto, while Britain’s Vicky Hol-

land was jumped up to third from

fifth. Learmonth and Taylor-Brown

were adjudged to have fallen foul of

International Triathlon Union (ITU)

competition rule 2.11.f, which reads:

‘Athletes who finish in a contrived tie

situation, where no effort to separate

their finish times has been made, will

be disqualified.’

Learmonth had led after the swim

but fell back into a front group of 15

following the cycling. The concluding

run was cut from 10km to 5km

because of the hot conditions in

Tokyo but after Learmonth crossed

with Taylor-Brown well ahead of the

pack, they were eventually told they

had been disqualified. It could yet

have an impact on either woman’s

prospects of going to the olympics

next year.

While this particular race was not

listed as an automatic qualifier in the

British Triathlon selection policy, the

team of three for 2020 will be decided

by a meeting in mid-october. That

will take into account rankings in the

World Triathlon Series, in which

Britain have six in the top 40, so the

loss of ranking points in Japan could

be a factor.

Mike Cavendish, the team’s perform-

ance director, said: ‘It’s disappointing

to have Jess and Georgia disqualified

but it’s a testament to the depth of

our female squad that we still have

another athlete on the podium.’

TRIATHLON

By RIATH AL-SAMARRAI

Unlucky: Learmonth and Taylor-Brown cross the line

SOL WALKS AWAY

FOOTBALL

DIGEST

BUTLAND EYES

A MOVE ABROAD

JACK BUTLAND is

ready to move to

Europe to save

his England

career ahead of

Euro 2020 next

summer. The

26-year-old

goalkeeper (above) missed

a move back to the Premier

League as Stoke’s £30million

valuation priced him out of

a potential transfer to

Bournemouth.

But Butland remains

determined to leave the

Championship and can still

move abroad as the transfer

window in Spain, Germany,

Holland, Italy, France and

Portugal does not close

until September 2.

Campbell quits Macclesfield after no pay for four months

By JOE BERNSTEIN

CHELSEA’S crackdown

on ticket touts has

resulted in one offender

being jailed for six months

and 10 others being served

injunctions keeping them

away from Stamford Bridge

on match days. The tout

sent to prison had breached

a previous injunction. All

11 were ordered to pay the

club’s costs of more than

£170,000.

BURY OFF AGAIN

BURY’S League One fixture at

Rotherham on Tuesday has

become the fifth straight

game called off by the EFL

as they await financial

commitments from the club’s

owners.

ITV have agreed a deal

with La Liga to show

matches live this season.

Tonight’s curtain raiser

between Athletic Bilbao

and Barcelona will be

shown free to air on ITV4

and ITV Hub LIVE.

Flying start for Neto

WOLVES 4 0 FC PYUNIK

JOE BERNSTEIN at Molineux

S

oL CAMPBELL

walked away from

Macclesfield Town

yesterday after

being unpaid for

four months.

The 44-year-old former Totten-

ham, Arsenal and England

defender left the cash-strapped

club after eight and a half months

in charge.

He took over when Macclesfield

were seven points adrift at the

foot of the League Two table and

pulled off a brilliant recovery to

keep the club in the Football

League with a run of two defeats

in their final 10 games.

Though Macclesfield are staying

afloat on the pitch — and knocked

Blackpool out of the Carabao Cup

in Campbell’s last match on

Tuesday — things have been

financially desperate for a

long time.

Six former players are leading a

winding-up order against the club

over unpaid wages with HM

Revenue and Customs taking

over the petition. The matter was

adjourned in the High Court on

Wednesday until September 11.

For months, Campbell ignored

the fact he was not being paid on

time along with his players.

But he was ambitious to push

Macclesfield up the league and

strong-armed owner Amar

Alkadhi to sign nine new players

this summer — costing money the

club could not afford.

When a Premier League pay-

ment of around £250,000 was due

to Macclesfield this week without

it immediately being passed on

for late wages, Campbell’s assist-

ant Hermann Hreidarsson walked

out, hours after the Blackpool

game, and it was only a matter of

time before Campbell followed.

As Campbell left his final meet-

ing with Alkadhi in London on

Wednesday — insisting he said

farewell to the players at training

before his departure was officially

confirmed — both men were glad

to be rid of each other, certainly

not as ‘amicable’ as the statement

stated. Campbell arrived at the

club with real energy and enthusi-

asm. He wanted to prove his lack

of previous managerial prospects

were down to colour rather than

ability. He wanted to show he was

not an oddity unable to motivate

footballers.

Though his knowledge of the

league was scratchy, Campbell’s

status earned respect from the

players. He hired a man to perch

on the roof of the Sandbach

training ground so they could

study sessions in detail.

Alkadhi allowed Campbell

(right) his own men to deal with

transfers, leading to the depar-

ture of chairman Mark Blower,

who was worried about the rising

costs. And in the short term it

worked brilliantly.

Campbell’s side lost just eight of

25 matches to save themselves

with a draw against Cambridge

on the final day of last season,

even with a winding-up order

hanging over the club.

Campbell told friends during the

summer Macclesfield had a

better squad this season

but stories of financial

woe were a big problem,

particularly a revelation

that the squad nearly

pulled out of the Cam-

bridge game as a protest

against not being

paid.

Campbell real-

ised the writing

was on the wall. Even at the

end of last season, he admitted:

‘The budget was gone when I

got here.’

A man used to winning Pre-

mier League and FA Cup titles,

and scoring in a Champions

League final, he did not want

another long hard season

motivating

players who could

not be sure

of receiving

their pay

cheques.

PoRTUGUESE teenager Pedro Neto scored

and made an assist on his Wolves debut as

Molineux got a pleasing first glimpse of three

summer signings.

Leading 4-0 from the first leg against

Armenia’s finest, Wolves manager Espirito

Nuno Santo felt comfortable in giving debuts

to Neto, a £16million capture from Lazio, and

Jesus Vallejo, with Patrick Cutrone making his

first start after two substitute appearances.

Neto, 19, broke the deadlock after 54 minutes

from Cutrone’s cross and then set up Morgan

Gibbs-White four minutes later as Wolves

eased into a Europa League play-off against

Torino. Ruben Vinagre added a third just

after an hour before substitute Diogo Jota

completed the scoring with a stunning late

overhead kick. It equalled Wolves’ largest

aggregate win in Europe.

‘I thought all my players did a very good job,

not just the new players,’ said Santo, who

made nine changes from the team that drew

0-0 at Leicester in the Premier League on

Sunday. ‘It wasn’t easy at the beginning

because they started well but our display in

the second half was very good.’

Wolves win 8-0 on aggregate

Easy does

it: Morgan

Gibbs-White

celebrates

the second

goal PA