A summary of sports events and sports persons, who made news on Sunday
Amit Panghal claimed his second consecutive international gold but the celebrated M C Mary Kom had to be content with a silver in the 69th Strandja Memorial boxing tournament for men and women in Sofia, Bulgaria on Sunday.
Amit (49kg), who fetched the top honours at last month's India Open, defeated Morocco's Said Mordaji to fetch the yellow metal.
The 23-year-old Haryana-boxer recovered from a sloppy start to out-manuever Mordaji, who was taller and matched the Indian in pace but eventually fell short on accuracy.
However, Mary Kom (48kg), who came into the event in pursuit of a third consecutive gold medal after the Asian championships and the India Open, lost to Bulgaria's Sevda Asenova in a rather shocking decision.
Another promising Indian, Seema Poonia (+81kg), went down to Russia's Anna Ivanova, done in by her rival's sheer power.
It was a stunning result for Mary Kom, who dominated the bout against the local favourite. The Olympic bronze-medallist Indian was the one initiating any attack for most of the bout.
In fact, she quite literally chased Asenova, who was content with occasional touches, while back-paddling evasively. One such chase for getting a punch across by Mary Kom led to the boxers tumbling over each other.
It came as quite a surprise when the judges ruled in the Asenova's favour, leaving the Indian corner shocked.
In contrast, Seema was up against a power-puncher in Ivanova and was found wanting. Ivanova was also quicker of the two and stuck to hitting straight.
Such was the Russian's dominance that even a warning in the final round for bending had no bearing on the final outcome.
The Indian women boxers thus finished the event with two silver and four bronze medals -- Meena Kumari Devi (54kg), L Sarita Devi (60kg), Saweety Boora (75kg) and Bhagyabati Kachari (81kg) brought home the bronze.
Aruna finishes 7th in floor event at Gymnastics World Cup
After clinching a historic bronze medal in vault at the Gymnastics World Cup, Aruna Budda Reddy today finished a lowly seventh in the final round of women's floor event in Melbourne.
Aruna had created history on Saturday by becoming the first Indian gymnast to win an individual medal at the Gymnastics World Cup but the 22-year-old from Hyderabad couldn't bring her best today as she scored 10.833 to finish in the seventh position.
Among others, Rakesh Patra also finished seventh in the final round of the parallel bars after scoring 13.433, 1.400 points behind gold medallist Xiaoming Wu of China.
Delhi Commonwealth Games and 2014 Asian Games bronze medallist Ashish Kumar also endured a difficult day as he finished eighth in the men's vault event final round after scoring 13.583.
Lahiri moves up to T-46, Woods show good form but List leads
Anirban Lahiri carded a second successive one-over 71 but improved his position marginally to T-46th at the end of the third round of the Honda Classic, in Palm Beach, Florida.
Lahiri, who had rounds of 73 and 71 on first two days, did well to recover from two bogeys in his first five holes. On the seventh he got his solitary birdie of the day and then followed that with up with 11 straight pars.
He would, however, be ruing a couple of close birdie misses from inside 10 feet besides another one for par. The PGA National continued to play tough and the average for the round was 71, which however may have been somewhat better than 72.6 for the first day and 73.1 for the second.
Meanwhile, Luke List recorded a second straight 66 and moved into sole lead at seven-under and he was one clear of Justin Thomas, whose 65 was the best of the day.
Much as List and Jamie Lovemark, the co-leader after 36 holes, were playing well and keeping their cards clean on the front nine at PGA National, the focus of the fans and everyone else was Tiger Woods (69).
List saw that as an advantage and said. "It's kind of nice having Tiger in the field now because he takes all the attention off everybody else, so you can just kind of go out and do your own thing."
List leads by one over Thomas and Webb Simpson (66).
Woods made bogeys on the notorious par 3s on the back nine, and finished with a birdie for a 69. It was the first time he broke 70 on the PGA TOUR in the 12 rounds since he first stepped away with a series of back surgeries after the 2015 Wyndham Championship. While only 10 players were ahead of him, Woods still was seven shots behind.
Khachanov outplays Berdych to reach Marseille final
Russian Karen Khachanov outplayed Czech Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-2 to reach the Marseille Open final on Saturday, setting up a title showdown with Frenchman Lucas Pouille.
World No 47 Khachanov was impeccable on serve, saving the meagre three break points Berdych had throughout the duel.
The 21-year-old has now beaten former world number four Berdych in both their meetings having also prevailed at last year's French Open.
Pouille reached his second final of the season after a 6-3, 7-6(6) defeat of Belarusian qualifier Ilya Ivashka.
Vietnam F1 race looks likely, says Ecclestone
A Formula One race in Vietnam could be on the calendar by 2020, according to the sport's former commercial supremo Bernie Ecclestone.
"I think you’re going to get a race in Vietnam," the 87-year-old told reporters invited to his private offices in central London to talk about various issues ahead of the new season starting next month.
The billionaire Briton, who was moved aside into an undefined 'emeritus' role in January last year after US-based Liberty Media took over, said a street race in Hanoi looked likely.
Ecclestone, who remains employed by Formula One on a multi-million pound salary, said the Vietnamese government was willing to pay a significant amount to promote the South-East Asian country by hosting a grand prix.
"They haven’t made a contract yet as far as I know. But if they have, it’s at least two years away isn’t it?," he said.
The Malaysian Grand Prix dropped off the calendar after last year's race but Formula One bosses have talked about expanding in China.
There have also been talks with Thailand, which came to nothing, but Vietnam is already an important emerging market for some of the sport's global sponsors such as Dutch brewer Heineken.
