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50 maltatoday SUNDAY 25 FEBRUARY 2018 Sports OLYMPICS FOOTBALL Russian bobsledder Sergeeva admits anti-doping violation: CAS Curling - Japan win bronze to claim first Olympic medal Mourinho forecasts 'amazing' period for Manchester United RUSSIAN bobsledder Nadezhda Sergeeva has admitted an anti- doping violation and has been dis- qualified from the Winter Olym- pics, the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said yesterday. As the International Olympic Committee (IOC) were meeting to discuss Russia's possible Olym- pic reinstatement, CAS said in a statement that Sergeeva had tested positive in an out-of-competition test for the banned heart condition product trimetazidine two days before her race. Sergeeva finished 12th with Ana- stasia Kocherzhova in the women's bobsleigh competition in Pyeo- ngchang on Wednesday. "The athlete has admitted the anti-doping rule violation; she is disqualified from the women's bobsleigh event," it said. "The results obtained by the team at the same event are disqualified with all resulting consequences; the athlete is excluded from Pyeo- ngchang 2018; her accreditation shall be withdrawn. "These proceedings shall con- tinue before the CAS between the IBSF (International Bobsleigh and Skeleton Federation) and the ath- lete after the end of the Games; the IOC is no longer a party to this procedure. "The athlete has accepted a pro- visional suspension beyond the period of the Games and reserved her 'rights to seek the elimination or reduction of the ineligibility pe- riod' following the conclusion of the Games." Russian bobsleigh official Ser- gei Zhurkin told reporters at the Olympic sliding center: "At this moment she can't say where she made a mistake. "In my opinion, maybe since the dose is very small that even means that she didn't drink the pill. As the doctors said, she could have got sprayed or smelled something or licked something. This is how minimal the dose is. "Possibly she kept the pills that are allowed in the same container that was, somewhere, at some point, tainted. "These are just my guesses. It's hard to say now. The doctors are investigating and probably all the medications that she had will be sent into the investigation as well as the container in which they were kept." However, Stanislav Pozdnyakov, head of the Russian delegation in Pyeongchang, said the positive test was a result of negligence by Sergeeva, who had "let the team down". Pozdnyakov said he had apolo- gized to the IOC for the Russian's two doping violations but said they did not have a systematic charac- ter. Yesterday's announcement comes after Russian curler Al- exander Krushelnitsky agreed to hand back his mixed-team bronze medal after testing positive for meldonium, which can aid in en- durance. It also came while the IOC's ex- ecutive board was meeting to dis- cuss whether to lift the suspension of Russia's Olympic committee and allow them to march with the Russian flag at Sunday's closing ceremony. If the suspension is not lifted, the athletes will march behind the Olympic flag and in neutral uni- forms, as they did for the opening ceremony. Olympic athletes from Russia Nadezhda Sergeeva and Anastasia Kocherzhova JAPAN claimed their first Olympic curling medal on Sat- urday when Satsuki Fujisawa's foursome scored a point in each of the final three ends to edge Britain 5-3 and win the bronze. Japan's win guarantees Asia will have two teams on the med- al podium with South Korea tak- ing on Sweden in the gold-medal final on Sunday. "It's the first medal for Japan so it's history," smiled Japan's Ca- nadian coach J.D. Lind. "That is something this country has been trying to do since the Nagano Olympics so to finally get to do that, it's a huge day for sure. "It's been stressful, I definitely feel for Eve Muirhead 's team. They had a shot to win. I feel for her having to miss but that's curling and we'll take it." The match was a tight, defen- sive, tactical affair from start to finish with neither rink putting up more than one point in an end. The first mistake came in the ninth and fell to British skip Muirhead who missed on a take- out on her final rock, allowing Japan to steal a point and nose in front 4-3. Britain needed a point to force extra ends but Japan stole anoth- er one when Muirhead misfired on her final stone trying to dou- ble the two Japan rocks out and keep hers in. "Of course I am absolutely gut- ted. As a team we gave it every- thing, we didn't leave anything out there," said Muirhead, win- ner of a bronze at the 2014 Sochi Olympics. "As a skip it is hard to take when you have a shot to win. "The shot was there, that's why I went for it. Curling comes down to inches and if that had curled another centimetre we would have had the bronze med- al around our necks. "It's going to be hard to take, I'm devastated. "Having a bronze medal before and coming away with nothing is hard. This is going to take a bit of time." Second Yumi Suzuki of Japan delivers the stone JOSE Mourinho has predicted an "amazing" period for Man- chester United as he prepares to host a series of significant fixtures at Old Trafford across three different competitions. United host Chelsea in the Premier League today to kick off a run of four home games in their next five matches. Mourinho's side start next month with a league trip to Crystal Palace before welcom- ing top-four rivals Liverpool. A Champions League last-16, second-leg fixture against Se- villa and a home FA Cup quar- ter-final against Brighton & Hove Albion wrap up the busy period, and Mourinho remains confident ahead of United 's de- cisive spell in the campaign. "I think the next few weeks at Old Trafford will be amazing," he told MUTV. "Two big matches against two direct rivals in the Premier League, two knockout match- es that, if things go well, can leave us in the quarter-final of the Champions League and the semi-final of the FA Cup. "Sometimes we have periods with three, four consecutive away matches but this time we have four matches at home, with Crystal Palace away in between, but four big matches at Old Trafford." United 's schedule contains 13 fixtures, including 11 league matches, but that total could potentially rise to 20 depend- ing on their progress in the cup competitions. "March, April and May can be really busy and going far in the FA Cup creates you problems," Mourinho added. "We now play Brighton when we were supposed to play West Ham and we don't know when we'll play West Ham." United, currently second in the league, have an opportunity to open up a six-point advantage over fourth-placed Chelsea with a win this weekend. Jose Mourinho