Juventus Revive Serie A Battle

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Juventus burst back into the Serie A title race with a come-from-behind 3-1 victory over their fierce rivals Fiorentina.

Juve, who started the season poorly, are six points behind the leaders, Internazionale, after winning six games in a row. Inter won 4-0 at Udinese on Saturday.

Josip Ilicic’s penalty was cancelled out by the former Fiorentina winger Juan Cuadrado, on loan at the Juventus Stadium, with Mario Mandzukic and Paulo Dybala completing the turnround in the second half.

Massimiliano Allegri’s Juve are now fourth before next Sunday’s trip to face lowly Carpi while second-placed Fiorentina, who next entertain Chievo, remain four points shy of Inter.

Wojciech Szczesny excelled in the Roma goal as Napoli were held to a goalless draw at the Stadio San Paolo.

Roma looked like scoring in the first half but Maurizio Sarri’s Napoli turned the screw after the break, with the on-loan Arsenal goalkeeper Szczesny standing between them and a seventh straight home win.

Misfiring Milan were held to a 1-1 draw by the basement team, Hellas Verona, at San Siro.

Sinisa Mihajlovic has watched his Rossoneri drop points to such clubs as Carpi in recent weeks and the club’s mission to return to the Champions League places is looking increasingly fragile.

Milan took the lead through Carlos Bacca shortly after half-time but paid a heavy price for Nigel de Jong’s decision to commit a professional foul. He was sent off and Luca Toni levelled from the spot.

Valter Birsa’s second-half goal led to Chievo beating nine-man Atalanta 1-0 in Verona.

Nicolo Cherubin’s 66th-minute dismissal offered Alberto Paloschi the chance to score a penalty but Marco Sportiello denied him before Birsa produced the winner 10 minutes later.

To compound Atalanta’s disappointment Jasmin Kurtic was sent off for dissent in stoppage time.

Massimo Maccarone scored twice and set up a third goal for Riccardo Saponara as the upwardly mobile Empoli brushed Carpi aside 3-0 at the Stadio Carlo Castellani.

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Hamburg Olympics Nein Danke

Residents of the German city of Hamburg have voted against hosting the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

Hamburg was one of five cities left in the running, alongside Rome, Paris, Budapest and Los Angeles.

But 51.6% of residents of the city voted no in a referendum on Sunday. The No camp argued that money earmarked for the Olympics could be better spent.

German Olympics officials had picked Hamburg as their preferred candidate city ahead of Berlin.

Germany has not hosted the Games since 1972 in Munich. Voters there turned down the chance to host the 2022 Winter Olympics two years ago.

Almost two-thirds of voters in nearby Kiel, where sailing events would have been held, backed the Olympic proposal in Sunday's referendum. But turnout in the relatively small city of Kiel was under 32%, while 651,000 voters in Hamburg took part - half of the electorate.

Hamburg's mayor Olaf Scholz was disappointed with the result: "That's a decision that we didn't want, but it's clear."

The remaining cities vying for the chance to stage the 2024 Games include Budapest, Paris, Los Angeles and Rome.

Critics of the Hamburg plan said it was wasteful, at a cost of €11.2bn ($11.9bn; £7.9bn).

Hamburg's city authorities had promised €1.2bn for the event, but the lion's share would have been contributed by the national government.

Florian Kasiske from the No campaign NOlympia said people could see that the money could be better spent. He saw a change in mood in Hamburg, suggesting that the vote was linked to the large numbers of migrants and refugees arriving in the city.

"It's really about city politics. Many people are just arriving in this city and have to sleep in tents - and there has to be money for that," he said.

Stefan Kretzschmar with his silver handball medal at the Athens 2004 OlympicsImage copyrightGetty Images

The result was a setback for German sport. The chairman head of the German Olympic Sports Confederation (DOSB), Michael Vesper, said it was clear that "now it'll be impossible to hold the Olympics in Germany for decades".

He believed that the recent Paris attacks as well as the migrant crisis had played a part in the no vote. And he said that the continuing corruption scandal involving Fifa and the doping row in world athletics had also been key factors.

Others feared the negative effects on German sport. Olympic handball medallist Stefan Kretzschmar tweeted that "the gateway to the Olympic (sports)world has been closed forever. This No doesn't deserve any medals".

A spokesman for the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said that "a great opportunity for the city, the country and sport in Germany is lost".

"The city also misses the investment of the IOC of about $1.7bn to the success of the Games, which compares to the €1.2bn Hamburg wanted to invest," he added.

"Now there will be a strong competition with four excellent candidate cities. With these strong competitors we all can look forward to [an] exciting Olympic Games 2024, whoever the winner will be."

In July, the city of Boston decided to withdraw from the race to be host for 2024 amid a lack of public support.

The winning city will be selected in September 2017.

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A Bridge Too Far

A high court judge has been asked to decide whether bridge is a sport after it was refused recognition by Sport England.

Mr Justice Dove is expected to analyse arguments over the next two days at a hearing in London.

The English Bridge Union (EBU) took legal action after Sport England, the public body responsible for increasing participation in sport, refused to recognise the card game.

Union officials say recognition that bridge is a sport will be beneficial for the game and that Sport England’s ruling is “inconsistent with both the wishes of parliament and the opinion of significant international sporting organisations”.

An EBU spokesman said: “When ruling on what constituted a sport in the 2011 Charities Act, parliament specifically included ‘mind sports’, stating that sport comprised ‘activities which promote health involving physical or mental skill or exertion’.”

He said bridge required “undoubted levels of mental skill” and had “known health benefits”.

The EBU was granted permission in April to seek a judicial review. Judge Mr Justice Mostyn, who plays bridge, said at the time: “You are doing more physical activity playing bridge, with all that dealing and playing, than in rifle shooting.”

Lawyers for the EBU said officials want a judicial review to determine whether Sport England, the government body that distributes lottery funding, had acted lawfully in “adopting a policy that prevents it recognising sports that it does not consider to be ‘physical’.”

“The EBU is hoping that the judicial review will pave the way for bridge and similar sports to receive the recognition that they deserve,” said a spokesman for law firm Irwin Mitchell, which is representing the EBU. Recognition by Sport England is important because lack of recognition impacts upon EBU’s ability to take part in European and international competitions.

He added: “Chess has already been recognised as a sport by the International Olympic Committee and was demonstrated at the Sydney Olympics in 2000. It was also included in the 2006 and 2010 Asian Games and is being considered for the Pan-American Games.

“Organisers of the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo have invited both chess and bridge to apply for inclusion in the games, which, if accepted, will be the first time players have competed in the Olympics.

If bridge were to be recognised as a sport in England then EBU would be able to invest in a number of projects to teach bridge to people of all ages and to ensure that facilities are improved.”

Lawyer Alex Peebles said: “We will argue that a sport does not need to be physical to be regarded as a sport as a matter of law. We hope our legal challenge will result in Sport England reconsidering its decision not to recognise bridge as a sport, which will help the EBU to access the essential support they need to continue growing and attracting new players.”

Jeremy Dhondy, an international bridge player and chairman of the EBU, said: “We hope that this hearing will allow bridge to be recognised in the way that it should.”

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