Marquez wins MotoGP Japan sprint for Ducati

Ducati’s Marc Marquez won the Japanese Grand Prix sprint yesterday to shave five points off Aprilia rider Jorge Martin’s lead in the MotoGP championship standings.

Marquez made a scorching start and held the inside line on the first turn of the opening lap to surge past Martin, who had set a lap record at the Motegi circuit earlier to grab pole position.

Reigning champion Marquez maintained his lead and coasted to victory, moving him to 306 points — seven behind Martin’s 313 ahead of today’s race.

“The target was front row in the qualifying. Starting on first or second was the best place to do a great sprint race,” seven-time world champion Marquez said. “We did a small modification for the sprint race, and I felt much better on the bike.”

Aprilia’s Martin finished second, but was demoted to third behind LCR Honda’s Diogo Moreira.

The Spaniard had found it hard going toward the end of the sprint as he was put under pressure by Tech3’s Enea Bastianini, with the thrilling duel leading both riders to stray outside the track.

“I tried in the last lap to do everything I could to keep Enea behind. I achieved that,” Martin said.

“I don’t know exactly where I touched [the outside], because I was really focused on not doing it. So, big mistake.”

Brazilian Moreira earned his first sprint podium. It was the first sprint podium for satellite team LCR since 2023.

“Today was the day. We saw the crash and I said, ‘OK, today I will try to push to see’. At the end, lap by lap, I was feeling more comfortable with the bike,” Moreira said.

KTM’s Pedro Acosta, fresh off the first MotoGP victory of his career, started in the front row but quickly found himself in the gravel after being involved in a three-rider crash along with Alex Marquez and Fabio Di Giannantonio.

Japan’s Ai Ogura (Trackhouse) finished fifth, ahead of Martin’s Aprilia teammate Marco Bezzecchi, whose outside bid for the championship was dealt another blow.

Reigning champions South Korea yesterday struck with eight minutes left to seal a 2-1 win over a “proud” China to reach the Asian Games men’s soccer final. The South Koreans are to face either hosts Japan or Uzbekistan for gold on Saturday as they pursue a fourth consecutive title. Uzbekistan and Japan were tied 1-1 as of press time last night. Bae Jun-ho was their hero, ghosting in at the back post to head in a dramatic 82nd-minute winner at Nagai Stadium.

Men’s soccer at the Asian Games consists of under-23 squads with three overage players. “We were expecting a challenging match but we persevered,”

China’s Wang Xiyu, fresh from conquering top seed Alexandra Eala, toppled Zhang Shuai to win Asian Games women’s tennis singles gold yesterday — and a ticket to the Los Angeles Olympics.
The 25-year-old Wang breezed past her compatriot 6-2, 6-1 in 66 minutes at the Higashiyama Park Tennis Center in Nagoya.
Tennis is one of seven sports at the Games where the winners receive an Olympic qualification place.
Wang paid tribute to the 37-year-old Zhang, who has won multiple Grand Slam doubles titles and has now added a second Asian Games singles silver medal to the one she won in 2018 in

COURT STARS: Taiwan tennis sensations Hsieh Su-wei and Liang En-shuo advanced to the women’s doubles quarter-finals, along with Chan Hao-ching and Wu Fang-hsien Taiwan yesterday picked up two more bronze medals at the Asian Games in Japan, bringing their medal total to 39, including three golds and 10 silvers, to rank 14th in the overall standings. Lin Yu-ting guaranteed herself at least a silver medal in boxing after she outclassed Uzbekistan’s Sitora Turdibekova 5-0 in their women’s 60kg semi-final at the Nishio Gymnasium, putting the Taiwanese Olympic champion just one win from a second Asian Games gold.

Lin is tomorrow to face China’s Yang Chengyu in the gold-medal showdown. The 30-year-old thanked the medical team afterwards for treating the cut to her nose she sustained in

The Football Association of Ireland (FAI) has found itself divided ahead of their two Nations League clashes with Israel, with the players disagreeing over whether to boycott the first game today and goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu withdrawing from the squad. After hours of fraught meetings among the players and occasionally involving coaches and officials, FAI chief executive officer David Courell said at a news conference that had been delayed by several hours that a “significant majority” of the squad had agreed to play the game in Hungary, but it was far from a unanimous decision.

The handful of Irish journalists present questioned Courell