BEIRUT: Shining young Lebanese footballer Celine Haidar is refusing to let a critical head injury she sustained after an Israel airstrike keep her down, and is determined to recover and return to the pitch.
“No pain, no gain … I am very gratified with where I’ve reached in my rehabilitation. Actually I’m surprised … I want to return to football once I complete my physiotherapy and retain my fitness,” Haidar, a 20-year-old youth international, told Arab News on Saturday.
Speaking at Mgr Cortbawi Institute and Rehabilitation Hospital, where she has stayed since waking up from a two-month coma in January, Haidar said she does not recall what happened on the ill-fated day of Nov. 16.
Her father, Abbas Haidar, said his daughter was hit in the head by a piece of flying shrapnel while fleeing their home in Beirut’s southern suburb during Israeli airstrikes.
Haidar, who captains her club, Beirut Football Academy, said: “I don’t remember exactly what happened. All I’m confident of is that I am determined to return to football once I am done with my treatment here in the best rehab center in Lebanon.”
The footballer, who was 19 when she got injured, says her treatment has been a “long and hard journey,” but now “it’s getting better.
“I’ve made a big improvement. I thank Allah the almighty. There’s nothing that could kill faithful people, and I will never give up because only losers do,” Haidar said when asked if she would return to the sport.
Speaking about her teammates’ support, she added: “The team have been caring about my health, and constantly check on me. They all support me and have faith in me rejoining them.”
Haidar, dubbed by her coach Samer Barbary as “Lebanon’s Sergio Busquets,” is described as a skillful and gifted midfielder, inspired by international stars Toni Kroos and Luka Modric.
“Coach Samer is the one who improved my skills and worked on getting me to where I am today,” said the Real Madrid fan, whose football icon is Cristiano Ronaldo.
The 20-year-old footballer also studies physical education at a private educational institute in Beirut.
“I am fascinated by the smartness of Kroos and Modric, and they both have made me love playing in midfield. Ronaldo is my forever idol … his football mentality is the best,” she said.
Meanwhile, Barbary told Arab News that the whole BFA team are “with her in her recovery and she is doing great, thank God.”
He admitted that the treatment is a long road, but that Haidar “is determined and fighting to get back on her feet.
“We are waiting for her and hopefully she can come back to us, but the focus is on her to come back to her full strength, and then we will think about football,” he added.
Haidar’s father told Arab News that his daughter has surprised the family with her strong determination in working on her recovery and treatment. “I cannot say anything more than we thank God,” said Abbas, who expressed his hopes to see Celine “livelier and healthier” than before.
Following her November injury, Haidar was admitted to Saint Georges Hospital, where she entered a coma. She could not speak and remained under extensive treatment for months, her father said.
According to video footage that Haidar shared on her recovery, she can now walk, though with a limp in her left leg. She can also climb stairs with some difficulty.
Haidar, a rising star in Lebanon’s football scene, represented her country as a member of the under-19 women’s side who won the 2022 West Asia Cup, hosted by Lebanon. She was also selected to play for the senior national team before her injury.
“Celine played a major role in us winning the 2024 league unbeaten,” Barbary said.
Before joining BFA in 2021, she played for Safa Club and with them won the Lebanese National League.
Lebanese youth footballer injured in Israeli strike determined to return to the pitch
https://arab.news/w7nmh
Lebanese youth footballer injured in Israeli strike determined to return to the pitch
- ‘No pain, no gain … I want to return to football once I complete my physiotherapy and retain my fitness,’ Celine Haidar told Arab News
- ‘I’ve made a big improvement. There’s nothing that could kill faithful people, and I will never give up because only losers do’
Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier chosen as captains of WNBA All-Star Game by fan vote
- Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer
- Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game
NEW YORK: Caitlin Clark and Napheesa Collier will captain the WNBA All-Star Game next month, the league announced Sunday.
Clark received 1,293,526 votes from fans, while Collier had about 100,000 fewer.
“It’s cool that fans get to be a part of it and have a little impact on the game,” Clark said. “It’s going to be special to do it here in this city. ... Trying to make it the best All-Star that the WNBA has ever had. It’s certainly a cool honor.”
The Indiana Fever star, who is sidelined with a groin strain, is averaging 18.2 points and a career-high 8.9 assists. She also led the fan voting last season, her rookie year, but the All-Star format was the US Olympic team playing against a select group of WNBA stars so no captains were chosen. She learned she was captain in a phone call from WNBA Commissioner Cathy Engelbert.
Collier leads the league in scoring at a career-best 24.5 points and is fourth in rebounding at 8.4 per game. Her daughter surprised her wearing a shirt saying “Mama you’re a All-Star,” as she scooted into the locker room with former Lynx great Sylvia Fowles right behind her to let Collier know the news.
“It’s really cool,” Collier said to reporters before warming up for a game Sunday night “I went from never being a starter to captain.”
This will be her fifth All-Star appearance.
Before squaring off in Indianapolis on July 19, Clark and the Fever will face Collier and the Lynx on Tuesday in the Commissioner’s Cup final.
The 10 starters were selected from across the WNBA without regard to conference affiliation. Current players and a media panel joined fans in selecting the All-Star starters. Fans voting accounted for 50 percent, while the players vote and the media choices each account for 25 percent.
The pair will draft their fellow starters from a group that will be revealed on Monday. After the starters are announced, the league’s head coaches will choose the 13 reserves by voting for three guards, five frontcourt players and four from either position. Coaches can’t vote for players from their own teams. The 12 reserves will be revealed next Sunday.
“Obviously I’m going to try and get my teammates on my team, that’s the goal,” Clark said. “Once they come out with whoever has made it and whoever hasn’t, I’ll get to pick and choose. I don’t know how it works.”
The two All-Star captains will then draft their respective rosters by selecting first from the remaining eight players in the pool of starters and then from the pool of 12 reserves.
Clark and Collier also led the initial fan voting, with Indiana’s Aliyah Boston in third. Boston finished second last season behind Clark in the fan vote.
Hall of Fame horse trainer D. Wayne Lukas, a winner of 15 Triple Crown races, dies at 89
- His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home
- Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships
NEW YORK: D. Wayne Lukas, the Hall of Famer who became one of the most accomplished trainers in the history of horse racing and a face of the sport for decades, has died. He was 89.
His family said Sunday that Lukas died Saturday night at his Louisville, Kentucky, home. Lukas had been hospitalized with a severe MRSA blood infection that caused significant damage to his heart and digestive system and worsened pre-existing chronic conditions.
“Wayne devoted his life not only to horses but to the industry — developing generations of horsemen and horsewomen and growing the game by inviting unsuspecting fans into the winner’s circle,” his family said in a statement. “Whether he was boasting about a maiden 2-year-old as the next Kentucky Derby winner or offering quiet words of advice before a big race, Wayne brought heart, grace, and grit to every corner of the sport. His final days were spent at home in Kentucky, where he chose peace, family, and faith.”
Lukas won 15 Triple Crown races, including the Kentucky Derby four times. Only good friend Bob Baffert has more Triple Crown victories, and Lukas owns a record-tying 20 in the Breeders’ Cup World Championships.
“The whole secret of this game, I think, is being able to read the horse: Read what he needs, what he doesn’t need, what he can’t do, what he can do,” Lukas said in May before his 34th and final Preakness Stakes. “That’s the whole key. Everybody’s got the blacksmith, everybody’s got to the same bed available, the feed man. We all can hire a good jockey. We all can hire a pretty good exercise rider if we’ve got the means, so what the hell is the difference? The horse is the difference and what we do with him in reading him.”
Lukas was affectionately known around the barns and the racetrack as “Coach” because he coached high school basketball before his professional career with horses began. Even with months to go before his 90th birthday, he would get up on his pony in the early morning hours and go out to the track himself, rather than letting his assistants do the day-to-day work.
Born Darnell Wayne Lukas on Sept. 2, 1935, in Wisconsin as the second of three children, he rose to prominence in the sport with quarter horses in races that are effectively sprints. He moved into thoroughbreds in the late 1970s and won his first Preakness with Codex in 1980.
Lukas has 4,967 documented victories in thoroughbred racing, with his horses earning more than $310 million from more than 30,600 starts.
“Today we lost one of the great champions of Churchill Downs and one of the most significant figures in Thoroughbred racing over the last 50 years,” Churchill Downs Inc. CEO Bill Carstanjen said. “We will miss his humor, his wisdom and his unmatched capacity to thrill the fans with the performances of his horses on our sport’s biggest days.”
Achieving something of a career renaissance over the past decade, one he credits to finding the right owners willing to spend money on horses, Lukas won the Preakness last year with Seize the Grey. Asked what motivates him to keep doing his job well into his late 80s, he gave a pep talk fit for a locker room before a big game.
“If you have a passion, you eliminate all the excuses,” Lukas said. “That’s how it works. You get up early. You go without a meal. You drive. You go without sleep — as long as you got the passion. Don’t let that sofa pull you down. It’s a little easy when that alarm goes off to say, ‘Oh my God, I don’t know if I really want to do this today.’ Erase that. The most important decision you’ll ever make in your life is your attitude decision. Make it early, and make the right one.”
Aldrich Potgieter, 20, wins Rocket Classic in five-hole playoff
- Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club
- The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266
DETROIT: As a grueling playoff unfolded in the Rocket Classic, South Africa’s Aldrich Potgieter was determined to have enough pace on what became the final putt Sunday.
Potgieter drained an 18-foot birdie putt on the fifth playoff hole to secure his first PGA Tour victory by winning the Rocket Classic at Detroit Golf Club.
“Struggled to make putts. Left a lot short,” Potgieter said. “Finally got one to the hole.”
Potgieter outlasted Max Greyserman in an extended playoff that began with three golfers. Chris Kirk’s bogey on the second playoff hole cost him a chance and reduced the playoff to two golfers.
Potgieter, a big-hitting 20-year-old, began the tournament with a 62 on Thursday and ended up with the biggest prize. He is the youngest South African to win on tour.
“Big thanks to my family, friends, coaches, everyone who has been involved to kind of get me to this point,” Potgieter said.
The trio of Potgieter, Greyserman and Kirk finished 72 holes at 22-under-par 266.
“This one is going to sting a little bit,” Greyserman said.
Potgieter, who became the seventh-youngest PGA Tour winner since 1983, and Greyserman both had birdies on the par-5 14th hole — the fourth stop in the playoff — before Potgieter sank the winning putt on the par-3 15th hole.
Kirk and Greyserman shot final-round 5-under-par 67s and Potgieter, who was the first- and third-round leader, had 69.
Kirk had the best chance on the first playoff hole, but he was off the mark on a birdie putt of slightly more than 9 feet.
“It’s a shame that first playoff hole,” Kirk said. “Hit just three perfect shots and I misread that putt a little bit. That’s the way it goes sometimes.”
Greyserman missed from 11 feet on the second extra hole before Kirk was eliminated with a three-putt bogey moments later.
“Just really disappointed right now,” Kirk said. “Felt like I played great today. I’m happy with the way I played.”
Greyserman, ranked 48th in the world entering this week, remains without a PGA Tour victory. He has four runner-up finishes.
“Unfortunately, I didn’t get the job done,” Greyserman said. “Thought I hit a lot of good shots down the stretch. Very pleased with how I handled myself down the stretch.”
It was a bogey-free round for Greyserman, who missed a birdie putt from just inside 12 feet on the final hole that would have given him the victory. He made birdies on Nos. 16 and 17 to rise into a share of the lead.
Except for a birdie on No. 17, Kirk posted par on seven of his last eight holes in regulation.
It was a crowded leaderboard for the entire day.
Michael Thorbjornsen (67) and Jake Knapp (68) shared fourth place at 21 under. Jackson Suber (68) and Colombia’s Nico Echavarria (66) tied for sixth at 20 under.
By late afternoon, there were 26 golfers within three shots of the lead. After Potgieter and Greyserman made the turn as the final pairing, there were several fewer so close to the top, but still more than a dozen — with more than half of those golfers still on the course.
Echavarria played the final seven holes in 4 under to match his first-round 66.
Harry Higgs and Akshay Bhatia had 65s for the best scores of the last round, finishing at 16 under and 15 under, respectively.
New faces lead US women to familiar result: 4-0 win over Ireland
- It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years
- The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window
CINCINNATI: The US women’s national team’s depth was on display Sunday in Cincinnati when the squad’s backups dominated Ireland for a 4-0 victory in a friendly.
US coach Emma Hayes made 11 changes from the lineup that defeated Ireland 4-0 on Thursday and didn’t miss a beat as the Americans won their fourth straight match without allowing a goal. In fact, Ireland did not put a shot on frame.
Izzy Rodriguez, who made her USWNT debut along with Sam Meza, scored in the 42nd minute for a 2-0 lead while Emma Sears played a part in the first three goals. Sears and Rodriguez played together at Ohio State, less than two hours away.
Sandwiching the Rodriguez goal, Lynn Biyendolo opened the scoring in the 11th minute and Yazmeen Ryan extended the lead to 3-0 in the 66th with her first goal. Alyssa Thompson made it 4-0 in the 86th on an assist by Claire Hutton.
The win was the 600th in USWNT history in just 765 matches.
It was such a young lineup that Biyendolo had almost twice as many appearances (81) as the rest of the starting lineup (41), which represented the fewest combined matches of any USWNT lineup in the past 24 years.
It didn’t matter. Sears made a cross to Biyendolo in the middle of the box and she ripped a shot for her 25th goal.
Rodriguez got on the board when Sears took an entry pass from Olivia Moultrie and forced a save by Courtney Brosnan (six saves). The ball came to Rodriguez and she did not hesitate on the rebound.
The role was reversed on the third goal. Sears fed Moultrie and she found an unmarked Ryan.
A minute after Thompson’s goal, hometown favorite Rose Lavelle entered the match to a standing ovation and nearly scored in the ensuing minute.
The US will get a much sterner test on Wednesday when they play Canada in Washington, D.C., to complete the three-match window.
Reed wins four-man playoff to capture first LIV Golf title
- “The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston
WASHINGTON: Patrick Reed birdied the first extra hole to win a four-man playoff on Sunday and capture LIV Golf Dallas for his first victory in 41 starts in the Saudi-backed series.
Reed, the 2018 Masters champion, led by as many as five strokes early in the final round, squandered his advantage, then won on only the third birdie of the day at the 18th hole at Maridoe Golf Club.
“The biggest thing with relief is to finally win in my home state,” said Reed, who lives near Houston. “To finally get that done meant a lot. To get my first win here as part of LIV means so much to me.”
The 34-year-old American won last November’s Hong Kong Open on the Asian Tour for his first title since a 2021 PGA victory at Torrey Pines.
Reed, England’s Paul Casey, South African Louis Oosthuizen and Japan’s Jinichiro Kozuma shared the lead after the regulation 54 holes on six-under 282.
Reed opened with a birdie at the first hole, jumped ahead by five after double bogeys by his top rivals, but had five bogeys on the front nine before parring his way through the back nine proved good enough to make a playoff.
“I tried to mess it up,” Reed said. “After making birdie on the first I seemed to leave every putt short. Just kind of putting pretty tentative.”
He missed a birdie putt at 18 in regulation to ensure a playoff.
“Had a good putt there to win on the final hole of regulation, hit a good putt and it doesn’t go in there. Leave it short,” Reed said. “So when I had that down there (to win in the playoff) I thought I left it short too but making a birdie at the last always helps.”
Reed composed himself at the turn after losing the lead to his woeful front side.
“I told myself the putts have to start falling. For the most part I thought I hit the ball fine. I had just a lot of missed putts,” he said.
Kozuma missed a chance for his first victory outside his homeland.
Sharing fifth on 283 were Americans Charles Howell and Harold Varner, England’s Tyrrell Hatton and Northern Ireland’s Tom McKibbin.
Spain’s Sergio Garcia qualified for the British Open, taking the spot available to a top-five LIV season player not already in the field for next month’s major showdown at Portrush.
The Crushers, featuring Casey and two-time US Open winner Bryson DeChambeau, won the team title.
