The Honda LPGA Thailand Golf Tournament took place in Pattaya. It is the last event before the HSBC Women's World Championship takes place in Singapore in the upcoming week. After three rounds of golf there were two leaders, Amy Yang and Minjee Lee with both 201 strokes. Jenny Shin followed with 203 strokes and another three players were on 204 strokes after three rounds, not to mention a couple of golfers on 205 strokes. The last round promised to be exciting.
Amy Yang started very strong in that last round with a couple of birdies that put her in the lead after nine holes. However, after 15 holes the score was equal again, as Minjee Lee caught up impressively. Carlota Ciganda was one of the players that started the day on 205 stokes, but after 15 holes in the fourth round she had made up 4 strokes and joined Yang and Lee in the lead. Three players battling it out with three holes to go. On the 16th hole Yang had another birdie, whereas Lee and Ciganda only managed a par. All three would hit a par on the 17th hole, meaning the 18th and final hole would make the decision. Ciganda finished in another par, which brought her total to 268 strokes over four days, 20 below par, and a great comeback in the last round with just 63 strokes. Beatriz Recari, another Spanish golfer was the only one to equal that, but she finished on the 29th place after four rounds. Minjee Lee managed to do it a little bit better and produced a birdie to get equal with Yang. Yang however made a birdie herself as well, to win the tournament for the third time in her career. Minjee Lee finished on 267 strokes (21 under par), whereas Amy Yang finished on 266 strokes (22 under par).
Elsewhere...
Alpine Skiing
Every once in a while people achieve something that would worth of giving them a nickname. Lots of people even have several nicknames. Maria Rosa Quario for instance is nicknamed "Ninna". I don't know the reasoning behind that nickname, but that is not what this is about. Quario is a former professional skier, and she is the mother of Federica Brignone, one of the top skiers in the world currently. I am not aware of any nicknames given to Brignone, but I would be happy to suggest one after her performance in Crans-Montana, Switzerland. For the third time in a row she won the Alpine Combined World Cup tha was held in Crans-Montana. For Brignone there doesn't seem to be a better place to ski, and therefore the nickname "Mrs. Crans-Montana" would be a very suitable one in my opinion. For those who don't know, the Alpine Combined event is a combination of a downhill, followed by two slalom runs. Brignone was the fastest skier on the downhill in Crans-Montana, and defended that advantage in the two slalom runs. Her overall slalom time put her in 8th place on that discipline. Fastest in the slalom was Canadian skier Roni Remme. That made her performance the surprise of the day, as she comfortably moved into the second place in the Alpine Combined event. Wendy Holdener finished in third place, but was already more than a second behind the top two.
Beach Volleyball:
It may seem a bit odd to see a beach volleyball event, when in a lot of places in the World it is winter. Well, I have news for you, it's also summer in a lot of places right now. The funny thing is that this beach volleyball tournament was played in a location where it is currently winter. Basically, we can say that in Cambodia it's always summer, even when it's winter. The perfect venue to host an FIVB World Tour event in February, and that is exactly what happened this week.
The event took place in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh and saw two Asian teams in the semi finals, as well as one American team and one European team. The home crowd was clearly in favor for the team from Thailand, existing of Rumpaipruet Numwong and Tanarattha Udomchavee. In their semi final match they faced the American team of Amanda Dowdy and Corinne Quiggle. To the disappointment of the Cambodian crowd it were the Americans who won the match 2-0 in sets, which qualified them for the final. In the other semi final Greek team Vasiliki Arvaniti and Panagiota Karagkouni were too strong for the other Asian team from Japan, existing of Chiyo Suzuki and Yurika Sakaguchi. Also this match ended 2-0 in sets.
The two Asian teams had to fight for the bronze medal. Numwong and Udomchavee got the Cambodian crowd excited when they won the first set of the bronze medal match 21-19. In the second set the Thai team came close to winning the set and the medal, but after a very tough battle Suzuki and Sakaguchi won the set 21-23 to force a deciding set. In that decider the game was close as well, but it were the Japanese that eventually won it with 15-12. In the final the situation became clear much sooner. Arvaniti and Karagkouni took an early lead of a couple of points difference in the first set, and never gave these away. They won the first set 21-14 and continued that sort of form in the second set as well. The Greek were dominant, but allowed three more points to the Americans in the second set, 21-17. It was more than enough for the Greek duo to claim the gold medal in Phnom Penh.
Cross-country Skiing
Sweden has always been one of the main competitors in this sport, both in the men's and women's competitions. For some reason, during this years FIS Nordic World Ski Championships they had not yet won a gold medal. It was up to Stina Nilsson and Maja Dahlqvist to break that negative record into a positive one at the team sprint. In order to do so, they had to beat the Norwegian favorites Ingvild Østberg and the individual sprint world champion Maiken Falla.
The race was held on a track of 1.2 kilometers, and each skater had to skate that distance three times, with a total of six laps per team, and 7.2 kilometers. The race was tight from the start and there were five countries that made good impressions throughout the race. Besides the already mentioned Norwegian and Swedish teams, also Slovenia, Russia and the United States were in contention. At the start of the sixth and final lap all five countries were still within a second difference and all had the chance of winning the gold. In the final sprint Nilsson sprinted away from Falla (a couple of days ago it was the opposite) to claim he gold. Surprisingly Falla fell back to third place, as Slovenia (Anamarija Lampic and Katja Visnar) sprinted to the silver medal. Russia still managed to finish within the second in fourth place, whereas the United States had to settle in fifth place with a 1.86 seconds difference.
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