American Skye Blakely won the women's all-around title at the World Artistic Gymnastics Championships on Friday, completing her strong comeback after an Achilles tendon injury, which hampered her efforts to participate in the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Blakely (21 years old) scored 55.733 points in the vault horse, beam, balance beam and floor movements competitions in the Ahoy Arena to win her first individual world title.
Russian Lyudmila Roshchina won the silver medal with 55.199 points, and Chinese Qi Qinqin (16 years old) ranked third with 55.032 points.
Blakely suffered a rupture in her right Achilles tendon during floor exercises two days before the start of the 2024 US Olympic qualifiers, which ended her efforts to qualify for the Paris Olympics. She also missed the qualifiers for the Tokyo Olympics in 2021 after suffering a tear in one of her elbow ligaments.
This victory represents a major achievement for Blakely, who previously won the team gold medal at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships, but did not win any individual medal at the World Championships.
She became the first American woman to win the world all-around title since Simone Biles in 2023.
Real Madrid coach, Portuguese Jose Mourinho, renews the date, Sunday, with one of the most exciting competitions in football, when he plays his first Clásico since his return to the club, hosting Spanish League leader Barcelona at the Spotify Camp Nou stadium.
The veteran Portuguese coach's first period in Madrid was largely defined by his battle to end Barcelona's dominance under Pep Guardiola, while relations between the two Spanish giants declined to their lowest levels.
Mourinho was partially able to break Barcelona's power by leading Real Madrid to the Spanish League title in 2012, which was the biggest coronation of his period between 2010 and 2013.
El Clásico matches became more exciting during that period, sometimes for bad reasons, as he and his staff clashed with their counterparts in Barcelona on the touchline and in verbal exchanges in the media.
Mourinho, 63 years old, worked as an assistant in Barcelona under the leadership of Englishman Bobby Robson and Dutchman Louis van Gaal in the 1990s, but he was marginalized in favor of Guardiola in 2008, when the Catalans replaced Dutchman Frank Rijkaard.
Mourinho's repeated battles with Guardiola, Argentine Lionel Messi, and even with Madrid icons themselves, such as goalkeeper Iker Casillas, sometimes overshadowed his sporting achievements.
The most famous flashpoint was when Mourinho stuck his finger in the eye of Barcelona's then assistant coach, the late Tito Vilanova, in August 2011.
Before that, in the same year, at the end of the previous season, Madrid and Barcelona faced off 4 times in just 18 days, which shows the intensity of the rivalry.
It was the first in the league, and ended in a 1-1 draw, which helped Barcelona take a step towards retaining the Spanish title with Madrid lagging behind.
Madrid, led by Mourinho, defeated Barcelona in the King's Cup in the second at the Mestalla stadium in Valencia, and Portuguese Cristiano Ronaldo scored the winning goal in extra time.
Then the Catalans overtook Los Blancos in the two Champions League semi-finals, and won the first leg 2-0 at the Santiago Bernabeu, with Madrid's Portuguese defender Pepe sent off. Mourinho described this as a “scandal.”
Barcelona held Real Madrid to a 1-1 draw in the second leg, reaching the final, which they won.
During this period, Guardiola said that he could not, and did not want to, compete with “leader” Mourinho in the press room.
The coach waved printed papers (arbitration cases) of incidents after losing the derby, to try to prove his point that Atletico Madrid deserved two red cards, and he refused to attend a press conference after his Brazilian striker Vinicius Junior was sent off against Villarreal.
Many believe that Mourinho uses these methods to distract attention and relieve pressure on his team when it does not perform as required.
Winning El Clasico may encourage him to focus on football, and stop the German team Hansi Flick, the Spanish champion for the last two seasons in a row, which is one of the most prominent reasons for his reappointment by President Florentino Perez.
Led by Flick, Barcelona won 6 of 7 matches against Real Madrid since the German arrived, scoring 22 goals and conceding only 11.
Mourinho insists that it is impossible for his team to be at the level he wants after such a short period at the helm of the coaching staff.
He said: “I have been here for more than a hundred days. “It is clear that we are not where I want, but there are things that we do today that are better than before.”
Real won its last four matches between the league and the Champions League, and after the coach distributed the minutes at the beginning of the season (rotation), some preferences began to appear.
Although Mourinho initially said that he did not see Uruguayan midfielder Federico Valverde as a right-back, the position in which he was previously used, he chose him in it in the last two matches, before the Dutchman Denzel Dumfries and the Englishman Trent Alexander-Arnold.
Mourinho said after the victory over Leipzig, Germany: “We created a lot on that side, and Fedi played a great match.”
In Valverde's place in the midfield, Mourinho brought on the Turkish Arda Guler against Seville on Sunday, then the Portuguese Bernardo Silva against the German team, and Madrid improved in possession and maintained the ball more.
But El Clasico poses a different challenge, as Mourinho, who included defender Pepe in the midfield against Barcelona, may return to his normal self and try to spoil the host's smooth football.
