February 2006 in Sports - 16 February 2006 (Thursday)

16 February 2006 (Thursday)

• Football: 2005–06 UEFA Cup – Round of 32, First leg.
  • VfB Stuttgart 1–2 Middlesbrough
  • Slavia Prague 3–1 Palermo
  • FC Thun 1–0 Hamburg
• Cricket: West Indies in New Zealand
  • Twenty20: Tied match. New Zealand defeat West Indies in a bowl off 3–0.
    • Note: Chris Cairns' final international cricket game for New Zealand.
      • The New Zealanders won the toss, playing in the beige uniforms of the 80's, and sent the West Indies in. The "Windies" scored a modest 126–7 off their 20 overs, a run rate of only 6.30 an over. In reply, Lou Vincent scored 42 off 37, the highest score in the match. New Zealand looked to have the game in the bag, needing just 47 off nine overs. However, in the next 7 overs, Dwayne Smith and Chris Gayle had only 31 runs scored of their bowling, reducing the Black Caps to 110–8. New Zealand then required 17 to win off the last over and the game looked beyond them. A James Franklin six off the second ball changed things and off the last ball, New Zealand required 5 to win and 4 to tie with tailender Shane Bond facing. Bond hit a four, sending the game in to a bowl off. The 12 balls missed the stumps and it took two hits from last ball hero Shane Bond to break the deadlock and then a hit from Scott Styris gave New Zealand a 3–0 win in the bowl off. The first ODI starts on February 18.
  • ODI: India defeat Pakistan by 5 wickets at the Multan Cricket Stadium in the fourth ODI.
    • India win the 5 match series 3–1.
      • India won the toss and sent Pakistan into bat. The choice paid off as Pakistan ended all out for 161. Yuvraj Singh picked up 4 wickets and India coasted to an easy win to take the series.
• XX Winter Olympic Games, Turin, day six:
  • Biathlon, women's sprint:
    • Florence Baverel-Robert of France wins the women's biathlon 7.5 km sprint. Anna Carin Olofsson of Sweden and Lilia Efremova of Ukraine complete the podium. (CBC.ca)
    • Olga Pyleva, who placed second at the 15 km, has been disqualified from the Games following a positive test for carphedon. She has been stripped of her medal. (CBC.ca), (Olympic.org)
  • Cross country skiing:
    • Kristina Šmigun wins her second gold medal of these Games, but she's still the only Estonian to medal. Three Norwegians follow, though over 20 seconds behind Šmigun. (CBC.ca)
  • Nordic combined, team:
    • Austria win the team competition after Mario Stecher catches up with Germany's Jens Gaiser on the final 5 km leg. Finland win bronze nearly a minute ahead of the rest of the field. (NBC Olympics)
  • Snowboarding, snowboard cross:
    • Seth Wescott of USA wins the inaugural Men's Snowboard Cross final. Radoslav Židek of Slovakia is second and Paul-Henri Delarue of France is third. (CBC.ca)
  • Speed skating, team pursuit:
    • The Italian men's team of Matteo Anesi, Stefano Donagrandi, Enrico Fabris, Ermanno Ioriatti, and Ippolito Sanfratello upsets the Canadians in the final to take the gold medal, after the Dutch team fell with a large lead in Italy's semi-final. The Dutch recover in the bronze-medal race to take third place. (CBC)
    • World Cup-leading Germany's team of Daniela Anschütz, Anni Friesinger, Lucille Opitz, Claudia Pechstein, and Sabine Völker defeat the Canadian team for the women's gold medal. Russia takes bronze. (CBC)
  • Figure skating, men's free skate
    • Three-time world champion Russian Yevgeny Plushenko takes an unsurprising gold medal after a first-place free skate and short program. Switzerland's Stéphane Lambiel takes silver, while Canadian Jeffrey Buttle overcomes a poor short program to finish in third place. (CBC)
  • Skeleton
    • Two-time world champion Maya Pedersen sets the two fastest times to win the Skeleton, and Switzerland's first Gold of the Games. Shelley Rudman wins silver, the UK's first medal of any color. Mellisa Hollingsworth-Richards takes bronze for Canada.