CALGARY — Quarterback Vernon Adams Jr.’s first start as a B.C. Lion was a memorable one.
Adams threw for 294 yards, rushed for 32, and engineered a 31-29 overtime win over the host Calgary Stampeders on Saturday.
Acquired from the Montreal Alouettes in an Aug. 31 trade, Adams didn’t throw any touchdown passes for the Lions, but he didn’t throw any interceptions either.
“It means so much. It means a lot,” Adams said. “I’ve been through a lot. Roller-coaster type of year. I had a bad practice on day one and the guys still stayed with me. We fought throughout the night.”
James Butler scored a pair of rushing touchdowns, including one in overtime.
The Lions (9-3) held onto second place in the CFL’s West Division, two points up on the Stampeders (8-5) in third, and six points back of the front-running Winnipeg Blue Bombers (12-2).
The two-time defending Grey Cup champion Bombers lost for just the second time this season Saturday, falling 48-31 to the Hamilton Tiger-Cats.
Adams’ backup Antonio Pipkin scored a rushing touchdown and added a two-point convert in overtime Saturday.
B.C.’s Sean Whyte kicked field goals from 38, 30 and 14 yards in front of an announced 22,319 at McMahon Stadium.
Lions receiver Dominique Rhymes compiled 91 receiving yards to reach over 1,000 this season, and Bryan Burnham posted a 100-yard night.
B.C. improved to 2-0 against Calgary with a pair of narrow victories.
The Lions came from behind to win 41-40 at McMahon on Aug. 13 with quarterback Nathan Rourke under centre.
“I think you can understand how disappointing it is, especially where we are in the standings,” Calgary linebacker Jameer Thurman said. “We’ve got to be better. Simple as that.”
Rourke injuring his ankle the week after the win in Calgary precipitated the trade for Adams.
The two clubs meet again Saturday in Vancouver.
Jake Maier went 26 of 38 in passing for 301 yards and three touchdown throws, but he dropped to 2-2 in starts since supplanting Bo Levi Mitchell as Calgary’s starting quarterback last month.
Maier threw touchdown passes to Malik Henry and Luther Hakunavanhu, and another to Jalen Philpot in OT.
Butler scored his second major of the game on B.C.’s opening overtime drive with an eight-yard carry.
Calgary’s offside penalty gave B.C. a second chance at a two-point convert, which Pipkin converted with a two-yard dash.
Calgary countered with Maier throwing a four-yard touchdown throw to Philpot in the end zone.
The Stampeders challenged for pass interference following Maier’s incompletion to Reggie Begelton for two points.
Officials ruling against it sealed another close victory for the Lions at McMahon.
“It’s huge. I can’t give our players enough credit for winning twice here in Calgary,” B.C. head coach Rick Campbell said.
Calgary’s Rene Paredes kicked field goals from 38, 37 and 13 yards, but was wide left on a 48-yard attempt with 23 seconds remaining in regulation time.
Calgary was hampered by 128 penalty yards to B.C.’s 87 in the game, with the ball in B.C.’s hands for 35 minutes, 28 seconds in the game.
“We’ve got to get off the field on second down,” Thurman said. “Too many times, we had them on second and long and didn’t get off. We’ve got to get the offence the ball.”
Whyte’s 14-yard field goal put the Lions up by a converted touchdown with five minutes remaining in the game.
Calgary drew even with two minutes to go when Maier found an all-alone Hakunavanhu in the end zone with an eight-yard throw.
Maier navigated Calgary’s offence to the 48-yard line in the final minute for a Paredes attempt, which he missed.
Calgary also didn’t convert a first down from 22 yards out into a major early in the fourth quarter.
The Stampeders settled for a Paredes 13-yard chip shot to trail by four points.
Pipkin’s one-yard plunge late in the third quarter spotted the Lions a 20-13 lead.
Calgary’s unnecessary roughness and pass interference penalties accelerated B.C.’s march to the Stampeders’ doorstep.
Pipkin scored on his third attempt after he was twice repelled by Calgary’s defence.
Whyte’s 30-yard field goal early in the second half drew the Lions even at 13-13.
With B.C. threatening from Calgary’s 21-yard line late in the second, Stampeder linebacker Cameron Judged hunted down a scrambling Adams, forced a fumble and collected his league-leading fifth recovery this season.
A Paredes’ 37-yard field goal with 12 seconds left in the first half gave the hosts a 13-10 lead heading into the third quarter.
Maier and Henry combined on a 77-yard touchdown early in the second.
Henry outsprinting coverage downfield hauled in an over-the-shoulder catch and headed for the end zone for his eighth touchdown this season.
B.C. exploited Calgary’s 35 yards in penalties over the game’s first six possessions.
The visitors turned advantageous field position into a touchdown on their opening drive with Butler scoring on a 10-yard run.
The two clubs then traded 38-yard field goals for the Lions to lead 10-3 after one quarter.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17, 2022.
PARIS (AP) — French judicial authorities are investigating the disappearance of two Paralympic athletes from Congo who recently competed in the Paris Games, the prosecutor’s office in the Paris suburb of Bobigny confirmed on Thursday.
Prosecutors opened the investigation on Sept. 7, after members of the athletes’ delegation warned authorities of their disappearance two days before.
Le Parisien newspaper reported that shot putter Mireille Nganga and Emmanuel Grace Mouambako, a visually impaired sprinter who was accompanied by a guide, went missing on Sept. 5, along with a third person.
The athletes’ suitcases were also gone but their passports remained with the Congolese delegation, according to an official with knowledge of the investigation, who asked to remain anonymous as they were not allowed to speak publicly about the case.
The Paralympic Committee of the Democratic Republic of Congo did not respond to requests for information from The Associated Press.
Nganga — who recorded no mark in the seated javelin and shot put competitions — and Mouambako were Congo’s flag bearers at the opening ceremony of the Paralympic Games, organizers said.
An investigator gave the World Anti-Doping Agency a pass on its handling of the inflammatory case involving Chinese swimmers, but not without hammering away at the “curious” nature of WADA’s “silence” after examining Chinese actions that did not follow rules designed to safeguard global sports.
WADA on Thursday released the full decision from Eric Cottier, the Swiss investigator it appointed to analyze its handling of the case involving the 23 Chinese swimmers who remained eligible despite testing positive for performance enhancers in 2021.
In echoing wording from an interim report issued earlier this summer, Cottier said it was “reasonable” that WADA chose not to appeal the Chinese anti-doping agency’s explanation that the positives came from contamination.
“Taking into consideration the particularities of the case, (WADA) appears … to have acted in accordance with the rules it has itself laid out for anti-doping organizations,” Cottier wrote.
But peppered throughout his granular, 56-page analysis of the case was evidence and reminders of how WADA disregarded some of China’s violations of anti-doping protocols. Cottier concluded this happened more for the sake of expediency than to show favoritism toward the Chinese.
“In retrospect at least, the Agency’s silence is curious, in the face of a procedure that does not respect the fundamental rules, and its lack of reaction is surprising,” Cottier wrote of WADA’s lack of fealty to the world anti-doping code.
Travis Tygart, the CEO of the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency and one of WADA’s fiercest critics, latched onto this dynamic, saying Cottier’s information “clearly shows that China did not follow the rules, and that WADA management did nothing about it.”
One of the chief complaints over the handling of this case was that neither WADA nor the Chinese gave any public notice upon learning of the positive tests for the banned heart medication Temozolomide, known as TMZ.
The athletes also were largely kept in the dark and the burden to prove their innocence was taken up by Chinese authorities, not the athletes themselves, which runs counter to what the rulebook demands.
Despite the criticisms, WADA generally welcomed the report.
“Above all, (Cottier) reiterated that WADA showed no bias towards China and that its decision not to appeal the cases was reasonable based on the evidence,” WADA director general Olivier Niggli said. “There are however certainly lessons to be learned by WADA and others from this situation.”
Tygart said “this report validates our concerns and only raises new questions that must be answered.”
Cottier expanded on doubts WADA’s own chief scientist, Olivier Rabin, had expressed over the Chinese contamination theory — snippets of which were introduced in the interim report. Rabin was wary of the idea that “a few micrograms” of TMZ found in the kitchen at the hotel where the swimmers stayed could be enough to cause the group contamination.
“Since he was not in a position to exclude the scenario of contamination with solid evidence, he saw no other solution than to accept it, even if he continued to have doubts about the reality of contamination as described by the Chinese authorities,” Cottier wrote.
Though recommendations for changes had been expected in the report, Cottier made none, instead referring to several comments he’d made earlier in the report.
Key among them were his misgivings that a case this big was largely handled in private — a breach of custom, if not the rules themselves — both while China was investigating and after the file had been forwarded to WADA. Not until the New York Times and German broadcaster ARD reported on the positives were any details revealed.
“At the very least, the extraordinary nature of the case (23 swimmers, including top-class athletes, 28 positive tests out of 60 for a banned substance of therapeutic origin, etc.), could have led to coordinated and concerted reflection within the Agency, culminating in a formal and clearly expressed decision to take no action,” the report said.
WADA’s executive committee established a working group to address two more of Cottier’s criticisms — the first involving what he said was essentially WADA’s sloppy recordkeeping and lack of formal protocol, especially in cases this complex; and the second a need to better flesh out rules for complex cases involving group contamination.
The French league’s legal commission has ordered Paris Saint-Germain to pay Kylian Mbappé the 55 million euros ($61 million) in unpaid wages that he claims he’s entitled to, the league said Thursday.
The league confirmed the decision to The Associated Press without more details, a day after the France superstar rejected a mediation offer by the commission in his dispute with his former club.
