November, when exhausted participants finally finish, some c

KITZBUEHEL, Austria -- Defending champion Robin Haase stayed on course for a third straight title at the bet-at-home Cup by beating Daniel Brands of Germany 6-4, 6-1 on Wednesday. Second-seeded Juan Monaco and No. 3 Fernando Verdasco also reached the quarterfinals, while No. 4 Jurgen Melzer lost to 19-year-old Austrian Dominic Thiem 7-5, 6-3. Haase saved all six break points he faced and improved to 11-0 for the event. "The match was less one-sided than the result suggests," the Dutchman said. "He had a lot of chances but I played good points when it mattered most. I dont feel pressure as Ive already proved last year I am able to defend the title." Brands, who beat Roger Federer in the second round in Gstaad last week, dropped his serve four times. Haase will next play Verdasco, who won an all-Spanish match against Guillermo Garcia-Lopez 6-2, 7-6 (7). Thiem reached his first career quarterfinal after recovering from a viral illness, which sidelined him for six weeks. He converted the only break point to take the opening set and led 5-0 in the second when Melzer won three straight games and missed three break points for 5-4. "I didnt play well at all and Dominic deserved to win," Melzer said. "I served pretty well in the first set but my returns were awful all match long." Thiems next opponent is seventh-seeded Albert Montanes of Spain, who defeated Victor Hanescu of Romania 7-6 (2), 3-6, 7-6 (5). Monaco beat Austrian wild-card entry Andreas Haider-Maurer 6-3, 6-4. The Argentine, who won the event in 2007, came back three times from a break down in the second set. "I have good memories from six years ago but this is a totally different event," Monaco said. "Ive changed a lot and I am far more experienced now." In his seventh quarterfinal of the season, Monaco will play Daniel Gimeno-Traver of Spain, who defeated Jan Hajek of Czech Republic 6-3, 6-3. Kyrie Irving Shoes For Sale . Belfort (24-10) needed just 77 seconds to down Henderson in the headlining bout of Saturdays "UFC Fight Night: Belfort vs. Henderson" event at Goiania Arena in Goiania, Brazil. The fight served as a rematch of the pairs 2006 meeting, which Henderson won by decision. Kyrie Irving Shoes Outlet . The All-Pro lineman got the leg bent under him while trying to make a tackle during the first half of a 22-20 overtime loss at Miami on Thursday night. The medical staff initially thought hed torn the ligament, and the test a day later in Cincinnati confirmed it. https://www.cheapshoeskyrieirving.com/ . Now that hes hitting streaking teammates with pin-point passes for easy layups, Love is asserting himself as one of the true superstars in the league. Kyrie Irving Shoes Deals .Y. -- The Buffalo Sabres have recalled forward Kevin Porter and defenceman Chad Ruhwedel from the minors as part of a five-player roster shuffle made by the NHLs worst team. Clearance Kyrie Irving Shoes . The Swede became the first golfer to win the PGA Tours FedEx Cup and European Tours Race to Dubai in the same season. "It is still taking a little time to sink in what Ive achieved this week as was the case when I won the FedEx Cup but then it just kept getting better and better as the days went on and I am sure this will be the same," he said. NEW YORK -- Forty years ago, the worlds top two marathon runners were each handed an envelope with a check in it for $3,000 -- secret rewards for helping raise the profile of the very first five-borough New York City Marathon.It was an instant hit, a `Wow! says George Hirsch, chairman of the board of the New York Road Runners club that on Sunday hosts the 2016 race.What is now the worlds largest marathon began in 1970 when 126 men and one woman circled Central Park. Six years later, about 2,000 amateurs, including Hirsch, took the race to the streets of New York for the first time, touching all five boroughs.Leading the pack were American marathon record-holder Bill Rodgers and Olympic gold medalist Frank Shorter, paid to push the 26.2-mile run into the global spotlight. Hirsch -- then a prominent publisher -- passed them the checks under the table, he remembers.We wanted to give the most important runners in the world an incentive to be here, Hirsch says. They made a big difference.Rodgers won the first of his four New York marathons.The payments to hit the pavement certainly paid off.This year, about 50,000 people from more than 120 countries -- half of them women -- have registered. The elite athletes will be competing for a prize purse totaling $803,000, with potential time bonuses. The mens and womens champions will each receive $100,000. And $25,000 goes to the fastest competitor in a wheelchair.All eyes will be on Mary Keitany, of Kenya, last years defending champion, who also won in 2014, and last years male winner, Kenyan Stanley Biwott.Among Americans, Gwen Jorgensen, winner of the triathlon gold medal at the Rio Olympics in August, will be running her first marathon. Molly Huddle, who set a U.S. record while finishing sixth in the 10,000 meters in Rio, is making her first try at this longer distance.The star-studded American field also includes Olympians Dathan Ritzenhein and Kim Conley, who is making her marathon debut.Scattered amid the crowded, sweaty runners will be eight amateurs in their 60s and 70s -- all trailblazers in New York in 1976.Dick Traum was the first person to complete a marathon with a prosthetic leg, in 7 hours, 24 minutes. Asked to step off ahead of the thousands of others, he was the first person ever to start the five-borough marathon.I ran as if you broke your leg and had a cast, trying to get across the street quickly, hopping-style, says Traum, who has a business Ph.D. and created his own computer app company to help companies maximize their resources.At 75, hell mount his handcycle Sunday at the start line near the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in the borough of Staten Island. A knee replacement on his natural leg disqualifies him from actually running; one leg must be intact by the rules of the race.ddddddddddddHe lost his limb as a young man when a runaway car crashed into him at a New Jersey gas station.Traum was a member of the New York Road Runners club led by Fred Lebow, a Romanian-born New Yorker and avid runner whose dogged energy fueled the early efforts to expand and elevate the marathon to a global level. Even after his death, Lebow symbolizes the race, his statue standing near the Central Park finish line.For the citys first five-borough run, Lebow, Hirsch and Percy Sutton, Manhattans borough president, had persuaded Mayor Abe Beame to ban traffic from the route that spanned the whole city. On the sidelines were tens of thousands of spectators -- a far cry from the 2 million or so now cheering on runners.The three men told the mayor that the crime-ridden, nearly bankrupt New York of the mid-1970s needed the marathon to lift the citys spirits, Hirsch says.Rodgers and Shorters payments were legal but defied a regulation of the sports governing body, now called USA Track & Field, which classified marathoners as unpaid amateurs. Many struggled financially.New York spurred the worldwide running boom, with ordinary people huffing and puffing their way through big urban marathons that followed in London, Amsterdam, Paris, Tokyo, Shanghai and elsewhere.The Boston Marathon is the oldest, launched in 1897.Each first Sunday in November, when exhausted participants finally finish, some collapsing into the arms of loved ones, many take away new friendships while collecting funds for more than 300 charities.Four decades after a small group of hard-core enthusiasts started it, the New York marathon has become an athletic and social democracy.In every neighborhood, spectators come at us with a lot of enthusiasm -- and that may be conga drums, it may be somebody banging on cookware, says Paul Fetscher, who ran in 1976. You get to see the best neighborhoods, you get to see the worst, you get to see the richest, you get to see the poorest, and you get to see the immigrant population of Brooklyn, where more than a million people were not born in the United States.But they all love sport, he adds. And running is the most basic of all sports: left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot.In 1976, Fetscher aced the race in 2:29.At 70, still working in commercial real estate, he plans to run the 26.2 miles again. I can still do that. In how much time?Stay tuned on Sunday. ' ' '