FOOTBALL

Three members of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers have tested positive for the novel coronavirus at the team’s training facility, and the Bucs have closed affected areas of the building.

The team said those areas will remain closed until extensive sanitizing is completed.

All individuals who may have been exposed have been notified, the Bucs said in a statement, “and are following the established protocols, which include a 14-day quarantine period.” The team did not identify the three people who tested positive.

Team headquarters is still open under the first phase of the NFL’s reopening plan.

Washington will retire the jersey of Hall of Famer Bobby Mitchell and will rename the lower level of FedEx Field for him, replacing the section named for former owner George Preston Marshall.

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The team, which is under pressure to change its nickname during the ongoing national reckoning over racism, said Mitchell’s No. 49 will become only the second jersey in the franchise’s 88-year history to be retired. The other is the No. 33 of Hall of Famer Sammy Baugh.

Mitchell, Washington’s first African American player, died in April. Washington was the last NFL team to integrate its roster.

BASKETBALL

NBA: This year’s draft will be held on Oct. 16, and clubs can begin talking to free agents two days later.

The annual moratorium will begin at 12:01 a.m. on Oct. 19 and continue through noon on Oct. 23, the league told teams on Saturday in a memo obtained by The Associated Press.

As was the case last season, teams and free agents can begin negotiating six hours before the moratorium – at 6 p.m. on Oct. 18.

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HOCKEY

NHL: The Toronto Maple Leafs will not comment on reports that star player Auston Matthews has tested positive for the coronavirus.

The Toronto Sun and The Toronto Star report that the center tested positive. The Leafs say a player’s medical information is private.

Toronto is deferring to the NHL’s policy on handling test results, with the league providing updates on testing totals and positive tests without disclosing the identities of affected clubs or players.

Judd Moldaver, Matthews’s agent, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the Sun, Matthews has self-quarantined in his Arizona home and hopes to be ready to play if the NHL season resumes. The NHL plans to open training camps next month and finish the 2019-20 season later this summer.

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Matthews had 47 goals and 33 assists in 70 games before the suspension of the season on March 12.

SOCCER

MLS: Atlanta United confirmed a second positive COVID-19 result for a player following mandatory club testing on Friday.

The club announced its first positive result on Thursday. The second player was asymptomatic and has been in isolation since Wednesday, adhering with MLS health and safety protocols that require at least two positive tests to ensure the first result was not a false positive.

GERMANY: American teenager Gio Reyna took advantage of his first start for Borussia Dortmund, set up Erling Haaland’s opening goal in a 2-0 win at Leipzig.

Reyna, the 17-year-old son of former U.S. national team star Claudio Reyna and former U.S. women’s national team player Danielle Egan, shook off a bacterial infection that kept him out of Dortmund’s 2-0 loss to Mainz on Wednesday, and set up Haaland in the 30th minute. He was booked early in the second half for a late challenge on Nordi Mukiele.

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RUSSIA: A team of teenagers took the field for a club hit by the coronavirus pandemic and lost 10-1 as soccer in Russia restarted Friday.

FC Rostov was forced to send a squad with an average age of barely 17 to play against Sochi, two days after its entire first team was put into isolation because of a suspected virus outbreak among six players.

GOLF

LPGA: Former U.S. Women’s Open champion Michelle Wie West announced on Instagram that she and her husband, Golden State Warriors executive Jonnie West, are parents of a daughter born Friday.

They named her Makenna Kamalei Yoona West. Wie, 30, was born and raised in Honolulu. Kamalei is Hawaiian for “beloved child.”

Wie and West, the son of NBA great Jerry West, were married last August.

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AUTO RACING

XFINITY: Justin Haley took the lead on the final lap at Talladega Superspeedway, with help from Kaulig Racing teammate Ross Chastain, and earned his first Xfinity Series victory.

Haley passed Jeb Burton, who finished third behind Haley and Chastain.

COLLEGES

KANSAS STATE: The university has paused voluntary workouts for football players for two weeks following the most recent COVID-19 test results.

As of Friday, 14 athletes had tested positive for COVID-19 following testing of more than 130 athletes.

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LSU: Several football players have been asked to self-quarantine in the past week because of instances in which players tested positive for COVID-19 after social interactions outside of the Tigers’ training facility.

“This is what we anticipated. We planned for this. Our plan is working the way it should,” Senior Associate Athletic Director of Health and Wellness Shelly Mullenix told The Associated Press, adding that none of the players have exhibited “significant” symptoms.

“We haven’t seen anything even close to a bad illness, but we’re prepared for that,” Mullenix said. “What we have right now is quite manageable.”

Mullenix declined to specify the number of players who’ve tested positive for COVID-19 or the precise number of those asked to quarantine.

TRACK AND FIELD

OBIT: Svein Arne Hansen, the president of European Athletics and longtime organizer of the Bislett Games in Norway, has died. He was 74.

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The Norwegian Athletics Association confirmed Hansen’s death on Saturday, saying there had been several complications with his health after he suffered a stroke on March 15.

“Many are mourning the loss of one of the sports leaders who has left indelible marks for 50 years in the service of sports,” the federation said.

Hansen spent 24 years as director of the Bislett meet in the Norwegian capital, Oslo — often a venue for distance-running world records — and 12 as president of Norway’s track and field federation. He was elected president of the sport’s European governing body in 2015 and got re-elected last year.

HORSE RACING

MILESTONE: Hall of Famer Bill Mott has become the seventh trainer with 5,000 career wins when Moon Over Miami won the third race Saturday at Churchill Downs.

 

 

 

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