HIGH SCHOOLS

The Maine Principals’ Association is committed to having state cross country championships this season but there will not be regional championships.

Mike Bisson, the assistant executive director at the MPA, said most of the particulars about the state championships, including dates and locations, have not been decided. An announcement could come by the end of the week. The regional meets are too large to be held this year because of the state’s COVID-19 regulations that limit public gatherings to a maximum of 100 people.

Qualifying for the state meet will likely be done at the league level, similar to golf, Bisson said. Usually the separate Class A, B, and C races for both boys and girls are held at a single site on one day. Bisson said the championship format will have to be spread over at least two days. The number of runners per championship race will likely be up to the mid-70s, Bisson said, since the head count will need to include coaches, timers, and other race personnel.

CYCLING

GIRO d’ITALIA: Peter Sagan won the hilly 10th stage, which was contested despite two teams withdrawing from the race because of coronavirus cases.

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Sagan, a three-time world champion who is racing the Giro for the first time, was desperate for a win after three second-place results in the race. He now has won stages in all three Grand Tours – the Giro (1), Tour de France (12) and Spanish Vuelta (4).

And the Slovakian rider did it in style on Tuesday, getting into an early breakaway and then launching a solo uphill attack in the final stages on roads made treacherous by rain. It was Sagan’s first win of the season.

“Finally I won in my style – with a show,” Sagan said.

Portuguese rider João Almeida held onto the overall leader’s pink jersey.

The race was disrupted before the stage when the Mitchelton-Scott and Jumbo-Visma teams withdrew. Four Mitchelton-Scott staff members tested positive for the coronavirus. That came after Mitchelton-Scott team leader Simon Yates withdrew before Saturday’s eighth stage after also contracting COVID-19.

Dutch contender Steven Kruijswijk of Jumbo-Visma and Australian rider Michael Matthews of Team Sunweb also tested positive amid 571 exams for all riders and staff members coinciding with Monday’s rest day. Kruijswijk, Matthews and Mitchelton-Scott were withdrawn from the event in accordance with race organizers. Jumbo-Visma then announced minutes before the stage started that it was withdrawing the rest of its team, too.

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But the stage started as scheduled and Sagan needed just over four hours to complete the 177-kilometer (110-mile) leg from Lanciano to Tortoreto in the central Abruzzo region.

HOCKEY

CHAMPIONS LEAGUE: The Champions Hockey League, one of Europe’s leading ice hockey competitions, canceled its 2020-21 season Tuesday because of the coronavirus pandemic. The CHL was due to begin next month in an already shortened format with a knockout bracket and no round-robin.

League CEO Martin Baumann said the board decided Tuesday to cancel because of quarantine rules for international travelers and the recent rise in coronavirus cases across Europe.

“Travel restrictions between participating countries were a big issue and even if many of them could have been potentially solved by receiving special permits from authorities, a lot of uncertainty and risks remained – especially as the epidemiological situation across Europe is currently worsening from day to day,” he said in a statement.

Baumann said that as many as 12 first-round matchups could have been disrupted by travel restrictions.

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TENNIS

ST. PETERSBURG OPEN: Andrey Rublev swept past Vasek Pospisil 6-2, 6-4 in St. Petersburg, Russia on Tuesday to win his first match since breaking into the top 10 on the back of strong showings at the U.S. Open and French Open.

The 22-year-old Russian had to rely on his second serve to beat Pospisil after landing just 46 percent of first serves in the opening set. He plays either Ugo Humbert of France or Russian qualifier Pavel Kotov in the second round.

Rublev is seeded third in St. Petersburg and entered the top 10 of the ATP rankings Monday, helped by recent runs to the quarterfinals of the U.S. Open and French Open, as well as winning the Hamburg title last month.

There will be an all-Russian second-round match after fourth-seeded Karen Khachanov beat Australian James Duckworth 6-4, 6-4 to set up a meeting with wild card Aslan Karatsev.

Milos Raonic beat U.S. qualifier J.J. Wolf 7-6 (5), 6-1, while seventh-seeded Borna Coric beat the Spanish veteran Feliciano Lopez 6-3, 7-6 (2).

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SOCCER

MLS: Major League Soccer said all Colorado Rapids’ matches have been postponed for 10 days.

The league said the move was being made even though there had been no new confirmed cases of coronavirus among Colorado players or staff. The MLS said the postponements were the result of the number of cases within the organization, and the decision was made in consultation with the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.

The Rapids have not played since a 5-0 win over San Jose on Sept. 23 and have already had four games postponed. The MLS said it is working on rescheduling the games postponed by the 10-day order. Those games were against Seattle (Oct. 14), Real Salt Lake (Oct. 18) and Sporting KC (Oct. 21).

COLLEGES

FOOTBALL: No. 10 Florida has five new COVID-19 cases, the school reported its latest testing results Tuesday, four days before the Gators host defending national champion LSU.

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Coach Dan Mullen praised the way his team has handled coronavirus protocols Monday, avoiding a major outbreak with the highly transmissible virus.

“If you look at what we’ve been able to do … I think we’re a model of safety of what we’ve been doing during this time period,” Mullen said. “I’m really proud of how we’ve handled everything and how safe we’ve been with everything we’re doing and all the precautions we’ve had in place during this time.”

The team had 21 positive cases once players returned to campus in late May, but it has dealt with 16 positive cases since.

The National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame has postponed its annual awards dinner because of the uncertainty created by the novel coronavirus and the challenging economic environment caused by the pandemic.

The dinner was originally scheduled to take place in New York City on Dec. 8.

NFF Chairman Archie Manning says it’s impossible to complete the “enormous amount of planning” required to hold the event, which normally marks the end of college football’s regular season.

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Plans for honoring the 19-member Hall of Fame class will be announced at a later date.

Former Florida State football coach Bobby Bowden, hospitalized last week after contracting COVID-19, says he is feeling better and hopes to go home soon. Bowden, 90, told the Tallahassee Democrat on Monday, “I am doing good. I appreciate everyone’s thoughts, I really do.”

Bowden was hospitalized last week in Tallahassee after contracting the virus. He told the newspaper he has been able to walk around his hospital room. Bowden recently spent nearly two weeks in the hospital and rehab after contracting a leg infection.

Bowden said the virus hit him hard.

“You get fever, you get frustrated, you don’t feel good and you wonder if you were able to get up,” Bowden said. “But now that’s behind me.”

Bowden coached Florida State for 34 years, retiring after the 2009 season. He is second on the career victories list in major college football with 357, behind only the late Joe Paterno of Penn State.

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