INSIDE: CLASSIFIEDS, MARKET RECAP & WEATHER
B
S PORTS
THE BULLETIN • SUNday, May 30, 2021
bendbulletin.com/sports
SOCCER
Chelsea wins
Champions League
PORTO, Portugal —
As Chelsea captain Cesar
Azpilicueta cradled the
European Cup before
thrusting it into the air to
the backdrop of fireworks,
Pep Guardiola and his dis-
traught Manchester City
players stood way behind
the winner’s rostrum and
looked on in anguish.
Champions League
glory once again for Chel-
sea, nine years after its
first title and just 123 days
after manager Thomas
Tuchel’s season-changing
arrival at the club.
Germany forward Kai
Havertz’s 42nd-minute
goal earned Chelsea a sur-
prisingly comfortable 1-0
win in Porto in the Cham-
pions League’s third all-En-
glish final on Saturday.
That the last match of
a club season heavily im-
pacted by the coronavirus
pandemic was settled by
a goal from Havertz felt
apt, given he suffered
badly after contract-
ing the disease midway
through his first year at
the club having signed for
nearly $100 million.
As for his fellow Ger-
man, Tuchel, he only had
to wait one season to get
over the disappointment
of losing the 2020 final
when in charge of Paris
Saint-Germain. Fired by
PSG in December, he was
hired by Chelsea a month
later to resuscitate a team
that had lost its way and
has delivered a Cham-
pions League title four
months later.
Christian Pulisic, who
came on as a second-half
substitute for Chelsea to
become the first Ameri-
can player to feature in a
Champions League final,
posed with the trophy in a
USA sweatshirt.
In the second half, Pu-
lisic ran onto Havertz’s
pass but slipped a shot
just wide of the post.
That didn’t stop Chel-
sea becoming the 13th
multiple European cham-
pion, adding to its title
from 2012 .
— Associated Press
NBA
Former Jazz center
Eaton dies at 64
Mark Eaton, the
7-foot-4 shot-blocking
king who twice was the
NBA’s defensive player of
the year during a career
spent entirely with the
Utah Jazz, has died. He
was 64.
The team announced
his death Saturday.
Eaton left his home for
a bike ride Friday night in
Summit County, Utah, and
shortly thereafter some-
one called 911 to report
after seeing him lying on a
roadway and unconscious.
Eaton was taken to a hos-
pital where he later died.
The team, citing county
officials who investigated,
said “there is no reason to
believe a vehicle was in-
volved in the incident.”
The Jazz described him
in a statement as an “en-
during figure in our fran-
chise history” who had a
“significant impact in the
community after his bas-
ketball career.”
The center led the
league in blocks per game
four times and his average
of 5.6 per contest in 1984-
85 remains the highest
average since the NBA
started officially tracking
that statistic.
Eaton’s career blocks
average of 3.51 per game
is the best in NBA history.
Eaton was the defen-
sive player of the year in
1984-85 and 1988-89, was
a five-time All-Defensive
team selection and was
an All-Star in 1989.
— Associated Press
PREP WRESTLING
Grappling under the lights
Redmond High School’s Kole Davis, left, wrestles
against Sweet Home High School’s Jesse Jamison
during the 160-pound match at Redmond High
School on Friday night.
Ryan Brennecke/The Bulletin photos
Central Oregon wrestlers participate in special ‘Friday Night Lights’ showcase
BY BRIAN RATHBONE • The Bulletin
REDMOND —
P
erhaps COVID-19 pushing the
high school wrestling season from
the winter into the late spring was
not the worst thing in the world. It at least
came with one benefit.
On a cloudless May evening Friday, with
temperatures in the low 70s and a slight
breeze, five wrestling mats were spread across
the Redmond High School football field while
eight wrestling teams grappled in a one-day,
dual meet tournament aptly called “Friday
Night Lights.”
See Wrestling / B2
MOTOR SPORTS | INDY 500
Redmond High School’s Junior Downing, top, wrestles against Sweet Home High School’s Ryker Hartsook during the
145-pound match on Friday night.
TENNIS | FRENCH OPEN PREVIEW
NBA PLAYOFFS
Race is biggest sporting Blazers top Nuggets Rafael Nadal’s magic
event of the pandemic to tie the series 2-2 numbers are 14 and 21
BY JENNA FRYER
AP Auto Racing Writer
BY ANNE M. PETERSON
Associated Press
BY HOWARD FENDRICH
AP Tennis Writer
INDIANAPOLIS — The milk is on ice, celebrities
are in the house and Indianapolis Motor Speedway is
buzzing again both with the roar of engines and the
largest crowd at a sporting event since the start of the
pandemic.
The Indianapolis 500 will welcome a sold-out
135,000 spectators Sunday and drop the green flag on
a packed house and a party not seen since early 2020.
“We’re just excited to be opening up America,”
said Roger Penske, who bought Indianapolis in Jan-
uary 2020, roughly two months before the pandemic
shut down the country.
The speedway has 240,000 permanent grandstand
seats and space in the infield and suites to accommo-
date nearly 400,000 on race day. But Penske couldn’t
open the gates until October, when only 10,000 a
day were permitted into the landmark facility over a
three-day weekend for an IndyCar race.
Americans are eager to return to some sort of nor-
malcy. They want their traditions and their sports
back, none more so than “The Greatest Spectacle in
Racing,” which withstood world wars, the Great De-
pression and the now the pandemic.
PORTLAND — Usually the chants in Portland
are for star Damian Lillard. On Saturday Norman
Powell was treated to the crowd’s adulation.
Powell matched his career playoff high with 29
points and the Trail Blazers beat the Denver Nug-
gets 115-95 on Saturday in Game 4 to even the first-
round series.
“I love these types of games, these kinds of mo-
ments. It’s the moment where nothing else matters,”
Powell said.
“You get caught up in the course of the season
with stats sometimes, this-that-and-the-other, road
trips, but when you get into the playoffs, the only
thing that matters is winning.”
Powell made four 3-pointers and was 11 of 15
from the floor. When he left the floor with the game
well in hand, fans chanted “Nor-man Pow-ell! Nor-
man Pow-ell!”
“I thought it was really dope,” he said.
“At first I didn’t know what they were saying
when I was sitting there, and then the guys on the
bench were chanting as well so that got a little smile
out of me.”
Go back, for a moment, to May 8, 2005, when
Rafael Nadal was still just 18 and yet to appear in a
French Open, let alone win one.
INSIDE
After collecting his first trophy on
the red clay of Rome — which had
• Novak
been preceded by his first trophy
Djokovic
wins tuneup on the red clay of Barcelona, which
tournament, in turn had been preceded by his
B3
first trophy on the red clay of Monte
Carlo — Nadal was asked that day
whether he agreed with the notion that all of this
success would make him a popular pick for his first
trophy on the red clay of Paris soon thereafter.
In an answer brimming with a mix of humility
and common sense, Nadal noted that, yes, it did
seem he was deemed the favorite for Roland Garros
every time he won a match on the surface, but “after
two weeks, I don’t know if I (will) play the same like
now, no?” and, so, really, the favorite for the French
Open should be whoever was playing the best
during the French Open itself.
We all know how that turned out back then and,
more often than not, ever since.
See Indy 500 / B3
See Blazers / B3
See French Open / B3