Harry Kane has said the Champions League offers more opportunities to score than the Bundesliga after bagging two goals in Bayern Munich’s 3-1 win over Chelsea on Wednesday.

The England star tucked away a penalty after he was brought down by Moisés Caicedo, then capitalised on teammates’ pressure on Malo Gusto when the ball fell kindly for him to fire inside the far post.

“I always feel like in the Champions League you create maybe more chances than the Bundesliga, the games are maybe a bit more open, and that suits me,” Kane told broadcaster DAZN.

“Hopefully I can get more than 11 this year,” he added, referring to his tally in the Champions League last season.

The 32-year-old has already scored nine goals in five games across all competitions for Bayern so far this season — 10 goals in six games including the German Supercup.

“It’s always the aim to improve and get better,” Kane said.

Bayern got the scoring underway when Michael Olise forced an own goal from Trevoh Chalobah and might have scored more against a Chelsea team that seemed to fizzle out of energy the longer the game went on.

Cole Palmer responded to Kane’s first goal with a brilliant finish of his own and he also produced a smart finish to beat Manuel Neuer late on, but that score was chalked off for offside after a VAR review.

Otherwise, the visitors had little to cheer after a summer of intense transfer activity, with Bayern getting its third straight win over Chelsea since the clubs met in the 2012 Champions League final when the visitors upset the hosts in Munich.

“Top performance against a really good side,” Kane said.

“We spoke before the game that we were playing the club world champions and we had to be on it from the start, and we were.”

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Kane said Bayern’s work off-the-ball was key to forcing mistakes from Enzo Maresca’s team.

“I think with the ball possession, making angles, helping each other. You saw me and Serge [Gnabry] drop in quite a lot to make it difficult for them to press. They were always kind of minus one and as the game went on, I felt like they got more tired, the spaces opened up and we were able to exploit that.”

Kane’s second goal came directly from Bayern’s pressure.

“We talk a lot about when the other teams try and play, you know we’re always two or three seconds away from having a chance ourselves,” he said.

“You saw that with the pressure and you saw that throughout the whole game. There were opportunities that we had when we won the ball back quickly, so yeah, it kind of fell to me in a nice place and it was a good finish.”

Kane made way in stoppage time for Nicolas Jackson — who is loan from Chelsea — to face his parent club.

The Senegal forward tried an ambitious effort from distance that drifted wide in the little time he had to make an impact.

Pakistan’s star javelin thrower Arshad Nadeem’s medal hopes were dashed after he failed to qualify for the top eight in the men’s javelin final at the World Athletics Championships 2025 in Tokyo.

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This is a developing story and is being updated with more details.

TOKYO:

Former Colombian sprinter Ximena Restrepo has told AFP in an interview that she intends to stand to succeed Sebastian Coe and become the first woman to lead World Athletics.

Restropo, already the first vice-president of track and field’s global body, could have had her chance this year if Coe had succeeded in his bid to become International Olympic Committee president.

But with former swimmer Kirsty Coventry winning that contest, Coe is free to serve out his third and final term at the head of the Olympics’ number one sport.

Restrepo, 56, said on the sidelines of the world athletics championships in Tokyo that she would be a candidate to succeed the Briton when the time comes.

“I’m going to run for president. It won’t be easy. I already know there are two other candidates who are going to run and who are very good, but it would be something I’d like to do,” she said.

“It gives me a lot of motivation, it motivates me to do it. We have to start working toward that.”

In the battle to entice new followers to athletics, Coe and Restrepo are pinning their hopes on a new event next year in Budapest, the World Athletics Ultimate Championship.

The aim is to create an international competition in a year without a global championships.

Extra pressure has been added to the event by the financial problems that have rocked Michael Johnson’s upstart Grand Slam Track circuit this year, with reports suggesting it owes millions of dollars in prize money to athletes.

“I think it’s going to be very important. Next year we didn’t have any major events, and having the Ultimate Championship is a great way to close out the season, for both athletes and fans,” Restrepo said.

The Colombian, who won a bronze medal on the track in the 400 metres at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics, said fans will have “the best in the world in three days” and predicted it will “attract new fans to our sport”.

“There won’t be a limit on the number of representatives per country, as there is at the world championships, for example,” she added.

“The athletes won’t have to go through as many rounds, there will be less wear and tear, and the prize money will be bigger than at the world championships.”