The air traffic controller said in an email sent to her colleagues and released to loc

The spectators told Monica Puig they believed she could win Puerto Ricos first Olympic gold medal in any sport, providing a soundtrack of Si se puede! -- Yes, we can! -- during the Rio de Janeiro Games womens tennis final.She could. And she did.The unseeded and unheralded Puig capped her run of upsets with the biggest one of all Saturday, overpowering No. 2 Angelique Kerber of Germany 6-4, 4-6, 6-1 to become the Olympic champion.I did hear everybody saying, Yes, you can! Yes, you can! Yes, you can! I kept repeating it inside myself: Yes, I can! Yes, I can! Yes, I can! Puig said. They really helped me believe and just showed me they were there for me, whether I was going to win or lose.Puigs father told her he believed, too, emailing the lyrics to the Puerto Rican national anthem a day earlier, just in case they would come in handy. And so, as the strains of that song echoed around an Olympic arena for the first time, and Puerto Ricos red-white-and-blue flag was raised to the highest level during a medal ceremony for the first time, Puig remembered what Dad had written.She recognized plenty of the words as fans belted them out. She just couldnt join in the joyous chorus, for a simple reason: too many tears.If I wouldve stopped crying, I probably would have started singing, Puig said afterward, smiling at the thought. But I couldnt. I was choking up the whole time.A 22-year-old born in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and now based in Florida, Puig is also the first woman representing her country to earn a medal of any color. When she finished a tense closing game --saving six break points and converting her fourth match point --she flung away her racket and went over to collect a flag she paraded across the court.I couldnt really believe what just happened, she said. It was such an amazing moment.Gigi Fernandez, who is Puerto Rican, won two Olympic womens doubles gold medals in tennis, but did so while representing the United States.Im particularly happy for Puerto Rico, Fernandez said in a telephone interview from Connecticut. All the hurt that people felt, all the anger people felt because I played for the U.S., I couldnt be happier.Puig had shown promise in the past, reaching the fourth round of Wimbledon as a teen in 2013, but she hasnt been that far again at any major. Also notable about Puig: She is the first unseeded woman to win the singles title since tennis returned to the Olympics in 1988.Ranked 34th, she added her surprising win over Kerber -- a German who won the Australian Open and was the Wimbledon runner-up this year --to those she picked up in Brazil against two other past major title winners, Garbine Muguruza and Petra Kvitova.Earlier Saturday, Kvitova earned the bronze for the Czech Republic by beating Madison Keys of the United States 7-5, 2-6, 6-2. Kvitova called her medal one of the best things that happened in my career, definitely.Clearly, Puig felt the same. And she played attacking tennis full of powerful shots that seemed to rattle the counter-punching Kerber. Puig smacked a down-the-line backhand--her 18th winner to that point, 10 more than Kerber -- for a break that gave her the opening set.During the ensuing changeover, Kerber was visited by a trainer, standing on the sideline while her lower back was massaged and manipulated, before heading to the locker room for a medical timeout. Kerber said later that bothered her from the outset, but it wasnt why she lost.She played her best tennis and one of her best matches in her career, for sure, Kerber said. I tried everything. Clearance Nike Air Vapormax . -- Kyrie Irvings last-minute 3-pointer helped seal another victory for Cleveland -- and the Cavaliers longest winning streak since LeBron James left. Nike Air Vapormax Sale . Howard Ganz, an MLB lawyer, said in a letter to U.S. District Judge Edgardo Ramos that Rodriguezs claims do not come "remotely close" to what is needed to overturn an arbitration decision in federal court. https://www.fakevapormaxwholesale.com/ . It just didnt show when he hit the ice. Berra made 42 saves and Kris Russell scored at 1:32 of overtime, lifting the Calgary Flames to a 3-2 victory over the Chicago Blackhawks on Sunday night. Black Friday Nike Air Vapormax . Bryzgalov stopped 25 shots on Saturday in the Oklahoma City Barons 4-1 victory over the Abbotsford Heat. The Oilers signed Bryzgalov to a one-year $2 million contract last Friday after shedding payroll by dealing defenceman Ladislav Smid to the Flames. Wholesale Nike Air Vapormax . World champions Tatiana Volosozhar and Maxim Trankov of Russia won the gold medal with 237.71 points, Moore-Towers and Moscovitch followed at 208.45 and Ksenia Stolbova and Fedor Klimov of Russia were third at 187. MEDELLIN, Colombia -- Authorities prepared Thursday to transport home the bodies of dozens of victims of this weeks air tragedy in Colombia as grief turned to anger amid indications the airliner ran out of fuel before slamming into the Andes. Bolivian aviation officials announced they were indefinitely suspending the charter company that operated the flight.Many of the victims were players and coaches from a small-town Brazilian soccer team that was headed to the finals of one of South Americas most prestigious tournaments after a fairy-tale season that had captivated their soccer-crazed nation.On Thursday, row upon row of caskets, many covered with white sheets printed with the logo of the Chapocoense soccer team, filled a Medellin funeral home in preparation for being flown home, as family members of some victims gathered there to say their final goodbyes.Grieving relatives of the dead spoke out in disbelief after a recording of conversations between a pilot of the doomed flight and air traffic controllers, as well as the account of a surviving flight attendant, indicated the plane ran out of fuel before crashing late Monday, killing all but six of the 77 people on board.Osmar Machado, whose son, Filipe, a defender on the Chapecoense team, died on his fathers 66th birthday, questioned why the plane, which was flying at its maximum range on the flight from Santa Cruz, Bolivia, was transporting the team.Profit brings greed, Machado said, speaking in the Brazilian teams hometown of Chapeco. This plane ended (the lives of) 71 people.Williams Brasiliano, uncle of midfielder Arthur Maia, said the crash was avoidable if the team had chosen a commercial airline to travel to Colombia -- not a charter.Look how complicated that flight was going to be even if it had arrived, Brasiliano said tearfully of the teams itinerary, which included a flight from Sao Paulo to Bolivia on a commercial airliner before the ill-fated flight to Medellin.Even if they had arrived, it is clear that they would be tired from the trip to play a final. This cant be right. I doubt that a bigger club would have done the same, he said.Chapecoense spokesman Andrei Copetti defended the teams decision, saying that more than 30 clubs had used the Bolivia-based company, LaMia airlines, including Argentina and Bolivia, and that the team itself had flown on its flights before.They had a good service then. Itt was the airline that got in touch with us because they have experience in doing these long flights in South America, he said.dddddddddddd.A recording of the flights final minutes showed the pilot repeatedly requested permission to land because of fuel problems, although he never made a formal distress call. He was told another plane had been diverted with mechanical problems and had priority, and was instructed to wait seven minutes.As the jetliner circled in a holding pattern, the pilot grew more desperate. Complete electrical failure, without fuel, he said before the plane set off on a four-minute death spiral.By then the controller had gauged the seriousness of the situation and told the other plane to abandon its approach to make way for the charter jet. But it was too late.The recording appeared to confirm the accounts of a surviving flight attendant and a pilot flying nearby who overheard the frantic exchange. These, along with the lack of an explosion upon impact, pointed to a rare case of fuel burnout as a cause of the crash of the British Aerospace 146 Avro RJ85, which experts said was flying at its maximum range.The air traffic controller said in an email sent to her colleagues and released to local media Thursday that she had done everything humanly and technically possible to save the lives of the planes passengers.The Bolivian Civil Aviation Authority announced Thursday it was indefinitely suspending all flights operated by LaMia, and also suspending some aviation officials for the duration of the investigation. British aviation authorities said the flight data and cockpit voice recorders recovered from the accident site were being brought to Britain for study.Meanwhile, authorities prepared to repatriate the victims remains, most of which had been identified by Thursday. Relatives of some of the victims gathered at a Medellin funeral home, and a Brazilian air force transport plane was on stand-by to take the bodies home Friday. The remains of the Bolivian crew members were also expected to be flown home Friday.---Associated Press photographer Fernando Vergara reported this story in Medellin and AP writer Hannah Dreier reported from Caracas, Venezuela. AP writer Cesar Garcia in Bogota, Colombia, contributed to this report. ' ' '