■ Soccer
Mpenza let go by Schalke
Schalke has released Belgian international striker Emile Mpenza, who is returning to his previous club Standard Liege, the Bundesliga club said Friday. "Emile told us that he didn't want to play for Schalke anymore. We have no use for such people," Schalke manager Rudi Assauer said in a report posted on the club's Web site. Mpenza scored 28 goals in 79 games for Schalke, but had a troublesome relations with the German club and its managers. Club officials often questioned his professional attitude.
■ Rugby
Kempson to miss Cup
Springbok prop Robbie Kempson was ruled out of the Rugby World Cup because of an elbow injury Friday, a day before the South Africa squad was to be named. It is the second straight World Cup Kempson will miss because of surgery. He missed the 1999 Cup after a hernia operation. Kempson will undergo an operation on Tuesday to repair a nerve injury in his left elbow, which flared during a training camp. He will be out for at least three months. The World Cup starts in six weeks. Friday marked the end of Kempson's four-week suspension for a high, late tackle against Australia in the Tri-Nations.
■ Soccer
Manchester City gets Reyna
US soccer captain Claudio Reyna signed for Manchester City Friday in a ?2.5 million (US$3.92 million) three-year deal. Reyna, 30, leaves relegated Sunderland where he had been since December 2001. He only played a handful of games for the club last season before damaging knee ligaments last October which required surgery and a lengthy layoff. He's unlikely to feature in the Manchester City's match against Arsenal today.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier