■ Football
Miami gets Super Bowl
The 2007 Super Bowl was awarded to Miami on Wednesday by NFL owners. The owners ratified a decision made last spring to hold the game at Pro Player Stadium. "Miami sells itself," Dolphins president Eddie Jones said. "We've got everything a city would want to put in a proposal." Miami has hosted the Super Bowl eight times (1968, 1969, 1971, 1976, 1979, 1989, 1995, and 1999), fewer than only New Orleans (nine times). Houston will host this season's Super Bowl on Feb. 1 and next season's game will be in Jacksonville. Detroit will host the game in 2006. The site of the 2008 Super Bowl will be decided at owners' meetings in Chicago on Oct. 29-30. The contenders are Arizona, Tampa, Washington and New York-New Jersey. The owners also approved the continuation of NFL Europe at Wednesday's meeting.
■ Olympics
FINA monitors progress
FINA officials expressed their satisfaction with progress in the construction of the Olympic swimming center Wednesday, but noted that there is no time to be wasted. FINA president Mustapha Larfaoui called the Olympic swimming center ``magnificent'' and noted that it is important that the water polo, diving, swimming and synchronized swimming events are housed under the same roof during the games. "We are very pleased with the answers we received and very confident that everything will be ready on time, provided of course that the present pace of work continues and schedules are kept to," he said. FINA officials held a series of meetings with Athens organizers, including Athens' chief Olympics organizer Gianna Angelopoulos-Daskalaki and Deputy Minister of Olympic Works Nikos Alevras. Events such as water polo, diving, swimming and synchronized swimming will be held at the aquatic center during next year's Olympic Games.
■ Auto racing
Special race planned
Two-time Indianapolis 500 winner Gordon Johncock and 1963 winner Parnelli Jones have been added to the lineup of former Indy drivers who will take part in a special 25-lap race before the IndyCar Series' season finale at Texas on Oct. 12. Johncock, who won in 1973 and 1982, and Jones will join three-time Indy 500 winner Johnny Rutherford and seven other drivers in the Firestone Heroes of Indy. The 10 drivers will race identically prepared Thunder Roadsters on the quarter-mile paved oval on the Texas Motor Speedway. The cars will resemble the roadsters that dominated Indy car racing through the 1950s and 1960s. A.J. Foyt and Al Unser, two of the three drivers who have won the Indianapolis 500 four times, will also be involved in the event. Foyt will be the grand marshal and Unser will drive the pace car.
■ Baseball
Giants fan falls to death
A fan fell to his death at Pacific Bell Park on Wednesday, shortly before the San Francisco Giants clinched the National League West title. According to witnesses, the man attempted to climb down the outside of the right-field wall onto the walkway 7.5m below to retrieve something he dropped during the eighth inning. He slipped and fell onto the field-level walkway between the fence and McCovey Cove, according to Giants vice president of communications Staci Slaughter. Police and paramedics responded to the incident, but the fan, whose identity was not revealed, died from his injuries, Slaughter said. "As far as we're concerned, it was an accident," Slaughter said. "It's just a tragedy."
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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