■ Soccer
Bonano goes to Murcia
Goalkeeper Roberto Bonano has left FC Barcelona and will finish the season with struggling Spanish league team Murcia, FC Barcelona said Wednesday on its Web site. The Argentine, who had been under contract until June 2004, joined Barcelona in 2001 and was the team's No. 1 'keeper for two seasons. Bonano played in 27 league and 15 Champions League matches in his first season at the Camp Nou. In his second season, he played in 24 league and eight Champions League matches. Murcia is in 19th place in the 20-team Spanish league, while Barcelona sits in ninth place, 15 points behind leader Real Madrid.
■ Harness Racing
Female wins 1,000 races
Driver Jacqueline Ingrassia of England became the second woman to win 1,000 harness races, guiding 4-year-old trotter Southwind Pepper to victory at Freehold Raceway on Wednesday. Bea Farber, who retired in 1995, leads all female drivers with 1,801 and US$9.1 million in purses. "It's not something I set out to do," Ingrassia said. "Bea Farber was very unique and a great driver. She deserved everything she got. I'll never break her record. But I'm not out to break records. We just want to pay the bills." Owned by Arden Homestead Stable and trained by Ingrassia's husband, Frank, Southwind Pepper was sent off at odds of 39-1 and paid US$81.40 to win.
■ Athletics
Brazilian takes St. Silvester
Marilson Gomes dos Santos of Brazil won the 79th annual St. Silvester road race Wednesday, outpacing a field of 13,500 competitors that included defending champion Robert Cheruiyot of Kenya. Dos Santos ran the 15km course through city streets in 43 minutes, 49 seconds. Countryman Romulo Wagner took second in 43:57, followed closely by Kenya's Martin Lel in 43:57. Cheruiyot, the pre-race favorite at the event held annually on New Year's Eve in Brazil's biggest city, managed to take fourth place in 44:15. Another Kenyan, Yusuf Songoka, was fifth in 44:20. Earlier Wednesday, Margaret Okayo of Kenya beat a field of 1,500 runners competing under a light drizzle to win the women's St. Silvester road race. Okayo posted a time of 51:24 in the 15km race. Countrywoman Debora Mengich was second in 52:35.
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