■ Boxing
Fenech attacked with bottle
Former triple world boxing champion Jeff Fenech underwent plastic surgery yesterday after being attacked and slashed in the face during an altercation with four men Sunday. The 39-year-old Fenech was standing on the sidewalk in the southern Sydney suburb of Brighton-Le Sands after dining with his family when a car pulled up, police said. He began speaking to four men inside the car, who jumped out and attacked him. "I saw a guy with a bottle that he just cracked me with on the side of my face," Fenech told Channel Nine television. "A part of my face is still just hanging off. It's quite severe." Fenech was placed under a general anesthetic for the one-hour operation yesterday, an official at Sydney's Prince of Wales hospital said.
■ Tennis
Clijsters stands by decision
Belgium's Kim Clijsters said yesterday she stands by her decision not to play in this year's Athens Games and questions whether tennis should be played at the Olympics. Clijsters, ranked second in the world, said she would not play at Athens in August because of a conflict between her clothing company and that of the Belgian team's Olympic sponsor. "I think it is great that tennis is an Olympic sport, but to me it does not feel like an Olympic sport," Clijsters said at the Hopman Cup in Perth, where she helped Belgium to a win over Slovakia yesterday. Clijsters said the 2000 Sydney Olympics had shown her that tennis at the Games was not held in as high a regard as at Grand Slam tournaments. "Watching tennis in Sydney four years ago I don't think they got the publicity and the crowds they get at Grand Slams so that was a little bit disappointing as well."
■ Rallying
Finn wins Dakar stage
Ari Vatanen of Finland won the fourth stage of the Dakar Rally on Sunday, but Stephane Peterhansel of France retained the overall lead. Vatanen, driving a Nissan, won the stage in 40 minutes, 40 seconds. The 75km fourth stage started in Tangiers and ended in Er Rachidia. Peterhansel, who finished 10 seconds behind Vatanen in a Mitsubishi, holds the overall lead at 1:12:20. Miki Biasion of Italy, also driving a Mitsubishi, was third Sunday, 33 seconds behind the winner. Biasion trails Peterhansel in the overall standings by 1:07. Gregoire de Mevius of Belgium is third overall, 1:28 behind in a BMW. This year's Dakar rally spans seven countries and 11,090.5km. It ends Jan. 18 in the Senegalese capital of Dakar. On the motorcycles, Fabrizio Meoni of Italy won the stage in 41:53, edging Alfie Cox of South Africa by 43 seconds and Isidre Esteve Pujol of Spain by 1:13.
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