World Cup semifinalist South Korea was held to a 0-0 draw by first-timer Jordan at the Asian Cup on Monday, while former champion Kuwait scored three goals in the first half and beat Gulf rivals the United Arab Emirates 3-1.
The victory put Kuwait, the 1980 champion, atop Group B heading into their game against Jordan on Thursday.
Elsewhere in Chongqing, Peter Vellapan apologized for comments a day earlier that criticized Chinese fans, who jeered the Asian Football Confederation general secretary and FIFA President Sepp Blatter when the pair addressed the crowd at Saturday's opening game.
Vellapan implied China was unfit to host the 2008 Olympics because of its manners, but on Monday said he was sorry to the Chinese, "If I hurt your feelings."
"Beijing will be the best ever, given the will of the people and government, it will be fantastic," he added.
On the field, goalkeeper Amer Shafi was the hero for Jordan, earning player of the match honors for denying several South Korean scoring chances.
South Korea, a two-time Asian Cup champion, had the majority of possession and created the majority of opportunities, forcing Shafi off his line and into diving saves.
"We had many chances in the first and second half, and the [Jordanian] goalkeeper was not only good, but also lucky," South Korea's Dutch-born coach Jo Bonfrere said.
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