■ Racing
Pigeons face dope tests
Britain's pigeon racers are being subjected to random dope tests as the sport's ruling body clamps down on suspected foul play. The Royal Pigeon Racing Association has sent test kits to 60 race organizers across England after complaints some birds have been given performance-enhancing drugs such as anabolic steroids and synthetic hormones. "Just like any other sport, there is a suspected small, determined band of cheats who are spoiling things for other owners," Peter Bryant, the Royal Pigeon Racing Association's general manager, told the Daily Telegraph newspaper yesterday. "We are hoping to send more and more of the kits to smaller organizations. It is sad that it has come to this but it is the only way we are going to know if the sport is clean." Britain has more than 50,000 pigeon racers, known as "pigeon fanciers," breeding a million birds a year to race against each other in what can be long-distance endurance events.
■ Soccer
Maradonna can go to Cuba
Maradona has received permission to pursue treatment for his longstanding cocaine addiction in Cuba, his lawyer announced on Monday. Hector Leguizamon said the Argentine football great was given permission to return to Havana by Norberto Garcia Vedia, the judge in charge of his case. The ailing 43-year-old has been detained in a psychiatric clinic in the suburbs of Buenos Aires for the past four months. In April he was admitted to hospital with life-threatening heart and lung problems. The judge's ruling comes after a lengthy legal battle over where the former World Cup winner should continue his treatment for cocaine abuse. Maradona's ex-wife and daughters were trying to ensure that he stayed in Argentina whereas he wanted to return to the rehab center in Cuba where he has lived since 2000. Garcia Vedia said last week the football great could travel abroad to Cuba for treatment as long as it was to a site with a serious program "that operates as a closed community." Garcia said that, according to psychiatrists, the sports star's "ability to make choices has been altered and can be swayed easily, but he is not crazy." Maradona cried during a one-hour interview on national television last week, and pleaded to be allowed to travel to Cuba.
■ Motor racing
Chinese driver gets F1 thrill
McLaren have become the second team to give a Chinese driver a taste of Formula One as Shanghai prepares to host the country's first grand prix this month. Cheng Congfu, who competes in the junior British Formula Renault series, completed five laps in last year's Mercedes-McLaren MP4-17D at Brno circuit in the Czech Republic at the weekend. The demonstration run allowed team sponsor West, who organized the event, to trumpet the 20-year-old as the first driver born in China to drive a Formula One car. However Tung Ho-Pin, who was born and grew up in the Netherlands, became the first Chinese to drive a grand prix car when he tested for BMW-powered rivals Williams last December. The inaugural Chinese Grand Prix is on Sept. 26. "It was the most exciting moment of my life as I pulled out of the garage," said Cheng. "It has been an ambition of mine for as long as I can remember to get behind the wheel of a Formula One car and I wasn't disappointed in any way."
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