■ Soccer
Pele, Beckenbauer awarded
Pele and Franz Beckenbauer were to be awarded FIFA's Centennial Order of Merit yesterday. The award ceremony was originally scheduled to have taken place at FIFA's Centennial Congress in Paris in May but Pele was recovering from an eye operation and could not attend. The awards are being given to mark their outstanding lifetime contributions to the sport. Pele won the World Cup with Brazil in 1958 and 1970 and is considered the greatest player in soccer history. Beckenbauer is the only man to captain and then coach his team to World Cup victory -- feats he achieved in 1974 and then 1990 with West Germany. He is now the president of Germany's 2006 World Cup organizing committee. After the ceremony, due to be held at FIFA's headquarters, the two men will be part of the panel to choose their three favorite FIFA Centennial stamp designs from over 70 submissions from the postal services of FIFA member associations.
■ Olympics
Appeal for gold medal
International sport's top appeals body will on Monday listen to a claim from South Korean gymnast Yang Tae-Young who was deprived of an Olympic gold medal in Athens last month by a judging blunder. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) will listen to Yang and the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) but a ruling is not expected next Monday. The FIG admitted in Athens a scoring error had been made and asked American Paul Hamm to exchange medals with the Korean but said its own rules prevented it from overturning the judges' decision. Judges gave Yang's high bar routine a 9.9 start value rather than a full 10. Had Yang been correctly valued and received the same scores, he would have taken gold. FIG later suspended the judges responsible, but said under their rules a judge's decision cannot be overturned. The International Olympic Committee has also said it has no intention of awarding Yang a second gold medal as happened in the figure skating in Salt Lake City.
■ Football
Browns players under knife
American football's Cleveland Browns are getting bulk rates from the doctors after sending three players into surgery on Tuesday. Rookie tight-end Kellen Winslow Jnr, defensive-end Courtney Brown and cornerback Daylon McCutcheon all underwent operations. Winslow, the sixth overall pick in this year's National Football League Draft, broke his right leg trying to recover an onside kick late in the fourth quarter of Sunday's 19-12 loss at Dallas.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite