■ Cricket
Fire destroys Wanderers
The clubhouse at South Africa's world famous Wanderers cricket grounds was declared a total loss yesterday after fire gutted the building Wednesday evening. Firefighters were unable to stop the spread of the fire that started at around 6.30pm. The building was 120 years old. The Wanderers Club has been at the center of numerous international test cricket matches and has hosted high-profile sport and political figures.
■ Cricket
Dubai to host academy
Dubai Sports City, the world's first purpose-built sports city, will host the International Cricket Council's (ICC) global academy. In a statement on Wednesday the ICC said the academy, scheduled for completion in 2007, would feature a 30,000-seat stadium, three cricket grounds and indoor and outdoor training facilities. Dubai Sports City is also scheduled to host the first Manchester United soccer school outside Europe and a golf course designed by South Africa's Ernie Els.
■ Soccer
`Fake' urine fails test
A Farul Constanta player has admitted supplying urine for two team mates who failed dope tests after a Romanian first division match last month. A Romanian Professional League (LPF) official said yesterday an investigation had shown that the urine samples taken from midfielders Iulian Apostol and Adrian Senin were completed by Mihai Baicu. "Baicu confirmed he had made a contribution to his colleagues' urine samples because they were not able to offer enough substance after the effort of the match," LPF first vice-president Robi Urs said. "Baicu revealed that he had taken the diuretic substance of furosemide in order to lose some weight but he did not know that it was a banned substance," Urs said.
■ Baseball
Pitcher shot in calf
Cleveland Indians pitcher Kyle Denney was shot in the right calf while riding on the team bus as it was traveling to Kansas City International Airport late Wednesday. Denney was not seriously injured. The bullet did not go very deep and was immediately removed by Indians trainers. The right-hander was taken to a hospital, where he was expected to spend the night, club spokesman Bart Swain said. The Indians arrived safely at the airport and boarded a plane bound for Minneapolis early Thursday morning. Swain told The Kansas City Star that the shot was fired into the side of one of the Indians' two buses while it was on a ramp between Interstate 435 and I-70.
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