■ Soccer
Player on rape charge
Arsenal player Graham Stack has been charged with the rape of a 21-year-old girl at his home, police said on Wednesday. The 23-year-old goalkeeper, who is on loan this season at Millwall, was charged following the alleged rape in Beckenham, south east London on Sept. 1. A Republic of Ireland Under-21 international, Stack was bailed to appear at Bromley Magistrates Court on Nov. 23. Another 22-year-old man was also charged with sexual assault.
■ Football
Players fined for fight
Pittsburgh linebacker Joey Porter and Cleveland running back William Green were fined US$10,000 apiece by the National Football League on Tuesday for a fight before a game on Sunday. The Browns' Terrelle Smith was slapped with the same fine for getting involved in the altercation. Prior to the Steelers' 24-10 victory, Porter and Green exchanged a flurry of punches in a wild scene. A host of players came in the break up the skirmish but not before Porter caught Green with a punch, bloodying his lip. Both players were ejected while Smith stayed in the game.
■ Soccer
Daei breaks 100-goal mark
Iran's Ali Daei became the first ever player to score 100 international goals when he hit four in a 7-0 rout of Laos in a World Cup qualifier on Wednesday. The talismanic striker now has 102 goals in 133 appearances for Iran, who clinched a place in next year's final round of the 2006 Asian World Cup qualifiers with victory in Tehran. The 35-year-old Daei, who has had spells at German clubs Bayern Munich and Hertha Berlin, passed Hungarian great Ferenc Puskas' previous record haul of 84 goals a year ago. Pele is third in the all-time list with 77 goals for Brazil.
■ Hockey
Aquilini buys Canucks
Vancouver businessman Francesco Aquilini bought half of the Vancouver Canucks from American John McCaw. The purchase price was not immediately disclosed. The surprise sale came during the NHL lockout, which has wiped out the season so far. "We got a fair deal. We're very happy," Aquilini said on Wednesday. "Local ownership adds value, it puts deeper roots in the community. I think it's a good thing. People have been wanting that for a long time." McCaw has said for years that he would like to sell all or part of the team to local owners. After many years of losses since the US billionaire bought the club in 1995, the Canucks turned healthy profits the past two seasons.
■ Wrestling
Swedish Olympic great dies
Swedish Olympic wrestling champion, Mikael Ljungberg, has died aged 34, the Swedish Wrestling Federation said yesterday. Ljungberg's greatest career achievement was winning the heavyweight class (Greco-Roman style) at the 2000 Sydney Games. It was Sweden's first Olympic wrestling gold in 48 years. He won the bronze medal in the same division at the 1996 Atlanta Games, and was also a two-time World Champion and twice won the European championships. Ljungberg died at a hospital in his home city Gothenburg on Wednesday. The cause of death was not disclosed. Ljungberg's death was "a great loss for wrestling," said Tony Stigsson, president of the Swedish Wrestling Federation.
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