■ Swimming
Henry upstages Thorpe
Olympic 100m freestyle gold medalist Jodie Henry has been named Australia's swimmer of the year, upstaging Ian Thorpe. Henry picked up three golds in Athens, setting a world record in the 100 freestyle semifinals and anchoring the victorious Australian 4x100 freestyle and 4x100 medley relay teams. "I honestly couldn't have predicted it was going to be me," the 21-year-old Henry said after her award was announced at a ceremony in Melbourne on Monday night. "I won three gold medals but I had other girls help me get two of them," she said.
■ Tennis
Serena to play in HK
Six-time Grand Slam winner Serena Williams has confirmed she will join sister Venus to complete an impressive line-up at an annual invitational tournament in Hong Kong next year, organizers said on Monday. Williams was among four names yesterday confirmed for the sixth Watson's Water Champions Challenge next month. The others were former world number one Arantxa Sanchez-Vicario, French and US Open runner-up Elena Demen-tieva from Russia and 15-year-old rising Czech star Nicole Vaidisova They will join reigning Wimbledon champion Maria Sharapova, world number two Amelie Mauresmo, US Open winner Svetlana Kuznetsova and Venus Williams.
■ Soccer
Illegal bookies arrested
Malaysian police have arrested four men believed to be running an illegal football betting syndicate that involved more than US$39.4 million over the past year. The group is suspected to have received more than US$526,000 a day in bets on football matches in the English Premier League, as well as league games in Spain, Italy, Scotland and France, the New Straits Times reported yesterday. In Monday's raid, police seized 13 mobile phones, two computers, several fax machines and betting slips from an apartment, which is believed to be the base of the syndicate. Police arrested the four suspects in the apartment and have remanded them for further investigations.
■ Horse Racing
Hong Kong jockey attacked
Former champion Hong Kong jockey and leading horse trainer Tony Cruz was in serious condition in hospital on Monday after burglars beat him during a break-in at his home. Two knife-wielding intruders attacked 47-year-old Cruz during the Sunday night robbery in which a safe and its contents were stolen. Cruz was sleeping in his luxury home when the attack happened, police said. Police commander Dennis Wong said it appeared to be a random attack. Wong said Cruz had suffered a wound to the head believed to have been caused by a blow from a blunt instrument. Chinese press reports said he'd been stabbed in the face.
■ Soccer
World Player 2004 shortlist
Barcelona's Ronaldinho, Andriy Shevchenko of AC Milan and Thierry Henry of Arsenal make up the three-man shortlist for the 2004 World Player of the Year award. The winner will be announced on Dec. 20, FIFA said on Monday. None of the three have won the award before. The three leading candidates for Women's Player of the Year are Mia Hamm of the US, Birgit Prinz of Germany and Marta of Brazil.
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