■ BoxingVargas overcomes Joval
Former two-time world junior middleweight champion Fernando Vargas (on right in the above photo) won a unanimous 10-round decision Saturday over Raymond Joval of the Netherlands. Judges scored the fight 98-92, 96-94 and 97-93 for Vargas, who fought for the first time in 15 months. The crowd of 9,332, the largest for a boxing card in Corpus Christi, Texas, loudly supported the former champ. Vargas, 27, who had been nursing a lower back problem, hadn't fought since he stopped Tony Marshall in the seventh round in December 2003.
He showed little sign of rust and controlled the fight from the outset.
■ Hockey
Asian action heats up
Chris Yule and Kiyoshi Fujita both scored midway through the third period yesterday to lead Kokudo to a 5-2 win over the Nippon Paper Cranes in the inaugural Asia League ice hockey championship. Playing before 1,816 spectators at Higashifushimi Arena in Tokyo. The Nippon Paper Cranes won the first game of the best-of-five series in Sapporo by a score of 2-0 but Kokudo came back to win the second and third games by scores of 6-4 and 2-1. The Asia League is made up of four teams from Japan, two from China and one each from Russia and South Korea.
■ Cycling
British do well in US
Victoria Pendleton beat Russia's Tamilia Abassova in two straight rides to win the women's matched sprint and give Britain two of four titles awarded Saturday at the Track Cycling World Championships in Carson, California. Pendleton, who nearly left cycling after a disappointing effort in the 2004 Olympics, gave Britain its third gold and fifth medal of the four-day competition at the ADT Event Center. She had winning runs of 12.184 and 12.284 seconds. Australia's Anna Meares beat older sister Kerrie in the last of three races for third place. Britain's Steven Cummings, Robert Hayes, Paul Manning and Christopher Newton won the men's team pursuit, finishing in 4:05.619, an average speed of 56.62kph. The Netherlands was second in 4:09.971. In the women's pursuit final, Katie Mactier of Australia defeated compatriot Katherine Bates. Mactier led throughout and was timed in 3:38.720, an average speed of 49.371kph.
■ Horse racing
Young jockey gets killed
A 16-year-old apprentice jockey was dragged to his death by a runaway horse at a race meeting at Riverton on New Zealand's South Island on Saturday. Sam McRae, who had been riding for four months, was dragged 900m when he fell from his horse, Queen's Evidence, and his foot became trapped in a stirrup. He died of head and chest injuries, Riverton Racing Club chief stipendiary steward Stewart Ching said. Other jockeys in the 1,100m race were unable to stop McRae's startled mount until the field had entered the finishing straight. "That's the most horrific thing I've ever seen," senior jockey Terry Moseley said. The accident happened in front of thousands of racegoers at the popular Easter holiday weekend meeting.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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