■ Cycling
Sanchez wins Stage 13
Samuel Sanchez took advantage of a confused Mauricio Ardilla to win the 13th stage of the Spanish Vuelta in Apuero, Spain on Friday. Ardilla was leading near the end of the 193km stage when he stopped pedaling and began to celebrate after believing he had crossed the finish line. With a huge smile on his face, Sanchez shot forward and won the stage in 4 hours, 3 minutes, 40 seconds. Denis Menchov of Russia retained the overall lead after finishing in a tie for ninth. "It was an unforgivable mistake, one learns from those and I hope never to repeat it," Ardilla said. Oscar Pereiro took second, ahead of Ardilla in third. Defending champion Roberto Heras, who injured his left knee in a crash during the 12th stage, finished ninth.
The 21-stage tour ends on Sept. 18 in Madrid.
■ Triathlon
Shoemaker grabs gold
Jarrod Shoemaker of the US won the gold medal in Gomagori, Japan yesterday in the men's under-23 event at the Triathlon World Championships. Shoemaker clocked a total time of 1 hour, 52 minutes, 42 seconds to edge Daniil Sapunov of Kazakhstan with 1:53.06. France's Bertrand Boulch claimed the bronze medal in 1:53.24. In the women's under-23 race, Andrea Hewitt of New Zealand took the gold medal, posting a time of 2:03.08. Vedula Frintova of the Czech Republic was second in 2:03.41 while Nicola Spirig of Switzerland was third with a time of 2:05.39. The two-day event continues today with the men's and women's elite races.
■ Judo
Dutch rise to top in Worlds
Guillaume Elmont won the men's 81kg title and Edith Bosch the women's 70kg crown in Cairo, Egypt on Friday to earn the Netherlands its first gold medals at the 24th World Judo Championships. Elmont beat Abderahman Benamadi from Algeria in the men's title match, while Bosch prevailed over Gevrise Emane from France for the women's 70kg gold. Japan earned its second gold medal of the championship when Izumi Hiroshi overcame Ilias Iliadis from Greece in the men's 90kg division, while Frenchwoman Lucie Decosse beat Tanimoto Ayumi of Japan for women's 63kg title.
■ Soccer
Faria Alam loses suit
A former Football Association secretary, who said she was fired because of an affair with England coach Sven-Goran Eriksson, has lost a suit claiming sex discrimination and breach of contract. An employment court in London dismissed the claims by former model Faria Alam on Friday. "The Football Association has welcomed the decision of the employment tribunal in rejecting all claims from its former employee Faria Alam," the FA said in a brief statement. Alam had affairs with chief executive Mark Palios and Eriksson while working at the FA. The affairs prompted Palios' resignation last year, plunging the organization into crisis. Alam said she was sexually harassed by FA executive director David Davies while working as his personal assistant, and said Davies had sexually harassed other female employees.
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