■Football
Chiefs' player collapses
Kansas City offensive tackle Kevin Sampson was admitted to a New Jersey hospital on Thursday morning after apparently suffering a seizure, Chiefs coach Dick Vermeil has confirmed. "I'm very, very concerned," Vermeil told the Kansas City Star on Thursday. "I've been trying all afternoon to get information. I haven't heard from anybody." The Jersey Journal in Jersey City reported yesterday that Sampson, 24, called 911 at about 10am on Thursday complaining about not feeling well. When an ambulance arrived at an apartment building in Hoboken, Sampson asked to be taken to a hospital, but collapsed. The Journal reported that the 6-foot-4, 312-pound Sampson, in his second year with the Chiefs, was taken to the emergency room of St. Mary Hospital in Hoboken, and was passing in and out of consciousness.
■ SOCCER
Judge to release killer
A judge in Bogota has ordered the early release of the man who killed Colombian football star Andres Escobar for scoring an own-goal in the 1994 World Cup loss to the US. Escobar's father, Dario, condemned the judge's decision to free Humberto Munoz from jail on Thursday after serving just 11 years of a 43-year sentence. "Frankly, there is no justice in Colombia," Escobar told local radio. "For me, Colombian justice is a deception, it deceived the country and our family by saying he [Munoz] would be put behind bars for 43 years, and now this murderer is free." The judge in Medellin, Colombia's second-biggest city, announced late Wednesday that he had ordered the release of Munoz early due to good behavior and because he studied while in prison. Munoz was expected to walk out of prison later on Thursday. The judge's name was not released by justice officials, citing security concerns. Munoz shot Escobar on July 2, 1994, in the parking lot of a nightclub in Medellin days after the 27-year-old player accidentally kicked the ball into his own team's net in a match against the US. The US won and Colombia failed to advance.
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