■ Bangladesh
Angry fans attack jail
Hundreds of soccer fans in the capital Dhaka attacked a jail and an electricity office after power failures interrupted broadcasts of the quarter-final match between Argentina and Germany. A group of protesters threw stones at the gates of the central jail in Dhaka's densely populated Lalbagh district, slightly injuring more than a dozen jail security guards who attempted to prevent them from going to a nearby electricity office, Dhaka Metropolitan Police official Aminul Islam said yesterday. He said the protesters also threw stones at the home of a top official of the jail authorities during the melee. Later, another mob wielding iron rods attacked the electricity office in the same area, Islam said.
■ India
TV ratings soaring
Indians are turning into couch potatoes and guzzling beer like never before as excitement in the Asian country over the World Cup peaks, local media reported yesterday. The scenes in homes and pubs across the cricket-mad country differ little from soccer-playing countries. "A remote in one hand and brew in the other -- that is the general picture," the Hindustan Times said, reporting that beer sales had shot up by nearly 40 percent in New Delhi and Mumbai and that TV viewing in cities was up by 175 per cent on match days. Even though the Indian soccer team (ranked a lowly 117) has failed to qualify for World Cup time and again, people are becoming interested in the sport and are following the tournament closely. Soccer has taken over as the most-watched sport in India, pushing cricket into second place.
■ Tourism
Numbers exceed targets
The World Cup has triggered an influx of visitors exceeding tourism officials' expectations. By the time the tournament ends next Sunday, the number of visitors from abroad is expected to reach 2 million, said Petra Hedorfer, head of the German Center for Tourism. Officials originally forecast the World Cup would lure 1 million visitors. Hedorfer said her organization had commissioned a survey of 1,281 World Cup visitors. It found that more than 90 percent would recommend Germany to others as a destination and 91 percent felt welcome in the country.
■ Cards
Averages at record level
Going into the quarter-finals, the World Cup averaged 4.86 yellow cards a game, according to FIFA. That compares to 4.25 per game in South Korea-Japan in 2002, 4.03 in France 98, 4.52 in USA 94, 3.12 in Italy 90, 2.56 in Mexico 86 and 1.88 in Spain 82. The Germany tournament is averaging 0.45 red cards a game. That's up from 0.27 in 2002, 0.34 in 1998, 0.34 in 1994, 0.31 in 1990, 0.15 in 1986 and 0.12 in 1982.
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