■ Awards
Coach defends Ronaldo
Portugal coach Luiz Felipe Scolari slammed jeering of Cristiano Ronaldo as absurd on Friday and said other players were far more guilty of diving than his controversial winger. Scolari added that Ronaldo had deserved to win the Best Young Player Award at the World Cup finals and predicted a great future for him. The Manchester United player was jeered throughout the 1-0 semi-final defeat against France on Wednesday, apparently by neutrals at Munich's Allianz Arena. Scolari also hinted that French striker Thierry Henry had dived to win the penalty from which Zinedine Zidane scored the only goal of Wednesday's semi-final. Germany striker Lukas Podolski was awarded FIFA's young player award on Friday. The 21-year-old, who will play with German champions Bayern Munich next season, scored three times in Germany's run to the last four of the competition. He netted twice in Germany's 2-0 second-round victory over Sweden and also scored against Ecuador in the Round of 16. Podolski beat off competition from Cesc Fabregas, Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Luis Valencia and Tranquilo Barnetta for the award.
■ Security
French police reinforced
French Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy on Friday promised to send massive police reinforcements into the streets for the World Cup final and urged revelers not to spoil the party by getting out of hand. Sarkozy said today's festivities must "not be ruined by a minority of thugs," and his ministry said 4,000 extra police would be on patrol for the France-Italy match. "We are doing everything so that the party will be as beautiful as possible," Sarkozy said. "It will be even more beautiful if we win," he added. While celebrations after France's 1-0 semi-final win over Portugal on Wednesday were mostly peaceful and energized, police took 350 people into custody, 190 of those in Paris, the interior ministry said. Some 45 police officers were injured.
■ Germany
Merkel butters up Blatter
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has awarded the country's Grand Cross of the Order Merit to FIFA president Sepp Blatter for his role in the World Cup. Blatter said he was "moved" by the award, which he said he was receiving on behalf of all members of FIFA. "But the honor really belongs to Germany," he added. Merkel used the opportunity to wish Italy and France luck ahead of the final in Berlin today and to congratulate the German team for reaching the semi-finals. "The whole country is behind this team," she said. The chancellor thanked Germany coach Jurgen Klinsmann for doing a "fantastic job."
■ France
Eiffel light show prepared
A World Cup victory for France against Italy today will be celebrated by a spectacular all-night light show at the Eiffel Tower. The world's most-visited monument with 6 million visitors each year was draped with thousands of light bulbs to celebrate the millennium six years ago. Currently these flash on and off for 10 minutes each hour during the night. But should Zinedine Zidane and his men triumph in Berlin, the huge iron structure will flash its recognition without pause throughout the night until dawn.
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