■ Sidelines
Kenyans win street soccer
A team from Kenya won the first World Cup street soccer title on Saturday in the competition which was played alongside the main World Cup. The team from Mathare Youth Sports Association (MYSA) beat the Kick Aids team from South Africa in a penalty shootout after the match had ended 2-2 in normal time. The MYSA players are drawn from shanty towns. The "streetfootballworld" tournament, held in the Berlin district of Kreuzberg, featured matches lasting 12 minutes with teams of five players, all aged between 16 and 21. Other teams included a lineup from the US which represented the fight against drug abuse and a mixed team of Israelis and Palestinians. The tournament was created in memory of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who was murdered after scoring an own goal in the 1994 World Cup. Many of the participants in the street soccer tournament were invited to attend World Cup matches.
■ FIFA
Players faking injuries
Now there's proof players are regularly faking injuries at the World Cup. One of the biggest criticisms of the tournament has been players diving, pretending to be fouled and acting injured to draw cautions for rival players. In more than half the cases when a player received treatment on the field, there was no injury reported by medical staff. Jiri Dvorak, the head of FIFA's medical committee, said of the 156 on-pitch treatments in the first 62 matches, 88 were not noted in post-match reports. "We have too much of this," Dvorak said. "It's something we need to look into." Overall, the number of times medical staff entered the field to treat a player is less than previous World Cups with an average of 2.2 per match. It was 2.7 in South Korea and Japan in 2002 and 2.4 at France 1998, when the cross-referencing system was not as complete.
■ Italy
Prodi sorry to miss final
Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi said on Saturday he would not be going to Berlin to watch Italy play France in the World Cup final because tradition dictated that the president attends such events alone. "I'm sorry [not to be going], but you know that according to tradition if there's the president of the republic there's just the president of the republic," Prodi told reporters outside his house in the northern city of Bologna ahead of the final. Prodi, rather than 81 year-old President Giorgio Napolitano, attended Italy's 2-0 semi-final win over hosts Germany in Dortmund which was secured with two late goals.
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