■ Scotland
Roman Bednar nets double
Roman Bednar scored two goals on Sunday, including an 88th-minute winner, to lead Hearts over Celtic 2-1 in the Scottish Premier League. Bednar scored his first goal in the 49th, but Stilian Petrov equalized for Celtic in the 65th. In the 88th, Bednar capitalized on a poor back pass by Celtic substitute Neil Lennon and beat goalkeeper Artur Boruc. Sunday's result left St Mirren in first place in the league with six points, ahead of Hearts on goal difference. Rangers is in fourth place with four points, one more than Celtic.
PHOTO: AP
■ Argentina
Boca trounce Banfield
Boca Juniors beat Banfield 3-0 on Sunday as five of Argentina's highest-profile teams won weekend openers in the debut of the Apertura first-division season. Martin Palermo scored in the 57th minute and again 9 minutes after a 66th-minute goal by Boca teammate Sebastian Battaglia. Another Buenos Aires powerhouse, River Plate, beat Lanus 2-0 off an own goal by Lanus' Maximiliano Velazquez in the 50th minute and a goal by River's Gonzalo Higuain a minute later off a cross. The opening of the Apertura season saw no ties as San Lorenzo edged Gimnasia de Jujuy 1-0 off a 6th-minute goal by Jonathan Bottineli.
■ England
Coventry edge Sunderland
Gary McSheffrey scored in the 78th minute, lifting Coventry to a 2-1 victory over Sunderland on Sunday in the season-opening game for both teams in England's League Championship. West Brom opened Saturday with a 2-0 win over Hull, and Birmingham City defeated Colchester 2-1. Daryl Murphy gave Sunderland a 1-0 lead in the 52nd minute, but Stern John equalized in the 71st to set the stage for McSheffrey's winner. In the day's other game, Paul Peschisolido gave Derby a 2-2 draw against Southampton with a goal in second-half injury time. Derby went ahead 1-0 on Seth Johnson's strike in the 35th. The Saints answered with two goals in six minutes -- Gareth Bale scored in the 62nd and Bradley Wright-Phillips added another in the 68th.
■ Mexico
Sabah inspires Cruz Azul
Miguel Sabah scored twice on Sunday to give Cruz Azul a 3-2 victory over defending champion Pachuca in the first round of the Mexican Apertura 2006. Also on Sunday, Argentine Bruno Marioni smashed in his third goal for Toluca to give the Red Devils a 1-0 victory over the Chivas of Guadalajara. Playing away, Cruz Azul's Blue Machine opened the scoring in the 35th minute with a goal from Richard Nunez but Pachuca equalized 8 minutes later with a goal from Colombian defender Aquivaldo Mosquera. Sabah scored his goals in the 54th and 68th minutes, converting excellent passes from Cesar "Chelito" Delgado.
■ Rugby Union
Tana Umaga injured
Former All Blacks rugby captain Tana Umaga will be sidelined for at least six weeks after severely injuring a finger in a New Zealand provincial championship match on Friday. Umaga underwent surgery to have the tip of the finger reattached to the bone after it was left dangling by a single tendon in the match between Umaga's Wellington side and Bay of Plenty. The injury occurred when Umaga stretched to catch a pass and received the ball on the fingertips of his right hand. He will be out of action for almost half of the season, but will be fit to take up a short-term contract with the French club Toulon later in the year.
■ Horse Racing
World record set
Holborn Hanover had the fastest racing mile in harness history, finishing in 1 minute, 46.4 seconds in winning a US$195,000 division of the US Pacing Championship on Hambletonian Day at the Meadowlands in East Rutherford, New Jersey. The time on Saturday was three-fifths of a second faster than the mark set by Primetime Bobcat this year in a race at Woodbine in Toronto. Driven by George Brennan, Holborn Hanover won by one-and-three-quarter lengths over Stonebridge Regal. The previous career best time for the five-year-old son of Cam's Card Shark was a 1:48 in a race last month.
■ Tennis
Roddick out of Rogers Cup
Andy Roddick withdrew from the hardcourt Rogers Cup tournament on Sunday, citing an injury that forced him to pull out of another US Open tuneup last week. "Unfortunately, my side strain is still preventing me from being able to play matches," Roddick said in a statement. He strained the lower left side of his back while playing in an event in Los Angeles last month and pulled out before the quarter-finals. Then he withdrew from the hardcourt tournament in Washington. Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion and former world No. 1, is 10th in the current rankings. Andre Agassi pulled out of the Rogers Cup on Friday. The US Open begins on Aug. 28.
■ Superbikes
Troy Bayliss stretches lead
World Superbike leader Troy Bayliss won one race and finished second in the other on Sunday to stretch his lead atop the season standings. Bayliss, riding a Ducati Xerox, won the first race with second for James Toseland on a Honda and third to Noriyuki Haga. Haga, riding for Motor Italian Yamaha, took the second race with Bayliss in second place. Bayliss now leads the Japanese rider by 77 points, boosting his lead from 73 when the day began. Toseland is third in the season standings.
■ Figure Skating
Schwarz gets eight years
An Austrian court sentenced former Olympic figure skating gold medalist Wolfgang Schwarz to eight years in prison yesterday for a plot to kidnap the teenage daughter of a prominent Romanian businessman and hold her for up to 3 million euros (US$3.8 million) in ransom. Schwarz, 59, made a surprise confession earlier yesterday, and his lawyer said Schwarz was motivated by "greed and selfishness" in plotting the abduction, which was never carried out. The 1968 Olympic champion had faced up to 20 years in prison.
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