■ Swimming
New 100m butterfly record
Libby Lenton set a new short course world record for the women's 100m butterfly yesterday at the Australian Short Course Championships in Hobart, Australia. Lenton edged Jessicah Schipper to win in 55.95 seconds, taking 0.39 off the previous mark set by American Nathalie Coughlin in 2002. "It's such a great feeling, such a rush," she said. Schipper, who set a long course world record in the 200m butterfly at the Pan Pacific championships in Canada last week, was second in 56.66.
■ Rugby League
Ricky Stuart to exit NRL
Australia rugby league coach Ricky Stuart will lose his NRL club job at the Sydney Roosters next Monday. Amid mounting speculation that Stuart would be fired with the club languishing next-to-last in the 15 team national league standings, his manager met with Roosters officials late yesterday and agreed to "mutually end" the coaching contract. Stuart, who became Australia coach this season and had a successful stint at New South Wales' State of Origin coach, has presided over a declining Roosters outfit since guiding the club to the NRL premiership in 2002. Stuart's last match in charge will be on Saturday against St George-Illawarra in the last round of the regular season. Under the agreement, the club will pay out the remainder of Stuart's contract, which was due to end in October next year.
■ Soccer
Player struck by lightning
A 17-year-old soccer player hit by lightning during an amateur game has died, police said. The victim, whose name was not immediately released, died early yesterday. Lightning hit the teenager while he was playing for Ulfborg against Maabjerg at a tournament in northwestern Denmark on Saturday. Nine other players were knocked over. "There were no clouds on the sky. Only a black cloud far away," Maabjerg goalie Kasper Stoettrup told the daily Dagbladet Holstebro Struer. "Suddenly he was just hit. Out of nothing." The game was played in Ulfborg, 330km northwest of Copenhagen.
■ Olympic Games
Official returns to post
The head of a Chinese state-owned property company has returned to work two months after being detained for questioning in a corruption investigation that has marred Beijing's 2008 Olympic preparations. Liu Xiaoguang (劉曉光), general manager of Beijing Capital Group Company and chairman of its Hong Kong-listed subsidiary Beijing Capital Land Ltd, resumed his duties last Thursday, the listed subsidiary said yesterday in a statement. Liu's detention was part of the biggest corruption scandal to hit the Chinese capital in a decade. The property developer was among the highest profile figures detained for questioning in a probe of a city vice mayor.
■ Soccer
Sydney FC pays for success
Sydney FC is learning the price of success in Australia's fledgling A-League. The Sydney club, winner of the re-launched Australian domestic soccer league in its inaugural season, was fined A$89,000 (US$67,500) yesterday because its players did not fulfill a set quota of community work. Because the club cooperated with the Football Federation Australia's (FFA) investigation, the fine was halved and the deduction of one game was suspended for a season.
■ Little League
Series goes prime time
The Little League World Series title game is going prime-time because Sunday's contest between the teams from Columbus, Georgia, and Kawaguchi City, Japan, was postponed because of rain. The game was rescheduled for 8pm last night, the first time a championship game has ever been played on a Monday evening. Little League President Stephen Keener said organizers wanted to give the field a chance to dry out after rain all day Sunday.
■ Golf
Romero wins The Tradition
Eduardo Romero knocked in a short birdie putt on the first playoff hole against Lonnie Nielsen on Sunday to win The Tradition, the final major this season on the US PGA Champions Tour. Romero almost eagled the first playoff hole, leaving his 19-foot putt just short on No. 18. Nielsen bogeyed the hole. Romero was in the clubhouse at 13 under, after closing with a 5.8m birdie putt, when Nielsen birdied the par-5 No. 18 to force the playoff. Romero, an Argentine, crept up the leader board with an eagle and three birdies on the front nine. His eagle on No. 4 bounced on the green from 65m out and rolled in the cup. He finished with a 65, the low round of the tournament. Nielsen had a final round of 70 on the par-72 course at the Reserve Vineyards and Golf Club west of Portland, Oregon.
■ Sailing
Slingsby tops Laser class
Australian Tom Slingsby placed first in one race and second in another to secure a berth in the Laser-class medal race at the Qingdao International Regatta. Slingsby's impressive showing on Sunday, the seventh day of the ten-day regatta, means that all the positions in the final medal race are locked up. Olympic bronze medalist Vasilij Zbogar of Slovenia is leading the Laser class, with Britain's Paul Goodison just behind. Sunday's race took place amid light winds and a strong tidal current, conditions that have frequently plagued the regatta in Qingdao. This year's races are the first test event for the 2008 Beijing Olympics.
■ Cricket
Aussie Buchanan to resign
Australia's coach John Buchanan will resign after next year's World Cup in the Caribbean, Cricket Australia confirmed yesterday. Buchanan, who took over from Geoff Marsh in 1999, had his contract extended after Australia lost last year's Ashes series in England. Australia hosts the next Ashes series, which starts on Nov. 23 in Brisbane. The Australians will also be the defending World Cup champions when the 2007 competition starts in March. Buchanan and Australian captain Ricky Ponting were to hold a news conference at the team's camp in Coolum, Queensland, later yesterday. Buchanan, 53, has been one of Australia's most successful coaches, guiding the test squad to 64 wins and eight draws in 82 matches.
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