■ Cricket
`Tres' will return: Strauss
England captain Andrew Strauss is confident that Marcus Trescothick will recover from a stress-related illness in time for the Ashes series in Australia. Trescothick has pulled out of next month's Champions Trophy one-day tournament in India after saying the illness had dogged him since he returned home for family reasons from the tour of India in March. With the Ashes series looming in November, England fears that Trescothick will not be in any kind of form when the squad departs for Australia. "Australia is going to be a big Test for all of us and it's going to be a big Test for Tres as well," Strauss said on Thursday on the eve of the fourth one-day international against Pakistan at Trent Bridge. "He hasn't got to the stage he's at in his career without being able to overcome tests and I see no reason to see why he can't do it again," he said.
■ Cycling
Basso hearing postponed
A hearing in the doping case of Giro d'Italia cycling champion Ivan Basso has been postponed until the end of the month. Basso, who was excluded from the Tour de France after being implicated in a Spanish doping investigation, denied using banned substances in a first appearance before Italian anti-doping authorities late last month. That hearing was adjourned to Sept. 12. The Italian Olympic Committee said on Thursday that the case has now been moved to Sept. 29. "I understand the pace of justice and I remain respectful and faithful to this as always. But at the same time I cannot wait to be able to close this incident positively," Basso was quoted as saying by Italian news agency ANSA. "I feel like an imprisoned man waiting for justice," he said.
■ Soccer
Nuremberg signs Gresko
Bundesliga leader Nuremberg signed Slovakia defender Vratislav Gresko to a one-year contract on Thursday. The club retained a two-year option on Gresko. Gresko's previous clubs included Blackburn, Parma, Inter Milan and Bayer Leverkusen. He was without a contract, allowing him to be signed after the official transfer period. Nuremberg is surprisingly leading the Bundesliga after three rounds.
■ Water polo
Spain, Romania advance
Spain defeated Greece 12-10 and Romania edged Italy 10-9 to advance to the semi-finals at the European men's water polo championship on Thursday. Spain's tense match with Greece was decided only in the final quarter when Spain went ahead with three quickfire goals. Spain will face Hungary in the semi-finals, while Romania will take on Serbia. Hungary and Serbia qualified directly to the semi-finals by winning their groups. Meanwhile, in the consolation playoffs, the Netherlands beat Slovenia 12-8 while Croatia defeated Slovakia 12-6.
■ Decathlon
Champ buried in hometown
Bob Mathias, the former Olympic decathlon champion, was buried in Tulare, California, the city in the San Joaquin Valley where he grew up. Hundreds gathered on Wednesday for the funeral that was attended by family, friends and fellow Olympians in Tulare. He died of lung cancer in Fresno last week at 75. Mathias won his first decathlon gold medal at 17 in the 1948 London Olympics. He won another gold in the decathlon at the 1952 Helsinki Olympics. Mathias was in the Marines before serving in the US Congress from 1966 to 1974.
■ Soccer
Neutral venue planned
Next year's African Super Cup will be played in Addis Ababa as part of the Confederation of African Football's (CAF) 50th anniversary celebrations. CAF said the match would be held next February but did not give a fixed date. It will be only the fourth time that the annual match-up between the winner of the African Champions League and the African Confederation Cup will be at a neutral venue. Traditionally, the Super Cup is hosted by the team that won the previous year's Champions League title. CAF's anniversary celebrations also include a friendly international between Nations Cup holders Egypt and Sweden in Cairo on Feb. 7. An under-23 tournament is also planned for the Sudan, involving Egypt, Ethiopia, South Africa and Sudan.
■ Soccer
Barcelona aids AIDS victims
The Barcelona soccer club and the UN children's agency, UNICEF, announced a deal on Thursday in which the team will donate US$1.9 million a year over the next five years to help poor children with AIDS in developing countries. The first installment of the club's money will pay for AIDS programs in Swaziland, a tiny, impoverished country in southern Africa where some 40 percent of adults are infected with HIV, the virus that causes AIDS. The money will fund efforts to prevent mother-to-child transmission and infection among adolescents and to support and care for children orphaned by the disease. As part of the deal, the Spanish and European champion's scarlet and blue jersey will have UNICEF's logo on its front, the first time in the club's 107-year history it has allowed such an arrangement.
■ Boxing
Holyfield eyes fifth title
Evander Holyfield, the first four-time world heavyweight champion, wants to become the first to win five. The 43-year-old Holyfield continues the long comeback road against Fres Oquendo of Puerto Rico on Nov. 10 at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas. "I am asked all the time why I still fight," Holyfield said on Thursday at a Manhattan press conference. "My answer is always the same. I want to reach my goal. And that goal is to become a world champion one more time."
■ Athletics
IAAF expresses concern
World athletics governing body International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) yesterday expressed concern over reports of doping at a Chinese sports school, reportedly involving students as young as 15. "Clearly the IAAF is concerned any time there is a report of doping or doping methods being used in our sport," said Chris Butler, communications manager for the IAAF. Authorities making a snap inspection last month discovered 448 doses of illegal performance enhancing drugs at the Anshan Athletics School in Liaoning Province.
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