■ Soccer
Davis improving after stroke
Luton defender Sol Davis was making a "steady improvement" on Monday after suffering a stroke while traveling to a Football League Championship match. The 27-year-old was undergoing further tests on his heart and brain at a hospital in Cambridge, which is en route to Ipswich. Davis was taken ill on Saturday on the team bus -- a day before Luton's 5-0 defeat at Ipswich. Doctors expect Davis to make a full recovery, Luton manager Mike Newell told the club's Web site. "The early indications that they've given us were that it could be anything between three and six months, but they did also say it could be less than that," Newell said. Newell said the MRI scan showed the stroke was caused by a blockage to the brain. "The most important thing is that he makes a full recovery," Newell said.
■ Boxing
Berbick suspect's mom held
The mother of a 20-year-old suspect is being questioned in connection with the brutal murder of former world heavyweight boxing champ Trevor Berbick, police said. The woman has been involved in a running land dispute with Berbick, Radio Jamaica reported on Monday. Both were being held on "reasonable suspicion" Jamaican police said. No one has been charged. Earlier news reports said that police may have found the murder weapon. Berbick's body was found in a pool of blood early on Saturday morning outside a church next to his home in the Norwich District, 64km northeast of Kingston. Berbick finished his boxing career with a record of 50 wins, 11 losses and one drawn.
■ Olympics
EBU protests finals decision
The European Broadcasting Union (EBU) has formally protested the IOC's decision to hold some Olympic swimming and gymnastic finals in the morning during the 2008 Beijing Games. The International Olympic Committee announced the changes last week in a concession to US broadcaster NBC, but the EBU said the timing of the finals will put them in the middle of the night in Europe. "With this decision the IOC ends the tradition of staging these finals in the evening," said the EBU, which represents public service broadcasters in Europe and neighboring regions. The EBU said it told the IOC that the decision meant "viewers in Europe as well as the vast majority of the global TV audience will be disadvantaged." The events will be staged during prime viewing hours in the US.
■ Basketball
Yao out of China squad
Houston Rockets superstar Yao Ming has not been included in China's Asian Games basketball squad, which is led by former Miami Heat player Wang Zhizhi. Yao is committed to the Rockets and his multimillion dollar endorsement deals with the regular season starting this week, leaving 2.14m center Wang as their key player. Sun Yue, Liu Wei, Yi Jianlian, Du Feng, Zhu Fangyu, Wang Shipeng, Li Nan, Zhang Jinsong and Mo Ke form the core of their 16-man squad, which won last year's Asian Championships. Wang is back in the fold after refusing to play for China as he pursued a four-year NBA career with the Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers and Miami Heat, which meant he missed the last Asian Games in Busan in 2002. A public apology in April this year saw him return to national duty as China seek to regain the Asian title they lost four years ago in a thrilling final won by South Korea 102-100 in overtime.
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