Grand champion Asashoryu overpowered ozeki Kaio to stay unbeaten and in sole possession of the lead on the 12th day of the Kyushu Grand Sumo Tournament yesterday.
In the day's final bout at the Fukuoka Kokusai Center, Asashoryu grabbed Kaio with a left-hand grip before taking a right, upper-hand grip on the belt of the ozeki, forcing him out of the ring.
Asashoryu, who is bidding for his 19th Emperor's Cup and is two wins ahead of rank-and-filer Homasho, improved to 12-0 while Fukuoka native Kaio fell to 9-3.
In other major bouts, ozeki Chiyotaikai improved to 9-3, when he deployed a barrage of arm thrusts to the upper body of sekiwake Kotomitsuki before pushing him down to the dirt surface.
Kotomitsuki dropped to 8-4.
Sekiwake Miyabiyama picked up his sixth win against six defeats when he spun ozeki Kotooshu around soon after the faceoff and sent him out of the raised ring. Bulgarian Kotooshu dropped to 8-4.
Ozeki Tochiazuma bounced back from Tuesday's loss to Kotomitsuki, when he threw rising star Homasho down onto the dirt surface. Tochiazuma improved to 9-3 while Homasho, a 11th-ranked maegashira, fell to 10-2.
Elsewhere, Kotoshogiku quickly grabbed komusubi Roho with a right-hand grip before forcing the Russian out to pick up his seventh win against five losses. Roho fell to 6-6. Komusubi Kisenosato drove out second-ranked maegashira Futeno to improve to 6-6, while dealing the second-ranked maegashira his eighth loss against four wins.
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