■ Boxing
Page out of rehabilitation
Former heavyweight boxing champion Greg Page was released from a rehabilitation center in Louisville, Kentucky, on Tuesday, a month after he was hospitalized with pneumonia and other health problems. Page, 48, was released from Frazier Rehab Institute in Louisville. He was sent there after being hospitalized on Nov. 24. The former WBA heavyweight champ suffered brain damage after a 2001 fight in northern Kentucky. After the fight, he slipped into a coma, then had a stroke during post-fight surgery. He is paralyzed on his left side and uses a wheelchair. Page became the champ in December 1984, when he beat Gerrie Coetzee in South Africa.
■ Basketball
Nash nets athlete of the year
Phoenix Suns point guard Steve Nash, the NBA MVP for the last two seasons, was honored as Canada's male athlete of the year on Tuesday. He received The Lionel Conacher Award as the top vote-getter in a survey by The Canadian Press and Broadcast News. Nash beat out fellow MVPs Justin Morneau of baseball's Minnesota Twins and Joe Thornton of ice hockey's San Jose Sharks in balloting of sports editors and broadcasters across Canada. "It's incredible, I suppose," Nash said. "Somehow I believe though that they just pulled my name from a hat because there's no way I'm more deserving than those guys. I imagine it was just the luck of the draw." Nash, who is from Victoria, British Columbia, also won this award in 2002 and last year.
■ Ice Hockey
Young player dies
A 17-year-old ice hockey player collapsed and died during a tournament in Scarborough, Ontario on Tuesday, the Toronto Star reported. Alex Corrance, a defenseman, was playing for the Mississauga Rebels when he fell to the ice early in a game against the rival Mississauga Ice Dogs. His father, Alan Corrance, is the Rebels' team manager and was on the bench when the younger Corrance collapsed. Trainers and emergency officials weren't able to revive him. "You feel badly if someone gets a concussion or breaks an arm or leg but this ... this is terrible," Rebels general manager Bart Marcolini told the newspaper. "He was probably one of the healthiest on the team. You'd think there would be signs, but there weren't ... I've been in hockey for 66 years and nothing like this has ever happened before." An autopsy was scheduled for yesterday, the paper reported.
■ Rugby Union
Williams regrets red card
Wales flanker Martyn Williams has admitted he was stupid to pick up a red card which could mean he misses the start of the Six Nations. The 31-year-old Cardiff and British Lions star was dismissed for headbutting Neath-Swansea scrum-half Jason Spice in Saturday's Celtic League clash and now faces an anxious wait to find out what suspension he will receive. Wales' opening Six Nations match against Ireland is on Feb. 4 and Williams could be looking at a ban of around four to six weeks.
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