■ China
Premier League wins case
England's Premier League has won a trademark dispute giving it exclusive use in China of its crowned-lion logo. A Beijing court upheld an earlier ruling that the Xiangshi Celebration Service Company must stop using a similar lion-image trademark, court spokesman Wang Wenbo said yesterday. The dispute began in 1999 when the Chinese company registered its trademark -- nearly identical to the Premier League version, but minus a soccer ball in the lower left corner of the logo.
■ Saudi Arabia
Figo joins Al Ittihad
Portuguese soccer star Luis Figo signed with Al Ittihad on Wednesday, and will move to Saudi Arabia next week. Figo will play for six months for US$8 million, said a club official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The 34-year-old Figo has been with Inter Milan since last year. Al Ittihad won the Asian Champions League in 2004 and last year, and was knocked out in the quarterfinals this year.
■ Spain
Match promotes peace
Members of Israel's national squad partnered Palestinian players against a team representing the southern Spanish region of Andalusia on Wednesday for a friendly organized by the Peres Center for Peace aimed at promoting peace. Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres was among the 35,000 fans at Seville's Sanchez Pijuan stadium, and he and French soccer great Michel Platini performed the honorary kickoff. The proceeds from the match were to go toward financing schools in Palestinian territories in a project sponsored by the Andalusian regional government. As for the game, Andalusia beat the Israeli-Palestinians 3-1.
■ TV ratings
Defeat drew record ratings
Germany's defeat in the World Cup semi-final drew the largest-ever TV audience in that country, according to year-end ratings released on Wednesday. Some 29.66 million Germans -- out of a population of 80 million -- watched Germany's 2-0 loss to Italy on July 4. Telephone surveys estimated another 16 million followed the game on huge screens set up in public across the country. All seven of the national team's games at the World Cup, hosted by Germany, topped 20 million. The World Cup final between Italy and France got 25.88 million viewers. Michael Schumacher's final race on Oct. 22 at the Brazil Grand Prix pulled in 13.45 million.
■ Speedskating
Female athlete of the year
Speedskater Cindy Klassen was overwhelmingly voted Canada female athlete of the year for winning five medals at the Turin Olympics. She won the Bobbie Rosenfeld Award for the second straight year in the survey by The Canadian Press and Broadcast News. Klassen received 131 of 144 first-place ballots in voting by sports editors and broadcasters across Canada. In addition to her Olympic medals, Klassen set world records at 1,000m and 3,000m, took the overall title at the world all-around championships in Calgary, Alberta, and won the World Cup overall title in the 3,000m.
■ Soccer
Pauleta to stay at PSG
Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) striker Pauleta is likely to end his career at the French club. The 33-year-old Pauleta, who scored a national record 47 goals for Portugal before retiring after this year's World Cup, doesn't regret staying with PSG -- despite the club currently languishing in 16th place. "Several things made me decide to stay in Paris and probably end my career at PSG," Pauleta told the Lusa news agency on Wednesday.
■ Soccer
Schalke inquest dropped
The investigation into whether Schalke possibly committed accounting fraud after buying its old stadium for 1 euro (US$1.3) was dropped on Wednesday. The district attorney's office also dropped its investigation into whether Gelsenkirchen -- the city where Schalke plays -- had acted against the public interest by selling Parkstadion that cheaply in 2003. The office didn't say why the investigation was dropped. Schalke, rumored last year to be near bankruptcy after building an expensive stadium, was accused of hiding its financial crisis by listing Parkstadion as worth an inflated 15.6 million euros (US$19.7 million).
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