■ Baseball
`Big Unit' agrees contract
Randy Johnson agreed to a US$26 million, two-year contract on Sunday with the Arizona Diamondbacks, with only physicals and final approvals remaining to complete his trade from the New York Yankees back to Arizona. Johnson was scheduled to take a physical yesterday and the trade probably will be finalized today. Arizona general manager Josh Byrnes confirmed the agreement but otherwise declined comment until after the medical information is reviewed. New York, which acquired the left-handed pitcher from Arizona two years ago, would receive reliever Luis Vizcaino, minor league right-handers Ross Ohlendorf and Steven Jackson and minor league shortstop Alberto Gonzalez in exchange.
■ Boxing
Fans can greet `Greatest'
Fans of Muhammad Ali can send personal greetings to the boxing great on his 65th birthday next week. Well-wishers can leave a message through the Muhammad Ali Center's Web site or get a picture taken with a birthday banner at the center on Jan. 17. School classes and groups are being encouraged to send group photos with signs or banners expressing their regards. Ali, who is suffering from Parkinson's disease, doesn't plan to attend the celebration, center spokeswoman Jeanie Kahnke said. The photos and greetings will become part of the center's archives.
■ Basketball
Beavers win at long last
Nobody understands the laws of probability better than players at the California Institute of Technology, renowned for its programs in science and math and for being lovable losers in its athletic programs. The Caltech Beavers, as they're known, finally won their first US college basketball match since 1996. They beat Bard College of New York 81-52 on Saturday, ending a run of 207 consecutive losses in Division III. "We expected to win a game, but not like this," coach Roy Dow said, a bit astounded at the surprisingly easy victory. Having ended that losing streak, however, they still had another to overcome; they have 245 consecutive defeats in their local league, the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, going back almost 22 years. They haven't begun league play yet this season.
■ Nascar
Bobby Hamilton dies at 49
Bobby Hamilton, the longtime NASCAR driver who won the 2001 Talladega 500, died of cancer on Sunday. He was 49. Hamilton, who was diagnosed with head and neck cancer in February, raced in the first three truck events of last year, with a best finish of 14th at Atlanta Motor Speedway, before turning over the wheel to his son, Bobby Hamilton Jr. The senior Hamilton then started chemotherapy and radiation treatment. By August, he had returned to work at Bobby Hamilton Racing in Mount Juliet, about 30km east of Nashville, and doctors indicated his CAT scans looked good. But microscopic cancer cells remained on the right side of his neck. Hamilton drove in all of NASCAR's top three divisions, making 371 starts and winning four times in what is now the Nextel Cup series. He won 10 truck races including the 2004 championship, and one Busch Series race.
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