Robby Gordon of the US, driving a Hummer, won the sixth stage of the Dakar Rally on Thursday finishing ahead of Jean-Louis Schlesser of France and South Africa's Giniel De Villiers.
It was the race's longest stage over 817km from Tan-Tan in Morocco.
Spanish KTM rider Jordi Villadoms won the motorcycle section ahead of compatriot and race leader Marc Coma and Chris Blais of the US.
PHOTO: AFP
KTM riders took the top six places with Villadoms covering the 394km of special stages between Tan-Tan and Zouerat in 3 hours 45 minutes 45 seconds, finishing 57 seconds ahead of Coma with Blais a minute behind.
In the overall standings, Marc Coma maintained his lead in the motorbike section while former world rally champion Carlos Sainz stays in charge of the race for the auto title.
Sainz was fourth overall on Thursday.
PHOTO: AFP
"I really went flat out today," said Gordon. "A year ago, on the same special stage, we lost 20 minutes, but this year we won. I was a bit worried about the petrol level so I slowed down at the end."
Villadoms was overjoyed with his stage win.
"It's my first ever stage victory," he said.
"I knew I was riding well because I caught up with Cyril Despres. However, I didn't catch up with Marc [Coma] and Isidre [Esteve], so until the finishing line I wasn't aware of it," the Spaniard said.
"I didn't expect to win a stage that quickly. Of course, it's what you aim to do, but for this Dakar, my objective is to help out Marc first and foremost," he said.
For former NASCAR ace Gordon, who finished 17 seconds ahead of Schlesser, it was his third career stage win in the event adding to successes in 2005.
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