Taiwan out of Futsal Cup
Taiwan was swept out of the qualifiers for the Asia Futsal Cup on Monday after its match with Lebanon ended in a 1-1 tie. Taiwan took the lead when Tseng Tai-lin (
Baseball up and running
The CPBL spring training schedule got under way on Monday when the Brother Elephants played the Macoto Cobras and the Chinatrust Whales matched up against the Sinon Bulls. After revamping their lineup following a disappointing season last year, the Elephants overcame a shaky start by lefty Nicholas Bierbrod to squeak by with a 6-5 win on an errant throw in the bottom of the ninth by Cobras shortstop Kuo Ming-jen (郭銘仁). The Whales-Bulls match turned into a pitchers' duel, ending in a 1-1 tie after nine innings.
Cobras to continue in 2007
Lin Chih-kuang (林致光), owner of the Macoto Cobras, yesterday announced that the team would retain the name for 2007 after a proposed deal to sell off the team finally fell through. Lin said that despite the pressure on him running the team, he would continue to do so over the coming season rather than disband it. The aborted deal to rename the team the Chiuho Dragons will reportedly cost it more than NT$3 million.
Wang's half-million bargain
Yankees pitcher Wang Chien-ming (王建民) yesterday agreed to a one-year deal with the team worth around US$500,000. Though much higher than Taiwanese salaries, the deal is a bargain for the Yankees. Wang's big payday will come this off-season, however, when he becomes eligible for arbitration.
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