■ BOXING
Tyson's drug trial postponed
Former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson appeared in court in Mesa, Arizona, on Thursday and learned he will go on trial on Aug. 20 on charges of drug possession and driving under the influence of drugs. Tyson was fresh out of a California rehabilitation facility and said very little during the five-minute proceeding. "Yes, ma'am," were his only words, uttered after Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Sherry Stephens asked if he agreed to the trial date, which was pushed back 30 days at his attorneys' request. Tyson did not speak outside the courtroom, where reporters tried to question him and followed him to a luxury sport-utility vehicle.
■ SOCCER
Online bettors jailed
A Vietnamese court has jailed 12 members of an illegal online soccer betting ring and handed suspended terms to 10 more defendants, the state-run Vietnam News Agency said yesterday. The network based in Ho Chi Minh City took online bets worth up to US$50,000 per day on matches in the Vietnamese domestic league and in Germany, Italy, Spain, Britain and in the European Championships from 2003 to 2005. The Ho Chi Minh City People's Court on Thursday sentenced 22 defendants -- three men to between four and seven years and nine men to between one and three years, the state media report said. Ten members of the network were given suspended sentences of one to three years, the news agency said.
■ RUGBY
Aussie union chief to resign
Gary Flowers said yesterday he will resign as chief executive officer of the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) at the end of the year. Flowers became head of the union in June 2004. "After much thought and discussion with my family I have informed the chairman and the board of the ARU that I will not be seeking to enter a new contract," Flowers said at a media conference. "The terms of my contract stipulate that I give advance notice of my intentions and I have reached the conclusion that now is the time to announce it." Flowers replaced John O'Neill as head of the union after O'Neill left to become chief executive of Football Federation Australia, the top soccer body in Australia. O'Neill has since resigned.
■ RUGBY
Larkham considers offer
Australian star fly-half Stephen Larkham is considering an offer to join leading French club Toulouse after this year's World Cup, reports said yesterday. The club has made Larkham a "lucrative" offer to take over from Frederik Michalak, who opted to join the Natal Sharks for next year's Super 14 tourney, rugbyexclusive.com reported. "The idea of playing for a great club like Toulouse is very attractive and it certainly would be another challenge," the rangy playmaker was quoted as saying.
■ BADMINTON
Chen's return questioned
Chinese badminton coach Li Yongbo said Chen Hong's comeback to competition after retiring for only two months was not good for the national team, local media reported. World No. 5 Chen, who quit the national team after being omitted from the talent-rich squad for December's Asian Games, returned to action this week as a free player at the Asian Championships in Malaysia. Chen competing as a free agent outside the national team -- paying his own tour expenses but keeping all of his winnings -- was "absolutely not a good thing for the national team," Li said.
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