Casey Stoner won the Chinese Grand Prix yesterday to secure his second straight MotoGP victory and firm his hold on the championship lead.
The Australian started fourth on the grid, but his Ducati blew past pole-sitter Valentino Rossi at the start of the second lap, forcing the seven-time world champion into second place.
"It was a really difficult race today. I had a lot of pressure from Valentino in the rear," Stoner said after the race. "I think both of us were pushing quite hard."
PHOTO: EPA
Stoner's remarks downplayed his substantial speed advantage over Rossi's Yamaha on the long straights at the 5.3km Shanghai International Circuit.
Stoner's GP7 hit a maximum speed of 337.2kph in the warmup compared to 325.7kph for Rossi's bike.
"It was a good race for me because we always knew this weekend would be difficult because we miss some speed on the big straight," said Rossi, who nevertheless smashed the circuit's fastest-lap record in Saturday's qualifying.
Rossi's final bid to pass Stoner on a hairpin near the end of the 15th lap went badly, sending him well wide onto the grass. The Italian continued to push hard but never seriously challenged again, finishing 3.036 seconds behind Stoner, who took the win in 44 minutes, 12.891 seconds.
The win is the third in four races for Stoner, coming two weeks after his victory in Turkish Grand Prix. That leaves him atop the riders standings with 86 points, ahead of Rossi on 71 and Spanish Honda rider Dani Pedrosa with 49.
Rossi has one victory, at the season's second race in Spain, but has yet to win from any of his three pole positions this year.
John Hopkins of the US was third on a Suzuki at 6.663 seconds off the lead.
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