■ Hockey
Kunitz to have surgery
Anaheim Ducks forward Chris Kunitz will need surgery to repair the broken right hand he suffered in Friday's NHL playoff game. Kunitz was injured late in the third period of Detroit's 2-1 win over Anaheim on Friday in the semi-final series opener. He is expected to have the surgery tomorrow. He was a scratch for Game 2 and will likely be out for the rest of the playoffs. Anaheim beat Detroit 4-3 in overtime on Sunday to even the series at a game apiece. In 11 playoff games this season, Kunitz had a goal and five assists. He was coming off a regular season in which he posted career highs in goals (25) and points (60).
■ Basketball
NBA honors Colangelo
Bryan Colangelo, the Toronto Raptors' president and general manager, was chosen as the NBA's executive of the year for the second time on Monday. Colangelo received 20 votes. Houston Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson finished second in the voting of 45 league executives. Colangelo also won the award in 2005 with the Phoenix Suns and his father, Jerry, won the award four times. After 15 years with the Suns, Colangelo joined the Raptors in February last year and began overhauling the roster of a franchise that won only 27 games the previous season and missed the playoffs for the fourth straight time. Building around forward Chris Bosh, Colangelo added Andrea Bargnani of Italy with the first pick in last year's draft.
■ Baseball
MLB delays series by a day
Major League Baseball (MLB) has delayed the start of the World Series an extra day to Oct. 24, meaning the seventh and deciding game could be played in November for the first time. Because of extra off-days during the playoffs, a team sweeping the National League championship series would have eight days off before its World Series opener. MLB announced last summer that the Series would start on a Tuesday beginning this year under the sport's new network television contracts. However, the league decided to push back the start an extra day to Wednesday. "Starting the World Series in the middle of the week, when television viewership is historically higher, will provide more fans with the opportunity to watch the games," Bob DuPuy, MLB's chief operating office, said on Monday. "The additional off-days throughout the postseason will give us greater flexibility to facilitate travel and protect against poor weather," he said.
■ Martial arts
Federation bans garb
Muslim women who participate in competitions sanctioned by the World Taekwondo Federation will not be allowed to wear the head and body covering known as a hijab. The decision came on Monday following a request for a ruling from the Canadian Taekwondo Federation after two young Muslim girls were banned from a competition last month in Quebec. The world federation indicated in a letter to the Canadian federation that it does not recognize any religion and would not make any accommodation for the hijabs. The world federation is the sport's largest organization and is recognized by the International Olympic Committee. The rule, which forbids wearing anything under protective head gear, remains unchanged and will be in effect when the world championships begin on Friday in Beijing.
■ Cricket
Third one-dayer rained out
The third and final one-day international between Bangladesh and India was called off yesterday after heavy overnight and morning rain left the outfield waterlogged. "The match has been abandoned due to bad ground conditions," a Bangladesh Cricket Board official told reporters after the umpires had a final inspection in the early afternoon. India won the series 2-0 after comfortable victories in Dhaka and the teams will now contest a two-match test series. The first match starts in Chittagong on Friday with the second in Dhaka from May 25.
■ Soccer
Chairman killed by gunman
A gunman killed a soccer club president in the Bulgarian capital, police said on Monday -- the third president of the club to be murdered. Alexander Tasev, 45, was shot twice in the head while in his car in Sofia's upmarket Boyana neighborhood, a police spokesman said. Police provided no further details. Tasev chaired the premier division team of Lokomotiv Plovdiv. He is the third president of the club to be shot dead. His predecessor, Georgi Iliev, was murdered by a sniper in a Black Sea resort two years ago. A few months earlier, another president of the club, Nikolai Popov, was killed in Sofia.
■ Cricket
Neutral venue a no go
Australia's canceled limited overs cricket series against Zimbabwe will not be played at a neutral venue, Cricket Australia said yesterday. Cricket Australia chief executive James Sutherland contacted his Zimbabwean counterpart, Ozias Bvute, on Monday suggesting the series be played in a third country, but Bvute rejected the suggestion. Australian Prime Minister John Howard on Sunday banned Australia from playing the series in Zimbabwe on political grounds. "Mr. Bvute made it very clear that playing the series at a neutral venue was not a possibility," spokesman Peter Young said. "We can now say definitely that the series will not be happening inside or outside Zimbabwe."
■ Rugby Union
Ellis to miss World Cup
England scrum Harry Ellis has been ruled out of the World Cup later this year after being told he needs surgery to repair ligament damage to a knee. Ellis incurred the injury in Leicester's Premiership semi-final play-off win over Bristol earlier this month and his worst fears were realized on Monday. The 24-year-old has had a brilliant season for club and country and England's head coach Brian Ashton admitted he would be missed when England begin the defense of their world title in France in September. "Harry will be sorely missed," Ashton said. Ellis has already missed last weekend's Premiership final victory over Gloucester and will sit out Sunday's European Cup final against Wasps.
■ Rugby Union
Larkham joins Edinburgh
Australia flyhalf Stephen Larkham has signed a two-year contract with Edinburgh after this year's World Cup, the Scottish club said on their Web site. The 32-year-old, who has played 95 tests, turned down offers from English and French clubs to move to Scotland. "I am looking forward to coming to Edinburgh, I want to bring a winning culture to the team and to change the landscape of Edinburgh Rugby and Scottish rugby," he said. Larkham is likely to be the Wallabies' first-choice flyhalf at the World Cup in France starting in September.
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