Dario Franchitti collected more in race winnings from his Indianapolis 500 victory than he had from any other full season of his career.
Franchitti's victory in Sunday's race, which was shortened by rain to 415 of 500 miles (668 of 800km), was worth US$1,645,233 from a record purse of nearly US$10.7 million. The prize package was announced on Monday night at the annual victory dinner. The previous record was US$10.5 million last year.
Franchitti, a 34-year-old native of Scotland, had finished seventh and sixth in the two previous years at Indy and had his best-previous earnings year in 1998 with US$1.4 million when he won three races on the CART circuit, now called Champ Car.
Sunday's race was interrupted by rain for three hours shortly after the midway point with Tony Kanaan, Franchitti's best friend and Andretti Green Racing teammate, in the lead. Kanaan led a race-high 83 laps but he and several other contenders chose to pit for fuel and tires just laps ahead of the race-ending rainstorm.
Kanaan, who finished 12th, earned the fourth most from the purse with US$414,319, behind second-place finisher Scott Dixon's US$719,067 and third-place finisher Helio Castroneves' US$646,303.
Kanaan also received the annual Scott Brayton Award, the driver best exemplifying the character and racing spirit of Scott Brayton — the driver who was killed in practice after winning the pole in 1996.
Phil Giebler, one of just two first-time drivers in Sunday's race, won the rookie of the year award after finishing 29th, two spots ahead of Venezuelan Milka Duno.
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