■ Triathlon
Ospaly wins Madrid event
Filip Ospaly won the Madrid World Cup Triathlon on Sunday after overtaking Javier Gomez Noya of Spain at the end of the 10km run to win by an overall five seconds. The Czech covered the 1,500m swim, 40km cycle and run in 1 hour, 55 minutes, 46 seconds. Ivan Rana of Spain was third, 21 seconds behind Ospaly. Australia's Peter Robertson, who was world champion in 2001, 2003 and 2005, fell behind early and finished 17th. Vanessa Fernandes of Portugal won the women's triathlon in 2 hours, 7 minutes, 33 seconds, ahead of Andrea Hewitt of New Zealand.
■ Athletics
Kenyans win marathon
Reuben Chepkwek and Jacquiline Chebor made it a Kenyan double in the Sao Paulo marathon on Sunday. Chepkwek took the men's race in 2 hours, 16 minutes, 5 seconds, beating Michael Tluway Mislay of Tanzania by 22 seconds in the streets of South America's biggest city. Luis Paulo da Silva Antunes of Brazil was third in 2:17:15. It was the sixth win by Kenyan men, matching Brazil's number of victories in the race's 13-year history. In the women's race, Chebor clocked 2:40:17 to beat Marizete Moreira Santos of Brazil by 37 seconds. "She maintained a better rhythm and opened up a good advantage," Santos said.
■ Boxing
Tyson warms to Bollywood
Mike Tyson wants to take on something new — acting in India's Bollywood movies. Tyson said the energy on the sets of a promotional video he recently shot for a new Indian movie has got him thinking about attempting more Bollywood work, a newspaper reported yesterday. The American boxer said in the Times of India interview that Firoz Nadiadwala, producer of Fool n Final — for which Tyson shot the video — had approached him with another film script. "Firoz has discussed a movie with me," the paper quoted him as saying. "We seriously intend to work toward it," Tyson was quoted as saying, without disclosing any details.
■ Cricket
Ashraful made skipper
Batsman Mohammad Ashraful is the new Bangladesh cricket captain, replacing Habibal Bashar who stood down as one-day skipper last month. Ashraful will lead both the test and limited-overs sides until the ICC Twenty20 World Cup in South Africa in September, the Bangladesh Cricket Board announced on Sunday. His first task will be leading the team on the Sri Lanka tour later this month. Bashar stepped down as one-day captain following the recent home series defeat to India, but had initially wanted to stay on to lead the test side. During his three-year stint, he captained Bangladesh to 29 one-day victories in 69 matches, and one win in 18 Tests.
■ Baseball
Piniella suspended
Chicago Cubs manager Lou Piniella was suspended indefinitely and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Baseball (MLB) on Sunday for his latest dirt-kicking tirade against an umpire. Piniella was ejected in the eighth inning of Saturday's 5-3 loss to the Atlanta Braves. After Angel Pagan was thrown out trying to steal third, Piniella stormed out of the dugout and kicked dirt as he argued and tossed his cap, leading to his ejection by third-base umpire Mark Wegner. MLB also said that Piniella made contact with Wegner during the outburst. Piniella will begin serving his suspension on Sunday.
agencies
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