■ Auto Racing
Edwards wins in Nashville
Carl Edwards raced to his fourth NASCAR Busch Series victory of the season on Saturday night, easily beating Clint Bowyer in the Federated Auto Parts 300 for the Nextel Cup driver's third straight win at Nashville Superspeedway in Tennessee. Following the race, Edwards -- the runaway leader in the season standings -- executed his signature backflip off of his car, this time landing on all fours. Edwards took the lead with 33 laps to go and beat Bowyer by 1.656 seconds. Jason Leffler was third, followed by Scott Wimmer and Regan Smith. Edwards started seventh but nearly missed his qualifying attempt. He arrived at the track by helicopter, jumped out in his race uniform, signed in and sprinted to his car with about 60 seconds to spare.
■ Basketball
Nuggets' Smith hurt in crash
Denver Nuggets player J.R. Smith and another man were seriously injured on Saturday when the sport utility vehicle Smith was driving collided with a car. Smith and the unidentified passenger were thrown from the vehicle in the crash, which occurred at around 5:30pm in Millstone Township, New Jersey, said Sergeant Stephen Jones, a state police spokesman. The passenger -- who had serious head wounds -- was airlifted to Jersey Shore University Hospital in Neptune, New Jersey while Smith was taken there via ambulance. Further details on their injuries were not immediately available on Saturday night. Smith's vehicle apparently went through a stop sign, Jones said, and collided with the other car. The driver of that vehicle and two others were injured and taken to CentraState Medical Center in Freehold, New Jersey, but their injuries were not considered serious.
■ Boxing
Adamek wins IBO title
Poland's Tomasz Adamek stopped Luis Pineda of Panama in the seventh round on Saturday to capture the vacant IBO cruiserweight title in Katowice, Poland. Adamek used a quick left jab to control the fight from the start. In the seventh, the Pole landed a solid left, stunning Pineda, then followed with a string of blows as Pineda leaned on the ropes before the referee stepped in and called the fight. "I really wanted to put on a good boxing display," Adamek said. "It worked out. I'm ready to fight with anybody." Adamek, the former WBC light-heavyweight champion, improved to 32-1 and rebounds from his loss to Chad Dawson by an unanimous decision in February. Pineda drops to 21-6. On the undercard, Polish heavyweight Andrzej Golota returned to the ring after a two-year hiatus to beat Jeremy Bates of the US. Golota was rusty from the long layoff, but dominated the overmatched Bates from the start, pushing the US boxer around the ring.
■ Horse racing
Filly wins Belmont
Rags to Riches became the first filly to win the Belmont Stakes in 102 years when she won a thrilling stretch duel with Preakness champion Curlin to triumph by a head on Saturday. Rags to Riches, unbeaten in four races this year against fillies, proved herself against the colts as the 4-1 third pick in the US$1 million race, which was contested by a seven-horse field chasing the final jewel of this year's Triple Crown series. She overcame a stumble out of the gate and made her move at the top of the stretch, going four wide to charge to victory with John Velazquez aboard.
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