■ BASEBALL
Yankees sign China deal
The Yankees became the first Major League Baseball (MLB) club to enter into a sponsorship deal with a company from China, announcing an agreement on Monday with that nation's largest dairy company, the Yili Group, to advertise at Yankee Stadium and in Yankees Magazine. Earlier this year, the Yankees and the Chinese Baseball Association entered into a working agreement. On July 6, the Yankees will introduce left-handed pitcher Liu Kai and catcher Zhang Zhenwang, who became the first Chinese players to sign with an MLB organization.
■ SOCCER
Fan killed in brawl
A soccer fan was killed and several others were injured during a clash between rival fans in the Argentine capital Buenos Aires, an emergency services official said on Monday. "A male of age 41 has been killed. He came in with severe head injuries ... Unfortunately he died," Alberto Crescenti, general director of SAME, the medical emergency services, told local radio. The brawl flared up when the referee awarded a penalty against home team Chicago, which was losing 1-2 against visiting El Tigre. Local TV broadcast images of the rival fans storming the field and throwing objects at each other.
■ ATHLETICS
Local youth excel
Young athletes from Taiwan won a total of six gold, four silver and four bronze medals at the just-concluded 41st International Children's Games (ICG) held in Reykjavik, Iceland, Taipei city government officials said on Monday. The 17-member team took park in four events -- judo, badminton, golf and swimming, the officials said, adding that the number of medals won by the team was five more than last year's figure. A total of 964 young athletes, mostly junior and senior high school students, from 64 cities in 33 countries took part in the ICG. According to city officials, China tried unsuccessfully to bar the Taiwanese students from wearing the Republic of China national flag to receive their trophies during the medal-presentation ceremonies.
■ BASEBALL
Interleague attendance up
Major League Baseball interleague games averaged 34,905 fans per game this season, a 15 percent increase from games between teams in the same league. A record 8.8 million fans attended the 252 dates of interleague play, 200,000 more than last year, the commissioner's office said on Monday. Seattle's Ichiro Suzuki has this year's top interleague batting average at .486, and the New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez and Cincinnati Reds' Ken Griffey tied in home runs with eight apiece. Detroit's Justin Verlander and Oakland's Dan Haren tied for the best pitching record at 4-0, and Philadelphia's Adam Eaton had the best ERA at 1.40.
■ HORSE RACING
Jockey kicks horse
A jockey who kicked his horse in the stomach before a race was suspended for 30 days and fined US$1,000 by Philadelphia Park officials. Victor Molina's punishment was announced by his agent on Monday, three days after the rider's disciplinary hearing for kicking two-year-old colt Yes Yes Ohyes. Molina's agent, David Yannuzzy, said he was considering an appeal because the decision was too severe. Yannuzzy blamed the officials for overreacting because Molina's kick was televised, prompting fans who saw the act to call the track and complain.
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