■ SOCCER
Yeung biding his time
Hong Kong businessman Carson Yeung, who recently become the major shareholder of Birmingham City, said yesterday he's holding off on taking over the English Premier League team outright. Yeung's company Grandtop International Holding completed a deal last week to buy 29.91 percent of Birmingham City shares. The shares were bought from club presidents David Sullivan, Ralph Gold and David Gold, managing director Karren Brady and director Roger Bannister, all of whom still have stakes in the club.
■ JUDO
Brazilian, Cuban fans scuffle
A scuffle between Brazilian and Cuban fans at the judo forced the hasty departure of Brazilian Sports Minister Orlando Silva in the latest flare-up in the nations' rivalry at the Pan American Games on Sunday. Home fans were upset after a judge gave Cuban Sheila Espinosa the victory over Brazil's Erika Miranda in the under 52kg women's final. The fans began booing and throwing plastic cups and other objects at the judge and Espinosa. At the same time, an altercation began in the stands after fans were upset with the celebration of members of the Cuban delegation, which included former athletes such as volleyballer Regla Torres. Brazil's former Olympic champion Aurelio Miguel, a commentator for a local TV station, also got involved in the melee.
■ SOCCER
Premier League injects funds
The Premier League on Sunday agreed to pump more than £90 million (US$185 million) into the Football League in a bid to reduce the financial chasm that separates the top flight clubs and the lower league sides. The first Premier League initiative begins next season with a three-year "solidarity package" under which £31.8 million will be invested into youth development, community activities and the Football League's member clubs. Football League chairman Lord Mawhinney is confident the investment will help Championship clubs compete with their more distinguished counterparts.
■ BASKETBALLl
Yi to play for the Bucks?
Basketball star Yi Jianlin will likely play for the NBA's Milwaukee Bucks, Chinese state media reported yesterday, contradicting reports last week that the move had been ruled out. Officials with the Guangdong Tigers, Yi's Chinese team, said the earlier reports were wrong, the Beijing Daily Messenger said. "Yi will play for the Bucks after all," it quoted the team's vice general manager Liu Hongjiang as saying, giving no reason for the apparent turnaround. Yi's camp made it clear before the June 28 NBA draft that they did not want the 2.12m power forward to play for Milwaukee, one of the NBA's smallest markets and a city with a tiny Asian population.
■ BASEBALL
Coach killed by foul ball
Minor league coach Mike Coolbaugh of the Tulsa Drillers died in North Little Rock, Arkansas, on Sunday after being struck in the head by a ball during a game, police said. The Texas League game against the Arkansas Travelers was suspended in the ninth inning after Coolbaugh was struck by a hard-hit foul ball off the bat of Tino Sanchez and taken to Baptist Medical Center-North Little Rock. Phil Elson, spokesman for the Travelers, said Coolbaugh was struck by the ball on the right side of his head, or on the forehead - "I'm getting conflicting reports," he said.
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