■ AUSTRALIA
Stan Lazaridis banned
Ex-Australia soccer international Stan Lazaridis has been banned for 12 months for failing a doping test, but will be able to play in the country's domestic competition later this season. Lazaridis tested positive to the prohibited substance finasteride last November, and was suspended following a lengthy legal process that included a formal hearing of Football Federation Australia's anti-doping tribunal in May. Lazaridis was informed yesterday that he will banned for a year, backdated to the date of his positive test.
■ UNITED STATES
Rapids beat Galaxy
Conor Casey and Colin Clark scored eight minutes apart in the first half to lift the Colorado Rapids to a 3-0 victory over the Los Angeles Galaxy, who were without David Beckham on Sunday. Mike Petke added a goal for Colorado, which kept Los Angeles winless away from home this season. The crowd of 18,086 was dotted with fans wearing Beckham jerseys. He didn't accompany Los Angeles due to an ankle injury. On Thursday, Beckham played the entire 90 minutes for the third time in six days against Chivas USA. He was limping slightly near the end of that game. Los Angeles threatened early in the match. At the six minute mark, Edson Buddle's header sailed a foot wide of the left post.
■ UNITED STATES
Players enter Hall of Fame
Two-time FIFA Women's Player of the Year Mia Hamm was inducted into the US Soccer Hall of Fame on Sunday, entering the shrine with teammate Julie Foudy and Alan Rothenberg, the head of the 1994 World Cup who made it the most attended soccer championship in history. Hamm, who won two Women's World Cup and two Olympic titles between 1991 and 2004, spoke on Sunday before a record crowd of 4,800, many of them youngsters, at the National Soccer Hall of Fame. Rothenberg, who ran soccer at the 1984 Olympics, took over the US World Cup effort at FIFA's insistence, running an event that attracted an audience of 3.5 million. The other inductee enshrined on Sunday was US defender Bobby Smith, who played alongside Pele for the New York Cosmos in the North American Soccer League and earned 18 caps with the US national team.
■ ARGENTINA
River Plate upset 1-0
First-division newcomers San Martin shocked River Plate 1-0 on Sunday, adding the first loss of the season to the Buenos Aires club's early season troubles. San Martin won on a 75th-minute goal by Jose Sebastian Brusco. Meanwhile, unbeaten Independiente remained alone atop the standings after four weeks of the Apertura season, beating Argentinos Juniors 1-0 when German Denis converted from a 50m pass from Daniel Montenegro. Independiente won their fourth straight and climbed to 12 points, three ahead of Banfield and five ahead of both Estudiantes and Boca Juniors.
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