McLaren's Fernando Alonso and Lewis Hamilton remain focused on their tussle for the Formula One world title, despite the fact that their season could be over before the next race as a result of the Ferrari spy scandal.
"There are still four races to go and the fight is still on," Hamilton said on Sunday after finishing second to his teammate at the Italian Grand Prix.
Two-time defending F1 champion Alonso took the checkered flag for his 19th career grand prix triumph, his fourth this year, and first at Monza. His victory also moved him to within three points of rookie Hamilton at the top of the driver's standings.
"Yes but nothing changes really," Alonso said. "The gap is more or less the same ... and I think it will stay like that until the last race."
McLaren has a hearing before the World Motor Sport Council on Thursday which could result in a two-year ban for the team from Formula One -- and end Alonso and Hamilton's season-long rivalry for supremacy on the track.
The International Automobile Federation called the hearing after it said it had "new evidence" in Ferrari's dispute with McLaren.
The case ignited in July when technical data about the Italian team's cars turned up in the possession of McLaren's chief designer.
That said, neither driver seemed to be entertaining that possibility of not competing in the remaining four races of the season.
"We will see the championship go down to the wire I am sure, and perhaps in the last race you see who comes out first," the 22-year-old Hamilton 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