■ BASEBALL
Maddux wins Gold Glove
San Diego Padres pitcher Greg Maddux on Tuesday won his record 17th Gold Glove, while Boston first baseman Kevin Youkilis earned his first award for fielding excellence in Major League Baseball. Detroit catcher Ivan Rodriguez won for the 13th time and outfielders Andruw Jones, Ichiro Suzuki and Torii Hunter added to their totals. The Colorado Rockies, who set an MLB record for fielding percentage, did not have a winner. Maddux broke a tie with Baltimore third-baseman Brooks Robinson and pitcher Jim Kaat for the most Gold Gloves, awarded in each league to the best fielding players at their position. Detroit second-baseman Placido Polanco was among 10 first-time winners. Polanco did not make an error this season. Suzuki won his seventh in a row, earning the honor after shifting from right field to center for Seattle.
■ SOCCER
Liverpool stadium approved
Liverpool was given permission to build a new 60,000-seat stadium on Tuesday. The decision by Liverpool City Council's planning committee allows the club to move from the 115-year-old Anfield Stadium, which seats 45,300, to the new venue, which will be built in the adjacent Stanley Park. The ?400 million (US$834.2 million) stadium will have the potential to increase its capacity to 76,000. The original stadium plans were altered after input from owners Tom Hicks and George Gillett Jr, two US businessmen who took over the Reds in March. The plans were then resubmitted to the council. Work will start by the end of the year, and Liverpool hopes to begin using the stadium in 2011.
■ INTEGRATION
Stofile rules out quotas
South African Sport and Recreation Minister Makhenkesi Stofile ruled out racial quotas for national teams on Tuesday after the mainly white Springboks' recent victory in the rugby World Cup reignited the debate over transformation. "Quotas are out. Let us put our resources into the development of talent," Stofile told a parliamentary sports committee. Stofile said black children, mostly poor, needed proper nutrition and facilities to help them develop the bone structure and muscle tone required for sports participation from an early age. About 200 million rand (US$30 million) would be needed for this purpose annually, said Stofile, who argued for the creation of a national developmental rugby squad.
■ BASKETBALL
Lakers tickets cost most
The average price of a Los Angeles Lakers season ticket is US$89.24, the highest in the NBA, a Team Marketing Report survey showed on Tuesday. That was an increase of 4.5 percent from last season. Lakers owner Jerry Buss said last month the team would look to trade Kobe Bryant, who criticized management and asked to be dealt last spring. But fans likely would prefer to have the two-time NBA scoring champion in town, since a family of four pays an average of US$453.95 a night to see the Lakers, also tops in the league, the survey's Fan Cost Index showed. The Fan Cost Index is based on four average-price tickets, two small draft beers, four small soft drinks, four regular-size hot dogs, parking for one car, two game programs and two least-expensive, adult-size adjustable caps. The league average is US$281.90.
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