■RUGBY UNION
Johnson says no to top job
The Wallabies' assistant coach Scott Johnson has withdrawn from the selection process to succeed John Connolly as Australia's next head rugby coach, the Australian Rugby Union (ARU) said yesterday. Johnson was one of six candidates scheduled to be interviewed yesterday, but confirmed he was withdrawing from the interview process. "It's a personal decision and we respect that," ARU high performance manager Pat Howard said. "The process will continue with the [other] five and a recommendation will be made out of that," Howard said.
■ SOCCER
Inter, Pele aid celebrations
A fit-again Marco Materazzi helped the Inter Milan under-19s beat Sheffield FC 5-2 in a match celebrating the 150th anniversary of the world's first soccer club on Thursday. Sheffield FC, an amateur side playing eight divisions below the English Premier League, were formed in October 1857 and introduced the original 11 rules of soccer. Those faded documents were unveiled for the first time in 40 years by Pele at the club museum hours earlier at Bramall Lane, the oldest stadium still hosting professional matches.
■ BASEBALL
Tampa Bay reinvents itself
The Tampa Bay Devil Rays are gone. Trying to reinvent itself, the perennial last-place Major League Baseball team officially shortened its nickname to simply the "Rays" during a celebration that brought a crowd of about 7,000 to a downtown park in St Petersburg, Florida, on Thursday. New team colors and uniforms also were unveiled during a fashion show featuring current players, as well as manager Joe Maddon, senior advisor Don Zimmer and former Tampa Bay stars Wade Boggs and Fred McGriff as models. Navy blue and light blue have replaced green and black as the primary colors.
■ RUGBY UNION
'Boks lift overseas ban
South Africa's rugby bosses on Thursday lifted the ban on overseas-based players not being eligible for national selection. The decision means the likes of World Cup-winning Springboks captain John Smit, lock Victor Matfield, flyhalf Butch James, fullback Percy Montgomery and hooker Gary Botha -- who have all signed up to play for clubs in Europe during the next year -- will still be available to play for the Springboks. There are well over 100 South African born players plying their trade at clubs in England, France, Italy and Ireland.
■ CYCLING
Adidas to pull sponsorship
Adidas will end its sponsorship of T-Mobile because of more doping revelations around the German cycling team. Telekom, the team's main sponsor, also is considering terminating its relationship with the team, which bears the name of its subsidiary. That could lead car company Audi and bike manufacturer Giant to follow suit. "Obviously it's a long story of doping and discussions with Telekom," Jan Runau, Adidas Group spokesman, said on Thursday. "We have told Telekom of our decision and we are in talks to get out of the contract early." Runau said Adidas, whose contract runs through to next year, has been talking to Telekom about the doping problems since last year's scandal-ridden Tour de France. The companies have other intertwining sponsorships, including Bayern Munich and Germany's national team.
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