■ RALLYING
Hirvonen takes lead
Finland's Mikko Hirvonen, driving a Ford Focus, led the Rally of Great Britain after Friday's rain-hit opening day, ahead of Marcus Gronholm and three-time defending world champion Sebastien Loeb. After the day's six special stages, or 140km of timed sections, Hirvonen led Finland's Gronholm by 39 seconds and Loeb by 57 seconds. Hirvonen won five of the six special stages.
■ Stunt riding
Legendary daredevil dies
Motorcycle daredevil Evel Knievel, who wowed and terrified crowds with his daring long-distance leaps and equally spectacular falls, died on Friday at the age of 69, his Web site said. The site gave no cause of death for Knievel, the man who survived death-defying stunts in the 1960s and 1970s, notably a 1974 jump over the Snake River Canyon in Idaho with a rocket-propelled bike. But US media said Knievel died of lung failure. He also suffered from diabetes and liver disease. Knievel finally retired at the end of the 1970s, without achieving his dream of leaping the Grand Canyon on his bike, as the authorities refused permission to install the necessary ramp in the national park.
■ Soccer
Hannover leave it late
Frank Fahrenhorst scored in the 84th minute to spark a late goal burst as Hannover 96 beat Hansa Rostock 3-0 on Friday, Rostock's third loss in four games. Fahrenhorst scored from a header while Mike Hanke followed in the 86th and Jiri Stajner a minute later as Hannover won for the second time in six games and moved up to sixth place in the Bundesliga. The game appeared to be headed toward a draw in the last 10 minutes when Szabolcs Huszti's free kick was deflected toward Fahrenhorst, who converted to spark the goal spree.
■ Soccer
South Africa drop McCarthy
South Africa have ditched star striker Benni McCarthy for next year's African Nations Cup in Ghana. Brazilian coach Carlos Alberto Parreira also dumped first choice defender Bradley Carnell and midfielders Delron Buckley and Macbeth Sibaya from a 23-man squad named on Friday. McCarthy's Blackburn Rovers teammate Aaron Moekoena (68 caps) and Arminia Bielefeld striker Sibusiso Zuma (59) are easily the most experienced members of a group that includes eight overseas-based players and 15 from the South Africa Premiership. Goalkeeper Itumeleng Khune from Kaizer Chiefs and striker Excellent Walaza from Orlando Pirates are the two uncapped players in a squad grouped with Angola, Senegal and Tunisia in a wide open Nations Cup mini-league.
■ Soccer
Champions League changing
UEFA is opening up the Champions League to more clubs from smaller countries. In a number of changes to the competition approved on Friday, UEFA also said three English, Italian and Spanish clubs will qualify automatically for the Champions League starting in 2009. Under the current format, only the top two teams from the English Premier League, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga are guaranteed a spot in the group stage. That season's final in 2010 will then be held on a Saturday for the first time, instead of its traditional Wednesday date. UEFA's executive committee said six of the 32 places in the group stage would be reserved for champions from Europe's less competitive leagues, to bring more countries into the continent's top club competition.
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