■ AUSTRALIA
Eales backs Deans
Former Australia captain John Eales has backed Robbie Deans to take over as coach of the Wallabies, despite widespread opposition to a New Zealander getting the top job. Eales, who led the Wallabies to victory in the 1999 World Cup, said the Canterbury Crusaders coach had better credentials than the five Australians vying for the job. "If you look at his coaching record he does stand out over all the other coaching candidates," Eales told ABC radio yesterday. "Robbie Deans stacks up against any coach anywhere in the world. If somebody like that is available, it's hard to find a reason why you would not go for him." Since taking over as the Crusaders head coach in 2000, Deans has guided the New Zealand side to four Super 12 and Super 14 titles.
■ WALES
Suspended sentences
Two Newport Gwent Dragons players were given suspended sentences on Monday after being involved in a fracas at a Treviso night club in the early hours of Sunday morning. Treviso police said center Rhodri Gomer-Davies and Wales prop Rhys Thomas were charged with resisting arrest, assaulting a public official, violence, threatening behavior and theft. The police said in a statement that the players had been given four-month and two-month sentences, although they did not specify which player was given which punishment. The pair also paid for damages Davies caused by headbutting the windscreen of a police car before they flew home on Monday. Davies and Thomas were celebrating the Welsh side's 35-33 Heineken Cup victory over Benetton Treviso on Saturday in which they both scored tries.
■ WALES
Henson to deny charge
Wales center Gavin Henson will deny behaving in a disorderly manner when he appears in court next month in connection with allegations of drunken antics on a train, his club side said on Monday. "Gavin vehemently denies the charge and the Ospreys are fully in support of him in this matter," a spokesman for the club said in a statement after police said Henson would be summoned to appear on public order charges. "The club has spent a great deal of time over the past week speaking with Gavin and related parties surrounding the events that occurred on Sunday, December 2. It is our judgment that Gavin's personal conduct itself was not such as to warrant direct disciplinary action by the Ospreys." Henson, 25, and three friends have been ordered to appear before magistrates in Cardiff on Jan. 14 following an incident on a train.
■ NEW ZEALAND
Majority support Henry
A majority of New Zealanders support the reappointment of Graham Henry as All Blacks coach, although he led the team last month to their worst performance in Rugby World Cup history, a survey shows. The survey, conducted by URM research and released yesterday, shows 61 percent of New Zealand approved of the New Zealand Rugby Union's decision last week to reappoint Henry for a two-year term. Henry became the first All Blacks coach to retain his job after a Rugby World Cup defeat, holding out a challenge for his position from successful Canterbury Crusaders Super 14 coach Robbie Deans. The URM survey showed support for Henry declined with age. Henry's reappointment was approved by 74 percent of respondents aged under 30 but only 51 percent of those over 60.
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