■ SOCCER
Chasetown stun Port Vale
English minor league club Chasetown stunned League One Port Vale 1-0 on Tuesday to reach the third round of the FA Cup for the first time. The tiny Midlands club from the Southern League -- five divisions below their opponents -- held Vale to a 1-1 away draw in their initial second-round meeting then took their scalp in the home replay when Danny Smith struck a minute from time. Chasetown, who were in the Midlands Alliance last year, will now host Cardiff City in the third round.
■ CYCLING
Tour dates announced
Next year's Tour de Taiwan, the nation's most prestigious cycling event, will be held between March 9 and March 16, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the event, the Chinese Taipei Cycling Association said at a press conference on Tuesday. The race will have eight stages and cover a distance of 861.2km, setting off from Kaohsiung and finishing in Taipei. In between, the route covers the western counties of Pingtung, Changhua, Taichung, Hsinchu and will finish at the Nangang Exhibition Hall in Taipei.
■ MOTOR RACING
Schumi takes control
Michael Schumacher can add the unofficial title of Germany's fastest taxi driver to his other achievements after taking over behind the wheel to get his family to the airport on time. The retired Formula One champion drove the cab back to the airport himself after a trip out to the village of Gehuelz, near Coburg in southern Germany, left the family short of time to make their flight home, the Muenchner Abendzeitung newspaper reported. "It was crazy having Schumi driving, with me in the passenger seat," the taxi driver was quoted as saying.
■ SOCCER
Kahn suspended by Bayern
Bayern Munich goalkeeper and captain Oliver Kahn has been suspended for one game and fined by coach Ottmar Hitzfeld on "disciplinary grounds." Neither the club nor the goalkeeper gave the reason for his suspension. "I am not so surprised," Kahn said. "I understand it. Discipline has to be the highest requirement." He was also fined 25,000 euros (US$36,500). Bayern president Franz Beckenbauer hinted that the reason for Kahn's punishment was his early departure from the team's Christmas party. "It's a time that brings the team together," Beckenbauer said on German television. "He's the captain and he can't just get up and leave early."
■ CRICKET
IOC recognition welcomed
Cricket's world chief yesterday welcomed the International Olympic Committee's (IOC) move to grant recognition to his sport, saying it would help to boost cricket's profile. "This is great news," International Cricket Council president Ray Mali said in a statement after cricket was given the status of a "recognized sport" by the IOC. "The Olympic Movement is instantly recognizable around the world and for cricket to be a part of that again has to be a good thing," he said. The IOC said on Monday that cricket was accorded this status for two years, usually granted to sports that are not part of the Olympic program but conform to its ideals of youth promotion and anti-doping policies. Cricket could receive permanent status in 2009 and then would be eligible to be part of the Olympics, as it was in the 1900 Paris Games. In the Paris Games, Britain -- represented by the Devon and Somerset Wanderers -- beat a French team mainly made up of British embassy staff.
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