Sao Paulo striker Adriano was unharmed after losing control of his car and crashing into three other vehicles on a Rio de Janeiro street early on Monday, authorities said.
Adriano, who is on loan from Inter Milan until June, was driving an Audi TT when he apparently struck a curb and collided with the other vehicles, the Estado de S. Paulo newspaper and other local media reported.
Nobody was injured in the accident, authorities said.
Adriano immediately reached a financial agreement with the other drivers and left the scene in a taxi, the Estado said on its Web site.
"He was with his girlfriend and they had gone out to eat," Sao Paulo director Marco Aurelio Cunha told Radio Jovem Pan. "Everything was fine ... he was in normal condition. It could've happened to anyone."
Adriano's mother said the striker was cut off by another car and couldn't avoid the collision.
"There were several reporters arriving so he decided it was better to grab a taxi and leave," Rosilda Ribeiro told Bandeirantes TV.
Adriano's agent, Gilmar Rinaldi, said the player had not been drinking, but was worried people would still think alcohol had been involved. Adriano was criticized for having an excessive nightlife in Italy, and was photographed earlier this month drinking at a party in Rio de Janeiro along with AC Milan striker Ronaldo.
"I talked to him, and he said he was sad," Rinaldi told GloboEsporte.com. "He said, `It's not possible, no one is going to believe me.'"
Adriano was signed by Sao Paulo on Dec. 19 to play in the Copa Libertadores, the Brazilian league and the Sao Paulo state championship.
During his introduction to Sao Paulo fans two weeks ago, Adriano vowed to avoid the mistakes that cost him "a year of his life" and said he was focused on returning to top form.
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