■ CYCLING
Rider in double trouble
German cyclist Stefan Schumacher had amphetamines in his blood when stopped for drunken driving last year, police said on Tuesday. The 26-year-old Gerolsteiner rider was pulled over by police in Stuttgart on Oct. 7, six days after he won a road race bronze medal at the cycling world championships. His license was revoked for 10 months and he was fined 10,000 euros (US$14,500). The German cycling federation is now trying to determine if police discovering amphetamines in Schumacher's system instead of sports authorities constitutes a doping violation in sport.
■ SOCCER
Coach to pay compensation
FIFA have ordered FC Porto's former Dutch coach Co Adriaanse to pay the club 1.15 million euros (US$1.7 million) in compensation for abruptly terminating his contract without a reason in 2006, the Portuguese outfit announced on Tuesday. A judge sitting on the governing body of world soccer's Player Statutes Commission examined the case and found against Adriaanse and his assistant Jan Olde Riederink, who was told to pay 146,250 euros (US$656,000) in compensation, FC Porto said in a statement. "Unprecedented. For the first time in the world of football a coach has to compensate a club after terminating his contract without a reason," the club said.
■ BASEBALL
'Goose' finally finds fame
Pitcher Rich Gossage, who was in his ninth year on the ballot, was the lone athlete elected to American baseball's Hall of Fame on Tuesday. Gossage easily surpassed the 75 percent needed to get into the Hall, garnering 86 percent of the votes. In recent years, Gossage expressed anger over his exclusion, but his hopes were raised last year, when he fell only 21 votes shy of election with 71.2 percent. Gossage, who was called the "Goose," posted 310 saves during an illustrious 22-year Major League Baseball career from 1972 to 1994.
■ BOXING
Brawl lands ex-champ in jail
France's former WBA light heavyweight champion Mehdi Sahnoune was on Tuesday handed a three-year prison sentence, of which two years were suspended, for his part in a gang attack on a fisherman outside a nightclub. Sahnoune, 31, and a second accused, Bruno Bertagna, were both ordered to spend one year behind bars and fined 2,500 euros (US$3,678) for the attack on the 27-year-old victim in March 2002. The court heard that six men cornered Abdelaziz El Hermi outside a nightclub near Aix-en-Provence simply because they did not like "the overly exuberant manner" in which he danced. El Hermi suffered six fractures to his skull.
■ MOTORSPORT
Chile aims for Dakar Rally
The Chilean government will back a proposal to bring the Dakar Rally to South America after terrorist threats forced the cancellation of the off-road endurance race traditionally staged across the Sahara desert. The head of the Chilean Tourism Service, Oscar Santelices, said a formal letter will be sent next week to the France-based Amaury Sports Organization (ASO) -- organizers of the rally -- expressing Chile's interest to host it. The reaction in Chile came after the Spanish sports newspaper As reported that South America was being considered as an alternative to Africa.
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