Alex Ovechkin won the breakaway challenge in the NHL's SuperSkills competition on Saturday, leading the Eastern Conference to a 9-6 victory over the West in the preview to the All-Star game.
Ovechkin's artistry was rewarded by a panel of judges who rewarded creativity over scoring shots.
Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk went to his knees for a sliding attempt. Anaheim's Ryan Getzlaf went behind the net before shooting. Washington's Ovechkin bounced the puck off his stick before whiffing on a baseball swing but still earned 32 points.
For his second try, Ovechkin scooped the puck off the ice, flipped it into the air, spun on the ice and took another baseball swing -- again missing but again drawing big points from the celebrity panel of former Thrashers captain Scott Mellanby, NBA Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins of the Atlanta Hawks, actor Taylor Kitsch, and broadcaster Bill Clement.
ACCURATE SHOOTER
Ovechkin wasn't the only East player taking individual honors in the skills competition. Toronto's Tomas Kaberle was the most accurate shooter and Boston's Zdeno Chara fired the hardest shot at 166kph before Ovechkin won the final event.
Fancy shooting by New York Islanders goaltender Rick DiPietro helped the East win the obstacle course, the first competition. DiPietro capped the second round by successfully making two shots across the ice into the other net.
Edmonton's Shawn Horcoff answered by winning the fastest skater competition for the Western Conference.
Horcoff beat Kovalchuk to earn a spot in the final against Buffalo's Brian Campbell, who opened by winning a sprint against Chicago's Duncan Keith. Horcoff won the final race against Campbell.
CONFUSION
There appeared to be come confusion in the judging for the Horcoff-Kovalchuk race.
Kovalchuk appeared to clearly beat Horcoff in the race from the goal line to the opposite blue line, and the Atlanta forward lined up for an apparent rematch as Atlanta fans chanted "Kovy! Kovy!"
Ultimately, there was no rematch and Horcoff was ruled the winner.
Calgary's Dion Phaneuf then saved the West in the elimination shootout.
Phaneuf was the only one of his conference's shooters to score in the first three rounds, and the New York Rangers' Scott Gomez, Pittsburgh's Evgeni Malkin and Philadelphia's Kimmo Timonen advanced from the East.
In the elimination round, however, Phaneuf scored against Boston goalie Tim Thomas, who was left spinning on his back in front of the net.
St. Louis goalie Manny Legace stopped Gomez, Malkin and Timonen, giving the win to Phaneuf and the Western stars.
Rangers center Brandon Dubinsky and Washington's Nicklas Backstrom each scored two goals to lead the East to a 7-6 victory in the game involving players 25 and younger.
Kaberle was the East's champion in shooting accuracy, hitting targets on eight of nine shots through three rounds. In the last round, Kaberle hit his one shot after Nashville's Jason Arnott -- the top shooter from the West -- missed.
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