■ SUMO
Four charged over beatings
Prosecutors yesterday charged a former sumo stable master and three wrestlers in the beating death of a teenage apprentice whose brutal hazing shocked Japan, reports said. Prosecutors in the central city of Nagoya indicted Junichi Yamamoto, 57, who ran the stable under the name Tokitsukaze, and three wrestlers in last June's death of 17-year-old Takashi Saito, Jiji Press said, quoting authorities. The four men were charged with injury resulting in death, Jiji said, citing authorities. The four men were arrested on Feb. 7 for repeatedly beating Saito, who collapsed and died during practice. The elder wrestlers -- aged 22, 24 and 25 -- allegedly beat the apprentice with a baseball bat. Saito had repeatedly tried to run away from the stable.
■ BOXING
Mom becomes oldest boxer
A 44-year-old mother of two has become Japan's oldest professional boxer after passing the Japanese board's license test. Kazumi Izaki, who has daughters aged 21 and 14 and herself turns 45 next week, laced up her first pair of boxing gloves in 2001. "She has passed," the Japan Boxing Commission (JBC) said yesterday. "This is first time she has held a JBC license and she is now Japan's oldest pro boxer." Under JBC rules, applicants for a license must be under 32 but Izaki was allowed permission to fight because she previously won a Japanese title, albeit one not recognized by the country's governing body. "I try not to think about my age," the former aerobics instructor told reporters. "I'm a mum but I'm going to give it everything I've got. I wanted to show my children that if you give up, then you're washed up!"
■ Baseball
Cardinals release Spiezio
The St Louis Cardinals have released Scott Spiezio just hours after an arrest warrant was issued for the utilityman on alcohol-related driving charges. Six charges, including driving under the influence and hit-and-run with property damage, were filed on Tuesday against Spiezio in Orange County, California and an arrest warrant was issued on Wednesday, the team said. Spiezio was already having off-the-field problems, having been placed on the restricted list by the Cardinals late last year to seek treatment for substance abuse issues. The warrant for Spiezio's arrest on Tuesday was rescinded after the infielder was represented by his attorneys late on Wednesday in Orange County, the Cardinals said. A 12-year major league veteran, Spiezio was a key member of the 2002 Anaheim Angels team that won the World Series.
■ Soccer
Becks gets HK thumbs-up
Hong Kong's soccer authorities confirmed yesterday that they had given the go-ahead for David Beckham's Los Angeles Galaxy to play in the city. LA Galaxy announced on Monday they would play an exhibition match on March 9 at Hong Kong Stadium, but the city's soccer authority said it had not approved the plan and the stadium was fully booked for that date. However, that has now changed. "The application was approved," Hong Kong Football Association Sunny Leung said yesterday. "We have all been making every last-minute effort to have them come, we were very keen to have them here." Leung said LA Galaxy would arrive on March 6 and hold a soccer clinic for youngsters before playing a South China invitation team on March 9.
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