■ CRICKET
Rafique quits internationals
Bangladesh's most successful spinner, Mohammad Rafique, will quit international cricket after the second and final Test against South Africa, which started in Chittagong yesterday. Rafique announced earlier this month he would retire from Test cricket after the series against South Africa, which also includes three one-day internationals. "I have decided to quit the cricket as mark of protest against a group [of] people in the Bangladesh Cricket Board, who do not like to see me in squads," Rafique told a news conference on Thursday. "These officials who did not allow me to play Test cricket for nearly three years, are now back in the board. So I have decided to quit." Rafique is two shy of becoming the first Bangladeshi to take 100 Test wickets. Already established as a one-day player, the left-armer played in Bangladesh's inaugural Test in November 2000 against India. However, he was reported to the International Cricket Council for a suspect action soon after and was not recalled to the team until 2002. He was the first Bangladesh player to complete the double of 100 wickets and 1,000 runs in one-day internationals.
■ SOCCER
Betis fan fined and banned
A Real Betis fan was found guilty on Thursday of throwing a bottle at former Sevilla coach Juande Ramos and knocking him unconscious during a Copa del Rey match last season. The 31-year-old perpetrator was fined 4,680 euros (US$7,066) and was ordered to pay Ramos -- who is now coach at Tottenham Hotspur -- 360 euros in compensation. The man, who was not identified, also received a two-year ban from all public sporting events. Ramos was hit by the bottle at Real Betis' Manuel Ruiz de Lopera stadium exactly a year ago on Thursday after Sevilla had taken a 1-0 lead in the 59th minute of a Copa del Rey match. The coach, who stumbled before falling to the ground, was carried off on a stretcher but regained consciousness later.
■ FORMULA ONE
Schumacher gets own tower
His Formula One career may be over, but seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher is showing no signs of slowing down his off-track activities as he is set to put his name to a skyscraper. The 39-year-old quit full-time racing 16 months ago, but apart from a few stints as a test driver for his old team Ferrari, Schumacher is showing he is just as quick in business as he is on the track. A report in German tabloid Bild says Schumacher is set to make 5 million euros (US$7.5 million) as a property developer on the 29-floor office complex which will carry his name in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Schumacher's manager Willi Weber confirmed the deal to Bild and added all the office space had sold out within three days as the complex has views of Dubai's premier hotel -- the Burj Al Arab.
■ SOCCER
Plestan facing road rage fine
Nicolas Plestan, a player with French first division team Lille, is facing a two-month suspended sentence and 2,500 euro fine after pointing a fake gun at a driver in a road rage incident last year. The defender stands accused of aiming the imitation pistol at a 65-year-old Parisian who was in a car with his wife and teenage daughter on a motorway close to the Belgian border last April. Plestan allegedly tailgated the other car while overtaking a truck, pointed the gun at its occupants and then cut it up. He is accused of brandishing the gun a second time at a motorway exit.
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