■ ATHLETICS
Bekele wins sixth title
Ethiopian Kenenisa Bekele won the men's world cross country title in Edinburgh on Sunday for a record sixth time. Bekele finished the 12.1km course in 34min 38sec, 0.03sec ahead of Patrick Komon of Kenya, with defending champion Zersenay Tadese of Eritrea in third. Bekele suffered a nightmare start to the race when he was clipped from behind and had the heel of one of his running shoes ripped off on the second of the first two short laps. The Ethiopian, the world record holder at 5,000m and 10,000m, stopped to readjust his footing, gather himself mentally and quickly made up lost ground.
■ MOTORSPORT
FIA distances itself
The FIA wants to stay clear of the situation involving its president, Max Mosley, and a British tabloid that reported he engaged in sexual acts with five prostitutes in a scenario that involved Nazi role-playing. "This is a matter between Mr Mosley and the newspaper," the governing body of world auto racing said on Sunday. Mosley, the son of British Union of Fascists party founder Oswald Mosley, reportedly took part in the scene on Friday at a London apartment near his home, the News of the World said in a front-page story. A video on the paper's Web site shows a man identified as Mosley being greeted by a woman playing the role of a prison guard, checking his hair to see if he has been kept clean "at the other facility."
■ MOTORSPORT
Loeb wins in Argentina
Sebastien Loeb won another stage and easily claimed his fourth straight Rally Argentina title on Sunday. It was the Frenchman's third victory of the year and 39th of his career, mastering the rugged, muddy hills of Cordoba, Argentina, to finish in five hours, five minutes and 48.6 seconds and put him on and early track for a fifth world title. Chris Atkinson of Australia, driving a Subaru, finished second, 2 minutes, 33.2 seconds behind, and Loeb's Citroen teammate Daniel Sordo of Spain finished third, 4:04.7 behind. Loeb, who also won in Monte Carlo and Mexico this year, took the second of four stages on Sunday.
■ SOCCER
Malaysia mulls lifting ban
Malaysia yesterday hinted it may lift a travel ban on Israelis to allow Chelsea coach Avram Grant and midfielder Tal Ben Haim to come to the country on a mini-Asian tour by the English Premier League side. "I am not sure what the decision would be yet. But it would be a pity that politics should get in the way of sports," Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak said. "There is a travel ban. I will have to study the situation first but I would like to see Chelsea although it is not my [favorite] team, I would like to see them playing here."
■ MOTORSPORT
Win gives Pedrosa lead
Spain's Dani Pedrosa grabbed the world championship lead with a dominant display in Sunday's Spanish MotoGP in Jerez, Spain. The Repsol Honda rider set a cracking pace after starting from second on the grid and set a new lap record on the second lap. He left his rivals in his wake, leading all the way to notch up his 28th career win and fifth in MotoGP. Italian Valentino Rossi finished second, 2.883 seconds behind, with Pedrosa's Spanish teammate Jorge Lorenzo third.
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