■ SOCCER
Star files extortion complaint
Marseille striker Djibril Cisse has started legal proceedings after falling victim to an attempted extortion bid, a police source said on Tuesday. The 26-year-old French international presented himself at a police station in Marseille last week after receiving a series of phone calls demanding 150,000 euros (US$230,000), according to the newspaper La Provence. The money was intended to prevent a potentially damaging video clip featuring the former Liverpool striker from being transmitted on the Internet, the police source said. A number of people have been questioned over the affair but there have been no arrests.
■ BASKETBALL
Pistons unveil new coach
Michael Curry was introduced as the new coach of the Detroit Pistons on Tuesday, with the NBA outfit believing he is the man to get the most of out of their remaining veterans, some of whom are former team-mates. Curry was on the Pistons’ staff last season, his first as a coach, and he played with some current Pistons as recently as the 2002-2003 season.
■ CYCLING
Hincapie sprints to stage win
American George Hincapie sprinted to victory in the second stage of the Dauphine Libere on Tuesday but Thor Hushovd retained the overall lead. In a lively last kilometer, Hincapie was the sharpest to react, out-pacing sluggish Frenchman Sebastien Chavanel (Francaise des Jeux) and German duo Sebastian Lang and Heinrich Haussler (Gerolsteiner). Hincapie said his win was down to the hard work of his High Road team. “The team worked hard during the last 15km, like yesterday. We are a team that can win with many riders and in many ways. We have some of the best sprinters in the world. A sprinter like [Mark] Cavendish is perhaps the fastest in the closing stages,” said Lance Armstrong’s former team-mate. “Cavendish will perhaps bring the team a victory at the Tour [de France]. I would also love to win a stage at the Tour.” The greatest cycling event in the world takes place from July 5 to July 27. Norwegian Hushovd, of the Credit Agricole team, was next to cross the line alone in the hilly 184km Rhone Valley stage. A pack comprising Frenchman Stephane Auge, Spanish pair David de la Fuente and Benat Albizuri made an early breakaway shortly after the start at Bourg-Saint-Andeol. The group opened up a four-minute lead before being caught with 11km to go by the peloton headed by Hushovd. But the experienced New Yorker Hincapie, who will celebrate his 35th birthday at the end of the month, was the quickest in the sprint finish.
■ BASKETBALL
Arenas to be free agent
Washington Wizards guard Gilbert Arenas opted out of his NBA contract on Tuesday, giving up a US$12.8 million deal to become a free agent on July 1. Arenas, a three-time All-Star who has undergone two operations on his left knee in the past 14 months, beat a June 20 deadline to file paperwork with the league under contract terms. “It is something that he said he would do and it’s something that we expected,” Wizards president Ernie Grunfeld said. “This was just a formality.” Arenas can begin to talk with other clubs in three weeks and has said he seeks a rich long-term deal but would take less money to stay in Washington so the Wizards could have more money to re-sign forward Antawn Jamison. Arenas has averaged 22.8 points and 5.5 assists in a seven-year NBA career.
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