■ ATHLETICS
Gatlin loses Olympic appeal
Banned sprinter Justin Gatlin lost his appeal to run in the US Olympic athletics trials on Thursday and said he would end that effort rather than take the case to the US Supreme Court. In a briefly worded decision, the 11th US Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ruled Gatlin hasn’t shown he meets the “applicable standard for such an injunction.” Earlier this month, the Court of Arbitration for Sport upheld a four-year ban against Gatlin for doping violations, but the defending Olympic 100m champion went to the US civilian courts seeking to run in trials starting today.
■ SWIMMING
China bans top backstroker
China’s top backstroke swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng has been banned for life for doping, officials confirmed yesterday, dealing the host nation an embarrassing blow just 42 days before the start of the Beijing Olympics. Ouyang tested positive for the anabolic steroid clenbuterol, said Zhao Jian, head of the anti-doping office at the Chinese Olympic Committee. The 25-year-old Ouyang won three individual silver medals at the 2006 Asian Games and three golds at the 2003 world university games. “The swimmer Ouyang Kunpeng tested positive in an out-of-competition test on May 1,” read an official Chinese Swimming Association notice posted on the Web site of the official China Sports Daily paper. His coach Feng Shangbao has also been banned for life, the notice said.
■ SOCCER
Tottenham ink Gomes deal
English Premier League club Tottenham have agreed a deal with Dutch champions PSV Eindhoven for the transfer of Brazilian goalkeeper Heurelho Gomes. The deal is contingent on the 27-year-old’s personal terms, a medical and a work permit. Gomes, a fan favorite at PSV, had requested a transfer shortly after the club claimed their 21st league title last season, citing differences with managing director Jan Reker. Gomes, who made his name at Cruzeiro, was ever-present in PSV’s title-winning campaign, conceding only 24 goals in 34 league games. It was his fourth successive Dutch league win since joining the club in 2004.
■ SOCCER
Weiss snubs Hearts for SFZ
The Slovak Football Association (SFZ) yesterday confirmed the appointment of Vladimir Weiss, manager of the current league champions Artmedia, as its new national manager. The 43-year-old former Czechoslovak international had been in negotiations to take over at Scottish Premier League side Hearts. “We will sign the contract next week,” after Weiss returns from pre-season training in Austria, SFZ general secretary Milos Tomas said. Weiss piloted Artmedia to the league title and also into the Champions League in 2005. From 2006 to last year, Weiss managed Russian outfit Saturn Ramenskoye.
■ BADMINTON
S Korea coach in graft probe
South Korea’s hopes of badminton gold at the Beijing Olympics suffered a blow yesterday when the head coach of the national badminton team was suspended amid a police investigation into allegations of embezzlement. The Korean Badminton Association said it had suspended head coach Kim Jung-soo, who is being investigated on allegations of misappropriation of public funds at a regional badminton organization where he is an executive. “We are worried about a coaching vacuum,” a spokesman for the association said by telephone. “But at the moment we don’t have any plan to choose someone to replace Kim.”
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