■ SHOW JUMPING
Sexagenarian to make debut
Laurie Lever, a 60-year-old show jumper, will make his Olympics debut half a century after taking up horse riding following his inclusion in Australia’s equestrian team for next month’s Games. Lever, who began riding as a 10-year-old, will be the oldest member of Australia’s Beijing Olympics team. Lever will join another sexagenarian in the equestrian event in Hong Kong. Hiroshi Hoketsu, 67, is competing in his second Olympics for Japan in the dressage, 44 years after making his debut. Swedish shooter Oscar Swahn was the oldest Olympian, winning a silver medal at the 1920 Antwerp Games at the age of 72 years and 10 months.
■ MOTOGP
Stoner wins German GP
Casey Stoner won the German Grand Prix in wet conditions on Sunday after leading from the sixth lap for his third straight MotoGP victory. The Australian took control on his Ducati when Dani Pedrosa crashed after leading by 7.5 seconds by the end of five laps in the 30-lap race. Stoner cruised home to beat Valentino Rossi on a Yamaha by 3.7 seconds. Pedrosa, second in qualifying behind Stoner, the defending champion, lost control of his Honda and crashed heavily to injure a foot and hand. Rossi, who started from the third row on the grid after qualifying seventh, has opened a 16-point lead over Pedrosa in the season standings with eight races remaining. Chris Vermeulen of Australia was third for his first podium finish this year. Jorge Lorenzo, Colin Edwards and Marco Melandri also crashed in difficult conditions.
■ golf
Perry pips compatriots
Kenny Perry parred the first hole of a playoff to edge US compatriots Brad Adamonis and Jay Williamson and win the US$4.2 million PGA John Deere Classic on Sunday. Perry won his third title in his past five starts by firing a final round one-under 70 to join the three-way sudden death playoff. Adamonis also shot 70 while Williamson had a two-under 69 at the Deere Run course. All three players finished 72 holes at 16-under 268. After Adamonis and Williamson found the water on 18 in the playoff, Perry played it safe. He could have wrapped up the victory without going into a playoff, but he bogeyed the 18th after needing three shots from 30 feet from the hole. The bogey opened the door for Adamonis, who had a 20-foot birdie putt on 18 for the win, but left it well short and then hit his drive to start the playoff into the trees down the right side of the fairway. Williamson was in the middle of the fairway but pulled his approach into the water and Perry took two putts from 25 feet to wrap up the win.
■ Soccer
Missile tests hit friendly
English club Charlton Athletic has canceled a friendly match with the Iranian national side, giving Iran’s missile tests last week as the reason, ISNA news agency reported on Sunday. Charlton was to play against Iran on July 20 in Marbella where the Iranian team will be preparing for World Cup qualification games. The English team told the Iranian side that the British government has ordered the cancelation of the game.As a result of the cancelation, the Iranian Football Federation (FFI) plans to sue Charlton over what the federation called a one-sided annulment of the contract. The English club sent a fax to the FFI on Sunday, citing the missile tests as reason for the cancelation. The FFI in a statement condemned the club’s decision as “irresponsible and unsporting” and said it would follow up the case with FIFA.
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