Jermaine Anderson hit a three-pointer with 34 seconds to play, completing Canada's 14-0 run over the final 2:42 and giving it a 79-77 victory over South Korea on Wednesday to claim the last quarter-final berth in an Olympic basketball qualifying tournament.
Anderson gave Canada its first lead since the first quarter and earned it a game against Croatia today.
Rowan Barrett led Canada with 22 points, while Jeon Jung-gyu scored 19 for the South Koreans.
Later, Dirk Nowitzki scored a tournament-high 35 points to lead Germany over New Zealand 89-71. Germany took over midway through the second quarter with a 17-3 run to take a 47-33 halftime lead.
Kirk Penney scored 29 for New Zealand, whose quarter-final opponent will be Greece, an 89-69 winner over Brazil. Germany will play Brazil in today’s quarter-finals.
The 12-nation qualifying tournament will determine the final three berths for the Olympics.
Led by Anotonis Fotsis’ 18 points and 10 rebounds, Greece gained control in the second quarter. Tiago Splitter scored 20 and grabbed seven rebounds for Brazil.
“Greece played aggressive defense throughout and took us off our rhythm,” Splitter said.
Following its 86-70 loss to Slovenia on Tuesday, Canada released Samuel Dalembert of the Philadelphia 76ers, who had scored four points on 1-for-8 shooting.
“We decided to move forward with the players who have the passion and desire to play for Canada,” Rautins said.
Croatia rallied to beat Puerto Rico 95-81 and earn its game against Canada. Puerto Rico will face undefeated Slovenia.
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