Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) officials suspended 10 players and an assistant coach on Thursday after a brawl, setting up the return of 50-year-old Nancy Lieberman to the league.
The Detroit Shock, which signed Lieberman to a seven-day contract after the bans were announced, and the Los Angeles Sparks each had five players suspended after a melee in the final seconds of an 84-81 Los Angeles triumph on Tuesday.
Shock assistant coach Rick Mahorn, a former NBA player with the Detroit Pistons, was banished for two games after escalating the altercation by shoving Sparks’ star and US Olympian Lisa Leslie to the court.
Leslie and Candace Parker, the Sparks’ top scorers, were each suspended one game for throwing punches during the brawl.
“The events Tuesday were inexcusable and in no way indicative of what the league stands for,” WNBA president Donna Orender said in a statement. “These suspensions should serve notice that the behavior exhibited at the end of Tuesday’s game will not be tolerated.”
Suspensions for the five players from each team will be staggered so each club can field minimum numbers of players, with the Shock opting to make a unique deal for Lieberman, a two-time Olympian who turned 50 on July 1.
Lieberman will break her own mark as the oldest player in the WNBA in 1997, the league’s debut season, when playing for Phoenix at age 39.
The trouble began when Parker, this year’s top draft selection, tangled with Detroit’s Plenette Pierson, who was suspended four games.
Parker flung Pierson to the court and the melee began. In the chaos, Detroit forward Cheryl Ford suffered a season-ending knee injury, opening a spot for Lieberman.
Mahorn came off the bench but inadvertently knocked Leslie to the court, prompting DeLisha Milton-Jones, the number three scorer for the Sparks, to punch the Detroit assistant coach in the back.
Parker, Pierson, Mahorn and Milton-Jones all were ejected.
Other Shock players suspended were Kara Braxton, Tasha Humphrey, Elaine Powell and Sheri Sam, all of whom were given one-game bans for leaving the bench area during the brawl.
Sparks forward Murriel Page and guard Shannon Bobbitt each were suspended two games for leaving the bench and becoming involved in the fight. Milton-Jones was hit with a one-game ban.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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