■ CRICKET
Former Test batsman dies
Former India Test batsman Ashok Mankad died in his sleep yesterday aged 61, the Press Trust of India reported, quoting family members. Mankad, regarded as a shrewd thinker of the game and one of India’s finest domestic captains, played 22 Tests between 1969 and 1978, scoring 991 runs at an average of 25.41. The middle-order batsman, son of legendary Test all-rounder Vinoo Mankad, is survived by his wife Nirupama, a former national tennis champion and two tennis-playing sons Mihir and Harsh. Mankad served as manager of the Indian cricket team in 1982-83 and coached first-class sides like his native Mumbai, Madhya Pradesh, Railways and Baroda.
■ TENNIS
Baghdatis to miss Games
Marcos Baghdatis has pulled out of the Olympics because of a wrist injury, the Cyprus Tennis Federation said on Thursday. “Unfortunately the news about Marcos is not good. He won’t just miss the Olympic Games but also the US Open,” federation coach Yiannos Hadjigeorgiou said in a statement. “Certainly Marcos has been unlucky this year and now he is missing out on his big dream — the Olympic Games,” he said. The 2006 Australian Open finalist was considered one of Cyprus’s best hopes for a first ever medal at the Olympics. The country is sending a 17-member delegation to Beijing. Now the Mediterranean island’s hopes are riding on skeet shooting world champion George Achilleos and high jump world championship bronze medalist Kyriacos Ioannou.
■ SOCCER
Police quiz Rooney
England star Wayne Rooney has been questioned by London police after allegedly spitting at a paparazzi photographer outside a restaurant. The 22-year-old Manchester United striker was interviewed under caution following the alleged incident on Tuesday, which occured off the British capital’s main Oxford Street shopping thoroughfare. “We received a third party allegation at 12:09am on Wednesday that a photographer had been spat at by an individual outside a restaurant in Hanway Street,” a spokesman for London’s Metropolitan Police force said yesterday. “Officers established the incident had occurred at around 10:20pm on Tuesday. “The alleged suspect, a 22-year-old male, was spoken to by police. He was not arrested and did not attend a police station. Inquiries continue.” Deliberately spitting at someone is an offense of common assault.
■ RUGBY LEAGUE
Aussies name Cup squad
Australia yesterday announced a preliminary 46-player squad for their defense of this year’s Rugby League World Cup full of the game’s biggest stars and 11 potential Test debutants. Coach Ricky Stuart’s interim squad is spearheaded by experienced campaigners Darren Lockyer, Petero Civoniceva, Danny Buderus, Cam Smith and Steve Price and features the exciting talents of Billy Slater, Greg Inglis and Israel Folau. Defending National Rugby League champions Melbourne Storm top the representation with 10 players. The squad includes 11 players yet to debut for Australia at senior level — Ben Cross, Robbie Farah, Michael Jennings, Anthony Lafranchi, Joel Monaghan, Nate Myles, Josh Perry, Glenn Stewart, Anthony Watmough, Justin Poore and Anthony Quinn. Selectors overlooked NSW scrum-halves Peter Wallace and Mitchell Pearce, while Michael Crocker and Buderus were named despite opting to play club football in England. France-bound center Mark Gasnier was not included.
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