■TENNIS
Mario Ancic withdraws
Mario Ancic of Croatia withdrew from the Beijing Olympics yesterday, and Canadian players Frank Dancevic and Frederic Niemeyer were both added to the men’s draw. Niemeyer replaced the 25th-ranked Ancic, while Dancevic replaced Denis Gremelmayr of Germany. Rainer Schuettler of Germany, who got his spot in Beijing by winning an appeal to the Court of Arbitration for Sport, replaced Dudi Sela of Israel in the draw. Marcos Baghdatis of Cyprus, who withdrew last week, was replaced by Jiri Vanek of the Czech Republic. The Olympic tennis tournament starts Sunday, two days after the opening ceremony, and will finish Aug. 17.
■WEIGHTLIFTING
India drops weightlifter
Monica Devi, India’s lone competitor for weightlifting in the Beijing Olympics, dismissed charges of doping against her and said she was innocent at a press briefing yesterday. Devi was withdrawn from the Indian squad hours before she was to board the flight to Beijing on Tuesday night after she tested positive for an anabolic steroid, the Indian Express newspaper reported, quoting unnamed sources. The test was conducted on June 28. In the pre-Olympic trial conducted by the Indian Weightlifting Federation last month, P Shailaja performed better than Devi, but Devi was chosen because she had won a silver and two bronze at the Asian Championships in Japan this year.
■SOCCER
Dunga: Brazil needs to win
Dunga knows there won’t be many excuses if Brazil fails to win the Olympic gold again. He admits anything but the title will be considered a disappointment, and that it’s time Brazil comes through to clinch the only significant tournament it is yet to win in soccer. “The pressure to win always exists in the national team,” Dunga said. “We have won the World Cup, the Copa America and other important tournaments, but we are missing the Olympic medal. Everyone here wants to leave their mark and win this tournament, which has eluded several generations of Brazilian players.”
■BASKETBALL
Nowitzki to carry flag
Basketball player Dirk Nowitzki will carry the German flag at the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics on Friday. The 30-year-old Dallas Mavericks forward will lead Germany’s basketball team at Beijing, after the team missed out the past two Olympics. The German Olympic Sports Union said yesterday that it chose Nowitzki to be the flag bearer because “he embodies the Olympic idea like hardly anyone else.” “It has for years been a dream for Dirk Nowitzki to be at the Olympics,” senior German Olympic official Michael Vesper said in a statement, adding that Nowitzki offers “a great example for young sportspeople.”
■BOXING
Hopes high for boxing twins
Most 12-year-old boys in Puerto Rico play video games, watch movies or go to the beach for fun. The Arroyo twins were drawn to the boxing ring. McJoe and McWilliams Arroyo, 22, have become among the best fighters in Puerto Rico, and sporting officials expect them to return with medals from the Beijing Olympics starting Friday. Never mind that the twins grew up in the northern coastal towns of Luquillo and Fajardo, which boast of some of the island’s most popular beaches. The ring still held more attraction that the waves and sun. “When we started boxing at 12 years old, it was more like a hobby,” McJoe said.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later