■ ATHLETICS
Blonska stripped of medal
Lyudmila Blonksa has been stripped of her Olympic silver medal in the heptathlon for doping. The Ukrainian athlete has been disqualified and kicked out of the Beijing Games by the International Olympic Committee. Blonska tested positive for a steroid after finishing second in the heptathlon last Saturday. She was temporarily suspended on Thursday, and her medal was officially removed yesterday. Blonksa faces a lifetime ban because it was her second doping offense. She is the biggest name among the five athletes who have tested positive so far at the Games.
■ SYNCHRO SWIMMING
Russia nearly perfect
Russia placed first in the technical routine of the synchronized swimming team event yesterday, staying on course to sweep both the duet and team event for the third straight Olympics. The team was awarded a near-perfect 49.500 points. Spain was second with 48.917 points and China was third with 48.584. The team event concludes today with the free routine. Anastasia Ermakova and Anastasia Davydova won gold in the duet on Wednesday and are also part of Russia’s eight-woman squad for the team event. Wearing suits with red hearts on the front and silver-sequined lightning bolts on the backs, the Russians showed off their superior throws, lifts and splits to the Spanish Suite by Albenise. The music choice may have been a response to the decision by the Spanish duet to use traditional Russian music in their technical routine on Monday. Russia earned all 9.9s and one 9.8 for both execution and overall impression. Spain performed to the Happy Feet soundtrack and won a big applause for a unique windmill move. Gemma Mengual and Andrea Fuentes won Spain’s first Olympic synchro medal when they claimed silver in the duet. Japan, which has medaled in synchro in every Olympics since the discipline was introduced at the 1984 Los Angeles Games, placed fourth. Canada and the US tied for fifth. The Americans wore yellow suits with a large, brown Chinese knot design on the front to appeal to the local audience.
■ GREAT BRITAIN
Team plane gets nose job
The plane bringing Britain’s Olympic team home next week is to get a golden nose job in honor of the team’s record gold medal haul in Beijing, British Airways said on Thursday. Britain has had its best Olympics for a century, taking its 17th gold on Thursday and staying in third place in the overall medals table, behind China and the US. “Team GB has led the opposition home in event after event at this golden Olympics,” said British Airways chief Willie Walsh, announcing the golden respray for the normally dark-blue nose-cone of the Boeing 747 which will bring them home. “It is right that a gold nose cone should adorn the aircraft that brings the team home to the UK. We salute our Olympians.” Meanwhile BA refused to comment on a report that London mayor Boris Johnson had been refused an upgrade to business class in the plane which took him to Beijing this week.
■ DIVING
Zhou leads 10m prelims
Zhou Luxin led after the men’s 10m platform preliminaries yesterday, putting China in position for a sweep of the eight diving gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. Zhou totaled 539.80 points, earning a perfect 10 on his toughest dive in the fourth round. Matthew Mitcham of Australia was second with 509.60, followed by platform world champion Gleb Galperin of Russia. The top 18 divers advance to today’s semi-finals.
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