World lightweight champ Manny “Pacman” Pacquiao of the Philippines is to hang up his gloves after three more fights and make another bid for political office, reports said yesterday.
Pacquiao, considered one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world at any weight, has a mega-payday looming in December when he takes on legend Oscar De La Hoya at 147 pounds (66.7kg) in a 12-round, non-title bout.
Reports said the 29-year-old has decided to retire in August next year to prepare for elections in 2010.
PHOTO: EPA
He will either run as a congressman representing his home province of Sarangani or as a local town official. Last year, he lost in a his first bid to be elected in Congress.
“My parents want this to be my last fight. But I told them I can still fight around two more fights after De La Hoya. So maybe around July or August next year, that’s when I will retire,” Pacquiao told the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
He said his immediate concern now was to beat De La Hoya, who at 35 remains among the world’s best boxing draws.
“He was my idol when I was starting out. Now I can’t believe I am fighting him,” Pacquiao said. “To fight him is already a big honor. More so if I beat him.”
But more than honor, Pacquiao said, he wanted to alleviate the plight of poor in his southern home province and one way would be running for public office.
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