■SOCCER
Beckhams’ staff arrested
Two housekeepers working at a mansion owned by former England captain David Beckham and his pop star wife, Victoria, have been arrested on suspicion of theft, reports said yesterday. Newspaper reports said items belonging to the Beckhams turned up for sale on eBay. Police said they are looking into allegations of theft from a private address in the eastern English county of Hertfordshire, where the Beckhams have a home. They confirmed a 56-year-old woman and a 55-year-old man, both from Essex, had been arrested and released on bail.
■SOCCER
FA mulls match-fixing report
The English Football Association will examine match-fixing allegations involving a Championship match after they were given evidence by the Sunday Telegraph newspaper. Bookmakers reportedly detected a “massive movement” in bets in Asia in an unspecified Championship match at around half-time. As well as the FA, the Sunday Telegraph has sent a document to the Gambling Commission over the betting patterns. “We will consider any evidence brought to our attention,” the FA said.
■RUGBY LEAGUE
Wiki announces retirement
Ruben Wiki, the world’s most capped Test Rugby League player, yesterday announced he was retiring from the game. Wiki said he was hanging up his boots at the end of his 16th season in the National Rugby League competition, having started with the Canberra Raiders in 1993 and ended with four seasons at the New Zealand Warriors. Wiki retired from Tests in 2006 after 12 years and a world record 55 Tests for New Zealand, including 18 as captain. The 35-year-old played his last game for the invitation All Golds New Zealand team against New Zealand Maori last weekend after helping the Warriors reach the finals series of the NRL. There had been speculation that Wiki would end his career playing in Britain’s Super League, but the veteran said he was happy to retire after 312 NRL games. Wiki will continue his involvement with the game, acting as mentor to the Kiwis during the World Cup, which begins in Australia next Saturday.
■CYCLING
Austria’s Kohl tests positive
Austria’s Bernhard Kohl, the best climber at this year’s Tour de France and third overall, has tested positive for third-generation drug EPO Cera, France’s national anti-doping agency AFLD said on Monday. Kohl is the fourth rider to have been found positive for this drug by the AFLD since it pioneered a new blood test for EPO Cera and is currently retroactively testing blood samples of riders taken during this year’s race. Italians Riccardo Ricco and Leonardo Piepoli, plus Germany’s Stefan Schumacher, were the previous riders to have tested postive for Cera (Continuous Erythropoiesis Receptor Activator).
■CYCLING
Armstrong to race in Giro
Lance Armstrong agreed on Monday to ride in next year’s Giro d’Italia and suggested the Italian race — not the Tour de France — would be the main target in his comeback season. The American has never competed in the three-week Giro, considered the sport’s most prestigious stage race after the Tour. Armstrong also seemed to take a swipe at Tour de France organizers, with whom he has feuded over drug-testing issues. “I look forward to starting a race that respects not only the riders, but also maintains the highest integrity in sport,” he said.
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