■HORSE RACING
Jockey fined for Hitler jibe
Irish jockey John Egan was fined A$8,000 (US$5,370) yesterday for describing Australian veterinary surgeons as a “couple of tin pot Hitlers.” Egan made the remark at the weekend after vets ordered his mount Yellowstone to undergo an additional fitness test before being allowed to run in today’s Melbourne Cup. Yellowstone injured his hip in his stall last week and was eventually scratched on the eve of the race on vet’s advice. Australian racing stewards took a dim view of Egan’s remarks, charging him with bringing the sport into disrepute. Egan pleaded guilty to the offense but said his remarks were not aimed at the vets. Racing Appeals Disciplinary Board chairman Russell Lewis described Egan as an unreliable witness whose comments were reprehensible.
■SOCCER
‘Spider Hands’ returns
A year after being banned from the national team for a late-night drinking session during the Asian Cup, veteran South Korea goalkeeper Lee Woon-jae has been called up to the squad for a World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia. Coach Huh Jung-moo included Lee in his 25-man squad for the Nov. 19 game in Riyadh. Manchester United’s Park Ji-sung, AS Monaco striker Park Chu-young and Borussia Dortmund defender Lee Young-pyo were also called up to the squad announced yesterday. Goalkeeper Lee was axed from the national team last year after he and three other players left the team hotel to go drinking following Korea’s shock 2-1 loss to Bahrain in the Asian Cup in Jakarta. The 35-year-old, nicknamed “Spider Hands,” was also ordered to serve 80 hours of public service and his international career looked over after the Korea Football Association said the episode had tarnished the reputation of Korean soccer.
■SOCCER
Obama defeated
A local soccer team christened Obama FC were beaten 1-0 in a tournament held in western Kenya on the weekend. The Obama Big Day Soccer Tournament was organized by Barack Obama’s step-brother Malik Obama in anticipation of the senator’s victory in today’s US presidential elections. Obama FC goalkeeper Boaz Okelo blamed a player in the opposing team of leaking to his team mates that he had an elbow injury, which they exploited in a penalty shoot out after the match ended in a draw after regular time. “The other players were kicking the ball towards my injured elbow,” Okelo said on Sunday, a day after Obama FC were eliminated in the knock-out stages of the tournament. Originally called Kogelo FC — named after the village of Obama’s Kenyan father — the team changed its name to Obama FC in 2004 when the Democrat first made headlines after giving an electrifying speech at the Democratic Party convention.
■SOCCER
Bolton climb from drop zone
Bolton scored twice in the last 13 minutes on Sunday to climb out of the Premier League relegation zone with a 2-0 win over visiting Manchester City. Substitute Ricardo Gardner met a cross from the right for his first league goal since December 2002. City captain Richard Dunne then capped a poor performance by his side when he scored an own goal in the 88th minute. “It’s very important for us,” Gardner said. “We can gain confidence from this and we can do even better in our next game than we did today. It’s been a long time, but I’m just glad for the lads. We thoroughly deserved it.”
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