■ BASEBALL
Brewers hire Randolph
Former New York Mets manager Willie Randolph has been hired as a bench coach by the Milwaukee Brewers, the team said on Saturday. Randolph, fired as the Mets manager in June, had been one of three final candidates for the Brewers managerial job that eventually went to Ken Macha. The 54-year-old Randolph played for the Brewers in 1991. After an 18-year Major League career, he served as a New York Yankees base and bench coach for 11 seasons before becoming the Mets manager in 2005.
■HOCKEY
Czechs rally to beat Sweden
The Czech Republic rallied with four goals in the final period to beat Sweden 4-1 on Saturday in the four-nation Karjala Tournament, while defending champion Russia beat Finland 6-2. Forward Alexei Mikhnov scored twice for Russia, with Alexander Radulov, Denis Kulyash, Sergei Zinoviev and Alexei Tereschenko also finding the net. In the other game, Martin Thornberg gave Sweden the lead 15:58 into the second period before the Czechs rallied with four goals in the third. Miroslav Horava and Zbynek Irgl gave the Czechs a 2-1 lead before Vaclav Nedorost made it 3-1 on a power play with five minutes left, and Petr Cajanek put the game away just a minute later. Going into yesterday’s last round, Russia leads on six points, followed by the Czech Republic on four. Finland is third with two points, while Sweden has zero.
■BOXING
‘King Arthur’ still reigns
Arthur Abraham defeated Raul Marquez by technical knockout after six rounds on Saturday to defend his IBF middleweight boxing title for the eighth time and remain undefeated. Abraham landed two rights to Marquez’s right eye in the sixth round and the challenger’s camp called off the fight just before the seventh was due to start. “King Arthur” improved his record to 28-0 with 22 knockouts while Marquez dropped to 41-4-1 with 29 knockouts.
■CYCLING
Boonen fine after accident
Former world champion Tom Boonen on Saturday escaped uninjured after being involved in a car accident en route to the Brussels airport. A Flamish TV station reported that the accident occurred when the 2005 world champion had to evade an oncoming car and ended up crashing into a tree. VTM station reported police as saying that Boonen was uninjured but that the car had been damaged. Boonen, who was banned from participating in this year’s Tour de France after testing positive for cocaine in an out of competition test, has previously been in trouble with police over traffic infringements. He was without fault on Saturday though, VTM said.
■SKATING
Kato sets 500m track record
Joji Kato of Japan set a track record to win Saturday’s 500m race at the season-opening speedskating World Cup meet. Kato timed 34.70 seconds to edge China’s Yu Fengtong, at 35.07. Finland’s Mika Poutala clocked 35.13 for third, while world record-holder Jeremy Wotherspoon of Canada crashed and injured his shoulder. The Netherlands swept the first four places in the men’s 1,500m race, with Sven Kramer winning in 1 minute, 45.69 seconds. Erben Wennemars was second in 1:45.85, followed by Simon Kuipers (1:45.95) and Mark Tuitert (1:46.04). Wang Beixing of China won the women’s 500 ahead of world record-holder Jenny Wolf of Germany. Wang, who was beaten by Wolf in Friday’s 500 race, clocked 37.91 to beat Wolf by 0.03 seconds.
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