■ CHINA
Ex-player sentenced to death
A former star player in China’s top league has been sentenced to death for murdering a man over a gambling debt, state press reported yesterday. Wen Junwu, formerly with the now defunct Guangdong Apollo, based in Guangzhou, was sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve on Wednesday for killing Li Jiahao, the China Daily said. The reprieve likely means that Wen’s death sentence will be commuted to life in prison after two years. Wen owed Li 80,000 yuan (US$11,700) in gambling debts at the time of Li’s murder in June last year, the report said. It said an accomplice was also sentenced to death with a two-year reprieve. Wen, 30, was once a rising star in China’s top league, the paper said. He incurred most of his debts from Internet gambling which Li helped broker, it said, but it was not clear if he gambled on Chinese league matches. For years, China’s professional league has been loudly accused by sponsors, fans and media of being riddled with organized gambling rings.
■ ENGLAND
Wenger wins award
Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger was awarded the Britain-based French sports personality of the year on Wednesday, giving him another boost as his team’s turbulent season gets back on track. Wenger was voted sport’s “Francais of the Year” by the French community in Britain in an online poll, beating a field of nominees including the man who was recently stripped of the Arsenal captaincy, William Gallas. In another category, Eva Green, who played James Bond’s love interest in Casino Royale in 2006, was voted the French “artist” of the year. Wenger has won the league three times and the FA Cup four times at Arsenal.
■ NORWAY
Club apologizes for prank
Rosenborg apologized to Valencia on Wednesday after a prank saw their Web site refer to their Spanish rivals as “homosexuals.” A video on the site had been designed to give a little linguistic guidance to readers ahead of last night’s UEFA Cup encounter, but one clip featured Rosenborg’s Uruguayan defender Alejandro Lago calling the La Liga side “maricones” — slang for gays. Reading from a script, Lago also slammed the Spanish as “little girlies who can’t take it when temperatures drop below zero.” That comment came following a report that the Spanish outfit had had supplementary clothing flown in to cope with the Scandinavian winter weather — but the Web site furore was a frosty reception of a different kind. Rosenborg apologized and said that “one should not joke” either about matters religious or issues of sexuality.
■ ENGLAND
Norris charged by the FA
Ipswich Town midfielder David Norris has been charged with improper conduct by the Football Association (FA) following his controversial goal celebration in the win over Blackpool earlier this month. Norris has admitted the charge and asked for a personal hearing, with an FA regulatory commission set to hear his case yesterday. The 27-year-old had already been fined by his club and apologized for making a gesture in support of his jailed former Plymouth teammate Luke McCormick after scoring in Ipswich’s 1-0 victory away to Blackpool on Nov. 8 in the second-tier Championship. McCormick is currently serving a sentence of seven years and four months for causing the deaths of Arron Peak, 10, and his brother Ben, eight, in a car accident when he was under the influence of alcohol earlier this year on his way home from Norris’ wedding.
■ AWARDS
Olympians win UK honors
British Olympic gold medal winners Chris Hoy and Rebecca Adlington were on Wednesday named sportsman and sportswoman of the year at the 60th Sports Journalists’ Association (SJA) British sports awards. Hoy, who won three cycling gold medals in Beijing while Adlington twice triumphed in the Water Cube’s swimming pool, topped a poll of the more than 600 members of the British-based SJA. Great Britain’s cycling team, which won 14 golds in Beijing and 11 at the track world championships in Manchester in March, was named team of the year. Formula One world champion Lewis Hamilton was runner-up to Hoy in the men’s poll with triple Olympic yachting gold medalist Ben Ainslie third. In the voting for the Sportswoman of the Year, Olympic and world road-race champion Nicole Cooke was runner-up to Adlington. Cooke came in ahead of Olympic 400m champion Christine Ohuruogu, who won Britain’s only athletics gold in Beijing.
■ CYCLING
Contador wins Golden Bike
Giro and Vuelta champion Alberto Contador won the Golden Bike award for the best rider of the year for the second consecutive season on Wednesday. The Spaniard beat time-trial Olympic champion Fabian Cancellara of Switzerland and compatriot and Tour de France winner Carlos Sastre in a vote by international cycling writers.
■ MOTOGP
Pedrosa pips Rossi at Jerez
Honda’s Dani Pedrosa set the pace ahead of world champion Valentino Rossi (Yamaha) during the first day of the last MotoGP winter testing session of the year in Jerez de la Frontera, southern Spain, on Wednesday. World championship runner-up Casey Stoner of Australia was also present at the circuit as a spectator after undergoing an operation on his left wrist in Modena, Italy. on Oct. 30. Stoner could begin light physical training within the next two weeks, according to a press release from his Ducati team.
■ MOTOR RACING
Red Bull buys up Toro Rosso
Red Bull gained full ownership of Toro Rosso on Tuesday after buying up Berger Motorsport’s stake in the Formula One team. Red Bull, led by Austrian billionaire Dietrich Mateschitz, acquired the 50-percent stake controlled by Gerhard Berger in a deal still pending approval by regulatory authorities. Toro Rosso, long seen as a development team, outperformed Red Bull last year. Sebastien Vettel won the German Grand Prix to become the youngest F1 champion, although the 21-year-old German driver swapped teams to ride for Red Bull next season.
■ BASEBALL
BALCO restrictions lifted
Thousands of pages of grand jury testimony related to the long-running steroids investigation of baseball star Barry Bonds and other athletes were unsealed by a federal judge in San Francisco on Wednesday. US District Court Judge Susan Illston signed an order that allows prosecutors to share grand jury transcripts, medical lab reports and search warrant affidavits with Bonds’ lawyers. It came in response to a request from the US Attorney’s office last week that the protective order on the documents be lifted to avoid possibly delaying Bonds’ perjury trial, scheduled to begin on March 2. The documents will however not be made public,said Jack Gillund, a spokesman for US Attorney Joseph Russoniello. He said testimony from the secret grand jury proceedings will remain closely guarded.
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