■ BRAZIL
Ronaldo back in training
Ronaldo trained for the first time with Corinthians on Friday, a fortnight after signing a one-year contract with Brazil’s most popular club. The 32-year-old Ronaldo, trying to come back from a major knee injury this year, did not take to the field with the other players. Instead, he worked out for several hours inside the team’s gym — out of sight from the nearly 500 fans who hoped to see him practice outside. The three-time world player of the year showed up at the gym without the team’s kit, but when he saw the army of photographers awaiting him, he retreated back into the dressing room to re-emerge minutes later, wearing the kit. Ronaldo ruptured a tendon in his left knee while playing for AC Milan in February, the third major knee injury of his career. This month he signed a one-year deal with Corinthians with a one-year option and an opt-out clause for any time. Corinthians’ first game of the new season is not until Jan. 21 at home against Barueri.
■ENGLAND
Forest fire Calderwood
Nottingham Forest fired manager Colin Calderwood on Friday after a 4-2 loss against Doncaster Rovers left the former European champions in the relegation zone of the second-tier League Championship. Forest are 22nd in the 24-team league after winning just four games since being promoted from the third-tier League One. “We’re in a results business and it’s imperative that the club stays in the Championship,” chief executive Mark Arthur said. “We need to give ourselves every opportunity to do that.” Forest hired Calderwood, a former Scotland defender, in May 2006 after he guided Northampton out of League Two. Brian Clough led Forest to European Cup triumphs in 1979 and 1980.
■BRAZIL
FIFA agree to more venues
FIFA has agreed to increase from 10 to 12 the number of Brazilian cities that will host the 2014 World Cup, a spokesman for the Brazilian Football Confederation said on Friday. The confederation convinced the executive committee of soccer’s world governing body to increase the number because Brazil is such a big country, the spokesman said. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the matter with the media. The O Globo newspaper reported that five of the 18 potential host cities will definitely stage World Cup games — Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Belo Horizonte, Brasilia and Porto Alegre. The northeastern cities of Fortaleza, Recife, Salvador and Curitiba in the south are “almost certain” sites, the newspaper said, adding that the remaining three cities will be chosen from Manaus, Belem, Cuiaba, Goiania, Campo Grande and Florianpolis.
■SPAIN
Real to appeal to UEFA
Real Madrid will appeal to UEFA against its rule that means only one of the team’s new signings — France midfielder Lassana Diarra and Netherlands striker Klaas-Jan Huntelaar — is eligible to play in the Champions League. UEFA rules state that teams can sign three new players up until Feb. 1, but that only one who has played European soccer that season can play in the Champions League for his new club. Diarra and Huntelaar played in this season’s UEFA Cup for Portsmouth and Ajax, respectively. Madrid said in a statement on Friday that it had “another interpretation” of the rules, claiming they were designed to stop players changing teams within a competition and that they don’t apply in this case because Diarra and Huntelaar played in the UEFA Cup.
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