■ SOCCER
Bordeaux send warning
Yoann Gourcuff led Bordeaux to a 4-0 thrashing of Paris Saint-Germain on Sunday night to open this year’s league program on a high and give a warning to French league leaders Lyon. Bordeaux now lie just a point behind the seven-time reigning champions after controlling a match that was peppered with classy goals to inflict PSG’s first defeat since losing to Rennes at the end of November. Souleymane Diawara opened the scoring when he got on the end of a Gourcuff free-kick after 10 minutes to glance home a header leaving PSG keeper Mickael Landreau no chance. Fernando Cavenaghi beat defender Zoumana Camara to a Mathieu Chalme long ball to fire home left-footed inside Landreau’s right hand post in the 35th minute. From then on, it was all Bordeaux who rounded off the scoring in the 70th and 87th minutes through Gourcuff and Fernando, though PSG’s Stephane Sessegnon had hit the post midway through the second half.
■RUGBY UNION
Tongan dies of heart attack
A Tongan rugby player, recently married and the father of two young children, died from a heart attack during a French third division match on Sunday. The 28-year-old Perigueux flanker Feao Latu collapsed just 15 minutes into the top-of-the-table match at Cahors and was pronounced dead at hospital, emergency services said. “It’s dreadful. We are completely shocked. All the players and all of the rugby family here have lived through a drama today. It’s hard to accept,” Perigueux club president Michel Macary said. Latu complained of feeling unwell in the 17th minute when Cahors had scored a try. While the players waited for the conversion, Latu fell to his knees and signaled to the bench and the club doctor for attention. Around a thousand spectators witnessed the drama at the Lucien Desprats Stadium in Cahors, with the match eventually called off.
■SOCCER
Players won’t be celebrating
Japan coach Takeshi Okada issued a bizarre ban on three of his players from attending their “coming-of-age” ceremony yesterday. Okada refused to release the trio from training for the traditional ceremony for those who have reached 20 — the mark of adulthood in Japan and a day observed with a national holiday. “There’s no need for them to go to a coming of age ceremony,” Okada said. “I’m not going either.” Cerezo Osaka midfielder Takashi Inui, his club teammate Shinji Kagawa and Oita Trinita midfielder Mu Kanazaki have all been told they cannot leave Japan’s training camp in Kyushu. Twenty is also the legal age for drinking in Japan, a fact that will not be lost on Okada after several embarrassing drink-related incidents involving Japanese players in recent years. “Football is more important,” said Inui after hearing he would not get the chance to dress up. “I want to get as much as I can out of this camp.”
■GOLF
Hansen edges out McLardy
Anders Hansen birdied the final hole on Sunday to finish at 15-under 269 and beat Andrew McLardy by one stroke at the Johannesburg Open. The Dane shot a five-under 66 at the Royal Johannesburg and Kensington Golf Club East Course to hold off McLardy, who finished second for the second time in three years after a 68. Hansen had six birdies, including four straight from the sixth hole. Two-time US Open champion Retief Goosen (74), who started the final round just one shot behind, had nine bogeys — six on the back nine. But he entertained the crowd with a 240-yard albatross on the 18th.
■BASEBALL
Braves to sign Kawakami
The Atlanta Braves have reached an agreement to sign Japanese pitcher Kenshin Kawakami subject to a medical, Major League Baseball said on its Web site (www.mlb.com) on Sunday. The 33-year-old right-hander spent the past 11 seasons as one of the top pitchers in Japan’s Central League, the Web site said, adding that the physical examination was scheduled to take place on Monday. Kawakami had a 9-5 record with a 2.30 earned run average with the Chunichi Dragons this past season, although he missed almost three weeks in September with a back strain.
■SKIING
Herbst wins in Adelboden
Austria’s Reinfried Herbst won the men’s World Cup slalom race in Adelboden, Switzerland, on Sunday, seeing off compatriot Manfred Pranger and Germany’s Felix Neureuther. France’s Jean-Baptiste Grange, who finished ninth, retains the lead in the discipline, while Austrian Benjamin Raich, 11th on the day, remains atop the overall World Cup standings. Herbst, 30, won in 1 minute 42.95 seconds to edge Pranger by 0.18 seconds and Neureuther by 0.32 seconds. Raich had seemed poised for glory after he stood second following the opening run, but fell away on the second race, while Grange was unable to find the form that brought earlier successes at Levi in Finland and Zagreb.
■BOBSLED
Angerer leads team to win
Karl Angerer of Germany led his four-man bobsled team to its second World Cup victory of the season on Sunday. Angerer and his squad of Andreas Udvari, Alex Mann and Gregor Bermbach had the fastest second run to win the Koenigssee race with a combined time of 1 minute, 37.84 seconds. Edwin van Calker of the Netherlands was second, 0.09 seconds behind, while Germany’s Andre Lange and Latvia’s Janis Minins tied for third, another 0.01 seconds back. Alexsandr Zubkov of Russia finished sixth to maintain his lead in the overall standings with 821 points. Lange is second on 803, with Minins third on 760.
■ATHLETICS
Runner dies aged 26
Police say they are investigating the death of German 800m runner Rene Herms, who was found dead in his apartment at age 26. Police confirmed a Bild newspaper report on Sunday that Herms was found dead on Saturday morning in his apartment in the eastern town of Lohmen. Police say the cause of death was unclear, but spokesman Bernd Kopke was quoted by Der Spiegel magazine as saying there were no indications of a suicide or a crime. Herms was a five-time German champion and reached the 800m semi-finals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens.
■SUMO
Asashoryu triumphs again
Grand champion Asashoryu won his match and the admiration of the cheering crowd yesterday after defeating Kotoshogiku at the New Year Grand Sumo Tournament, temporarily silencing calls for an early retirement. Asashoryu, despite a failure to take control of Kotoshogiku’s belt, gripped his opponent tightly from both sides and twisted him down to the dirt surface, wrapping up with a slap on the back. Under-fire Asashoryu added a much needed second win at Ryogoku Kokugikan for a 2-0 record. The top maegashira is winless. Asashoryu sat out part or all of the last three tournaments because of injuries to his elbow and knee. The 28-year-old has won 22 Emperor’s Cup’s but is nowhere close to being as dominant as he was a few years ago.
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