■SPAIN
Athletic Bilbao advance
Athletic Bilbao beat Osasuna 2-0 and 3-1 on aggregate to advance to the Copa del Rey quarter-finals on Thursday. Athletic, 23-time winners of the Spanish cup competition, will next play Sporting Gijon. In other first legs next Wednesday, Spanish league leaders Barcelona play at crosstown rival Espanyol, defending champions Valencia welcome 2007 winners Sevilla, and Mallorca host Real Betis. The return legs will be played on Jan. 28. Real Betis beat Real Union and Espanyol defeated Polideportivo El Ejido on Wednesday to ensure that only topflight clubs reached the last eight. Union and El Ejido both play in the third division.
■WORLD CUP
FIFA opens bidding
FIFA on Thursday formally opened the bidding process to stage the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. FIFA has set a Feb. 2 deadline for potential hosts to register their interest at the start of a two-year process combining the bidding for both tournaments. The two hosts will be chosen by FIFA’s 24-man executive committee in December next year. Candidates must provide around 12 stadiums holding at least 40,000 fans for group matches, with one stadium of at least 80,000 capacity to stage the opening match and final.
■ENGLAND
Newcastle give up on Neill
Newcastle boss Joe Kinnear was thwarted in his bid to sign Australian international Lucas Neill on Thursday after West Ham insisted they were determined to keep the full-back at Upton Park. The Hammers said they were furious with reports of struggling Newcastle’s interest. “West Ham would like to make it clear that Lucas Neill is a contracted West Ham United player and that we have received no approach from any club for his services, including Newcastle United,” said a statement on the club Web site. “We are astonished by reports that a Premier League manager has claimed contact with one of our players.” Newcastle said they had ended their interest in pursuing the 30-year-old Australian. “With regards to Lucas Neill, West Ham United have made it clear he is a player they value as a highly important member of their squad and who they have no desire to sell,” a spokesman said. “Newcastle United respect West Ham’s position and will therefore not be pursing this matter.”
■VIETNAM
Thais become Vietnamese
Authorities in Vietnam have granted citizenship to two Thai players, opening up the roster for additional foreign players for the club owned by Vietnam’s richest man, a club official said yesterday. The Ministry of Justice has given the green light for defender Nirut Surasiang, 29, and midfielder Sakda Jermdee, 26, to obtain Vietnamese nationality, said Huynh Mau, managing director of Hoang Anh Gia Lai club. Both former Thai national team players joined the topflight V-League club in 2003. The move will open up more playing opportunities for other foreign players, only three of whom are allowed on the field at a time. The club, which finished seventh in the 14-club V-League last season, is owned by Doan Nguyen Duc, reputed to be Vietnam’s wealthiest man, with a fortune of US$350 million. The club now has four other foreign players, including Thai national team player Datsakorn Thonglao and three Brazilians. Vietnam has allowed foreign players to play for local teams since 2000. Currently, there are more than 100 foreign players, most from Africa and Eastern Europe, playing in the V-League and first division.
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