■ CRICKET
IPL to be staged abroad
The lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) will be held abroad this year as the government says it can not provide security at the same time as national elections, an official said yesterday. “Due to the attitude of the government that it cannot provide security for the tournament, we are forced to take a decision to move the IPL out of India,” the country’s cricket chief Shashank Manohar told reporters. “A final decision on the venue will be announced in two to three days.” South Africa and England are the two countries being considered as the likely venues, an IPL source said.
■ DOPING
Lab has bad news for cheats
A German lab said on Friday it has developed a new test for gene doping that should be ready for use at the 2012 London Olympics. Gene doping, the practice of using genetic engineering to artificially enhance athletic performance, is believed by many to be the next frontier in drug cheating. “The test is ready to be used. For sure we could go ahead with testing for gene doping at the 2012 Olympics in London and probably a lot sooner,” said Mario Thevis, a researcher who helped developed the test. The test was developed at the Cologne Sports College, one of Germany’s leading anti-doping institutions, and still needs to be approved by the World Anti-Doping Agency. “The proof is watertight, the procedure solid,” Thevis said. “Since we have a substance foreign to the body, the test is even more reliable.”
■ MARATHON
Kipsang triumphs in Tokyo
Kenya’s Salim Kipsang won the Tokyo Marathon yesterday in two hours, 10 minutes and 27 seconds, beating out Japan’s Kazuhiro Maeda and Kensuke Takahashi. Japan claimed the top three women’s spots, with Mizuho Nasukawa taking first at 2:25:38 ahead of Yukari Sahaku and Reiko Tosa. Kipsang, who won the Paris marathon in 2005, said he was pleased with his performance in difficult conditions, which saw the field battling a strong headwind. Maeda’s second-place finish at 2:11:01 qualified him for the world championships later this year in Berlin as the top Japanese finisher. “The pace was too fast for me at 30km, so I had to run alone against the strong wind. I hadn’t expected to finish top among Japanese runners, so I’m really happy about it,” he said. Takahashi came third at 2:11:25.
■ BOXING
Klitschko still champion
Vitali Klitschko retained his WBC heavyweight title with a ninth-round TKO of Juan Carlos Gomez on Saturday. The 37-year-old Klitschko twice put the Cuban defector on the canvass, in the seventh and ninth rounds, before referee Daniel Van de Wiele stopped the fight with 1 minute, 11 seconds left in the ninth round. Gomez was trying to become the first Cuban heavyweight world champ. Klitschko was making the first defense of the title he reclaimed by stopping Samuel Peter last October.
■ BOXING
Dunne wins title in Dublin
Bernard Dunne of Ireland knocked Panama’s Ricardo Cordoba out in the 11th round to capture the WBA super-bantamweight title on Saturday in Dublin. In a fight which had six knockdowns, Dunne put the defending champion down with a left hook in the third round, but Cordoba came back to floor the Irishman twice in the fifth. Dunne took control of the fight from the sixth and put Cordoba down three times in the 11th until the Panamanian finally failed to make the count.
■ BADMINTON
England withdraws players
England withdrew two players from this week’s India Open badminton tournament because of security concerns, Indian media reported on Saturday. Organizing secretary Punnaiah Choudhary told the Indian Express that Carl Baxter and Rajiv Ouseph, seeded 11 and 12, had pulled out of the event in Hyderabad. “The communication stated that they were advised by the Foreign Office to withdraw,” Choudhary said. Security fears in the Indian subcontinent have increased following an attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team bus in Lahore, Pakistan, earlier this month, and last November’s militant attacks in Mumbai. World No. 1 Lee Chong Wei will head a field that includes former Olympic champion Taufik Hidayat and former all England champion Muhammad Hafiz Hashim.
■ RUGBY UNION
Baxter to miss matches
New South Wales Waratahs prop Al Baxter will miss up to four Super 14 rugby matches after suffering a calf strain in a loss to the Canterbury Crusaders, the club said yesterday. The injury was a recurrence of the problem that kept the Test prop on the sidelines earlier this season, Waratahs coach Chris Hickey said. “We’d expect him to be out for around a month, but depending on how his rehab goes maybe sooner,” Hickey said.
■ ICE HOCKEY
NHL suspends Ben Eager
The National Hockey League’s disciplinary committee slapped Chicago forward Ben Eager with a three-game suspension on Saturday. The 25-year-old Canadian was suspended for delivering a high, hard check to the head area of an Edmonton player during a 5-4 loss to the Oilers on Friday. The suspension was handed down by the league despite a decision by two on-ice referees not to call a penalty on the play. It was the second three-game ban for Eager this year. He was also suspended during the league’s exhibition season. This time he delivered a blow to the head of Edmonton’s Liam Reddox halfway through the final period. Reddox left the game and did not return.
■ SPORTS CAR RACING
Audi wins Sebring again
Audi introduced a new car with the same old winning results in the 12 Hours of Sebring in Sebring, Florida. Allan McNish, Tom Kristensen and Rinaldo Capello, who now have a combined total of 12 victories in the sports car classic at Sebring International Raceway, outdueled a Peugeot shared by Franck Montagny, Sebastien Bourdais and Stephane Sarrazine on Saturday in a battle of diesel-powered prototype sports cars. It is Audi’s ninth win in the endurance race in the past 10 years — a string broken only by Porsche’s victory last year — and the third time in that stretch that Audi has won in the debut of a new car.
■ BIATHLON
Bjorndalen extends lead
Norway’s legend Ole Einar Bjorndalen extended his lead in the World Cup overall standings on Saturday when he won the men’s pursuit in Trondheim, Norway, for his 88th career win. Germany’s Andrea Henkel triumphed in the women’s event. Bjorndalen, who holds the record for the most world championship wins with 14, finished the 12.5km race in a time of 33 minutes, 36.3 seconds with two penalties, ahead of Austria’s Simon Eder with Tomasz Sikora of Poland third. With four events remaining in the season only Sikora can threaten Bjorndalen’s overall lead. Henkel achieved her 16th World Cup victory by completing the 10km course in 30 minutes, 8.8 seconds.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB