■ SOCCER
Spurs unveil stadium plans
Tottenham Hotspur unveiled revised plans for their new stadium yesterday that now include a hotel and public spaces built alongside it. The new ground, to be built almost exactly on the site where White Hart Lane now stands, will have a capacity of 58,000, the club said in a statement. It will include a dedicated space for community events, such as street markets, performers, an ice rink or educational activities and a second smaller, quieter space. The development now also includes a hotel, which “will provide a further economic boost for the area,” the club said. The plans will be shown to the public between today and next Tuesday. Club chairman Daniel Levy said: “Too often new stadiums are surrounded by empty, dead space and we did not want that in Tottenham. Instead ... we have embraced the opportunity to create something truly special for local people.”
■ SOCCER
Dalmat charged with assault
Sochaux captain Stephane Dalmat was charged on Tuesday with assaulting his wife and a policeman, a spokesman at the Paris prosecutors’ office said. Dalmat, who plays in midfield for the struggling Ligue 1 team, was released on bail and will appear before a Paris court on May 27. The 30-year-old was arrested early on Monday on the exclusive Champs Elysees avenue in central Paris after he was seen hitting his wife. He punched the policeman who intervened, the prosecutors’ spokesman said, adding that Dalmat was drunk at the time. “Obviously, he will be punished, sportingly and financially,” Sochaux coach Francis Gillot told reporters on Tuesday. “But we have two months left to escape relegation and we will need everybody, including Stephane Dalmat.”
■ SOCCER
Maicon out for several weeks
Inter’s Brazilian defender Maicon will be out of action for several weeks after injuring his right leg in Sunday’s World Cup qualifier draw in Ecuador, club doctor Franco Combi said on Tuesday. Combi told the Inter Web site that Maicon had suffered” a serious injury to his right leg,” without elaborating. He added that Brazil doctor Jose Luis Runco would treat the player until he returned to Italy in around 10 days. Italian media said that Maicon, a regular under Inter coach Jose Mourinho scoring five times in 40 games, would not be back in action before the final two or three matches of the season.
■ CYCLING
Kohl’s manager arrested
Banned Austrian cyclist Bernhard Kohl’s former manager was arrested on Tuesday on doping charges. Stefan Matschiner was arrested in the middle of the night after he returned to Austria from a trip to the US, Vienna state prosecutor Gerhard Jarosch said. “He has been arrested on suspicion that he supplied athletes with doping drugs ... right up until recently,” Jarosch said. Jarosch said Matschiner could be prosecuted under Austria’s new, tougher anti-doping law which took effect in August. Under the law, selling banned substances is a criminal offence carrying a punishment of up to five years in prison. Jarosch said that in Matschiner’s case, the maximum prison sentence for the crimes he was accused of was up to three years. Kohl was handed a two-year ban last November for testing positive for the new generation blood-booster CERA in retroactive tests carried out on samples provided during last year’s Tour de France. Kohl told a Vienna news conference on Tuesday that he had engaged in doping since his first contact with Matschiner in 2005.
■ BASKETBALL
Ilgauskas gives ball to boy
The case of the missing basketball has taken a heartwarming bounce. The ball Cleveland Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas used to score his 10,000th point in the NBA turned up in the hands of a local youngster who left with it after it was thrown into the seats at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio, following a March 21 game against Atlanta. Ilgauskas, who hit the 10,000 mark early in the first quarter, was hoping to find the ball and keep it as a memento. There was even an outcry for its return by some local media outlets. The eight-year-old boy’s mother contacted the Cavaliers to say her son had the ball and wanted to return it. But Ilgauskas told the youngster to keep it as a souvenir. Ilgauskas wasn’t sure how the ball wound up in the seats to begin with. But the Lithuanian didn’t criticize the youngster for wanting to hang on to it when it fell into his hands. “I would have taken it home, too,” he said. “He just walked out. There are 20,000 fans walking out of the building. They don’t do a strip search. I hope not.”
■ BASEBALL
Jones inks Braves extension
Atlanta Braves All-Star third baseman Chipper Jones has agreed to a three-year, US$42 million contract extension through 2012, the team said on Tuesday. The deal includes an option for a fourth year, making the potential for the extension worth US$61 million. “It means a lot to me to know that I’m going to spend my entire career with one organization,” the 36-year-old slugger told reporters. Jones is a six-times All-Star and 1999 National League MVP who has played all 15 of his major league seasons with the Braves. He is a career .310 hitter with 408 home runs and 1,374 RBIs.
■ BASKETBALL
Celtics ‘shut down’ Garnett
Kevin Garnett will miss at least the next four games with a sore right knee and may return for the final three games of the Boston Celtics’ regular season. The emotional leader and defensive star of the defending NBA champions has missed 15 of the last 19 games, including the last two. Coach Doc Rivers said after practice on Tuesday that the team would “shut down” Garnett for most of the remaining seven regular season games because of continued soreness in the knee he first injured on Feb. 19. Boston’s next four games are all at home against Charlotte, Atlanta, New Jersey and Miami. The last three are at Cleveland and Philadelphia and at home against Washington.
■ FOOTBALL
Burress’ gun case adjourned
A gun possession case against New York Giants star Plaxico Burress was adjourned on Tuesday until June. Burress accidentally shot himself in the leg with an unlicensed gun at a Manhattan nightclub last year. The star receiver arrived at Manhattan Criminal Court in the company of his wife and his attorney, Benjamin Brafman. Both sides agreed to adjourn the case to June 15 following a brief hearing before Judge Michael Yavinsky. Burress’ bail was continued. Prosecutor John Wolfstaetter told the judge that the prosecution was continuing its investigation. Asked by reporters afterward whether Burress would play for the Giants this year, Brafman said, “It’s not my decision. It’s the Giants’ decision and Plaxico’s decision. It’s not a legal decision, it’s a sports decision.” Burress was charged with criminal possession of a weapon in the second degree, a felony carrying a minimum prison sentence of three-and-a-half years upon conviction.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later