■ENGLAND
Liverpool suspend Itandje
Liverpool have suspended reserve goalkeeper Charles Itandje for 14 days after he was caught on camera apparently laughing during Wednesday’s Hillsborough memorial service. The actions of the 26-year-old Frenchman enraged Liverpool fans, with complaints over his behavior flooding in on Internet message boards. Itandje was instructed by Liverpool manager Rafael Benitez not to attend training on Friday. A Liverpool spokesman said in a statement on the club’s Web site: “Charles Itandje has now been officially suspended for 14 days by the club while we investigate his conduct during the Hillsborough Memorial Service.” The memorial service, attended by players past and present and thousands of Liverpool fans, was to honor the 96 fans who died at the FA Cup semi-final against Nottingham Forest on April 15, 1989.
■GERMANY
Schalke move into sixth
Schalke 04 beat Energie Cottbus 4-0 on Friday for their third straight win to move back into contention for a place in Europe. Christian Pander and Halil Altintop scored in the first half and Jermaine Jones and Kevin Kuranyi added goals after the break to lift Schalke provisionally past Hoffenheim into sixth place. Schalke dominated the game and were never threatened by Cottbus, who have lost their last six games in Gelsenkirchen. The team from eastern Germany remain next-to-last. The game was decided early after Pander had scored on a deflected shot four minutes in and Altintop doubled the lead in the 23rd minute. Schalke cruised in the second half, with Jones netting in the 60th minute and Kuranyi completing the win in the 89th minute.
■MACEDONIA
Pobeda banned by UEFA
Macedonian club FC Pobeda were on Friday banned from UEFA competitions for eight years for match-fixing, the sport’s European governing body announced. The UEFA Control and Disciplinary Body added that club president Aleksandar Zabrcanec and player Nikolce Zdraveski had been banned for life as a result of the investigation. UEFA said Pobeda had been punished “for breaching the principles of integrity and sportsmanship under Article 5 of the UEFA disciplinary regulations by manipulating the outcome of a match.” The investigation centered on a Champions League qualifying tie between Pobeda and Armenian side Pyunik which took place in 2004.
■BOLIVIA
Physio admits Viagra use
The former physio of Bolivian side Blooming said on Friday he had administered Viagra to several players to help them conquer the effects of playing at altitude in La Paz. “We used Sildenafil, better known as Viagra. In Bolivia, the best-known brand is Segurex. We prescribed it for several players, especially those who suffered most from altitude,” Rodrigo Figueroa told La Prensa newspaper. Figueroa said he administered the product, which La Prensa said aids oxygenization, mixing it with fruit juice for matches at La Paz, which stands 3,570m above sea level. Blooming’s base at Santa Cruz, in contrast, stands at barely 400m above sea level. Figueroa, now with Bolivar, who are based in La Paz, admitted the players were unaware of what they were taking. “Eight or nine players were concerned,” he said, while stressing Sildenafil was not on the list of banned products either of the World Doping Agency or FIFA. Asked about his old side’s results using the product, Figueroa said: “At altitude you win, you draw, you lose. The best results came when the team relied on strong tactical nous.”
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