■CYCLING
Fedrigo retains lead
Pierrick Fedrigo won the sixth stage of the Dauphine Libere and Alejandro Valverde of Spain retained the overall lead in the Tour de France warmup on Friday. Fedrigo was part of an early breakaway and held on to outsprint Jurgen Van de Walle of Belgium to win the 106.5km leg in 2 hours, 48 minutes and 17 seconds. Van de Walle was 4 seconds behind and Stephane Goubert of France was third, another second back. Valverde leads Cadel Evans of Australia, runner-up at the last two Tours, by 16 seconds in the overall standings. Alberto Contador of Spain, the 2007 Tour winner, is 1:04 off the lead. All three finished 4:12 behind Fedrigo. The seventh stage was to cover 158km from Briancon to Saint-Francois-Longchamp yesterday. The race ends today.
■CYCLING
Fignon battling cancer
Two-time Tour de France winner Laurent Fignon has advanced cancer in the digestive system and is undergoing chemotherapy, the former cyclist said. “Two months ago, I was diagnosed with cancer of the digestive tract,” Fignon said in an interview broadcast with Europe-1 radio on Thursday. “I started chemotherapy two weeks ago. It’s going well.” Fignon added that he would undergo more tests after the Tour de France. French newspaper Le Parisien also quotes him as saying that the cancer is advanced. Fignon said doctors told him the cancer was unlikely to have been caused by the performance enhancing products he took during his career. Fignon has written a book, We Were Young and Carefree, in which he describes his use of amphetamines and cortisone. “I don’t know whether or not that played a role,” Fignon said. “I don’t know at all. It’s impossible to say, yes or no. According to the doctors, apparently not.”
■SOCCER
Fabianski renews contract
Arsenal’s backup goalkeeper Lukasz Fabianski signed a new long-term contract with the club on Friday. The 24-year-old Poland international joined the Gunners in 2007 from Legia Warsaw. He made 18 appearances last season and had nine clean sheets as a deputy to first-choice keeper Manuel Almunia. “I’m very happy to sign my new contract with Arsenal, it’s a big motivation for me to keep working hard and shows that the club believes in me,” Fabianski said. Arsenal has not won a trophy since lifting the FA Cup in 2005. The competition was Arsenal’s best chance for silverware toward the end of last season, though a poor performance by Fabianski in the FA Cup semi-final against Chelsea at Wembley Stadium in April contributed to a 2-1 loss. But manager Arsene Wenger said that he was confident that Fabianski will evolve into a top goalkeeper. “I believe he is a top competitor, he’s intelligent and reads the game very well and has all the ingredients to be successful in his position,” Wenger said.
■VOLLEYBALL
Russian men whip Japanese
Beijing Olympic bronze medalists Russia whipped Japan in straight sets in the opener of the World League men’s volleyball tournament in Tokorozawa, Japan, yesterday. The Russians coasted to a straightforward 25-22, 25-23, 25-16 victory in the Pool C preliminary competition, which also includes Bulgaria and Cuba. Sixteen teams were divided into four groups in the preliminary round and the top team from each group and hosts Serbia as well as the best team from the rest will reach the six-team final round from July 22 to July 26 in Belgrade.
■BASEBALL
Girardi lashes out at Penny
Yankees manager Joe Girardi on Friday accused Boston hurler Brad Penny of deliberately hitting Alex Rodriguez with a pitch in the Red Sox’s 4-3 victory over New York on Thursday. Rodriguez was hit in the back in the first inning of the game at Fenway Park, prompting umpires to warn both teams. In the sixth inning of a game on Tuesday night, Yankees reliever Jose Veras had hit Boston’s Jason Bay with a pitch. “Penny’s control was pretty good, and I thought it was on purpose,” Girardi said. “You know, that’s all part of baseball, I guess. You know, we hit Bay, and I know Jose did not hit him on purpose. I mean, Jose has struggled with his control. But things like that happen. You expect something could happen in return.” Rodriguez declined comment before the Yankees played the Mets on Friday night.
■BASEBALL
Peavy out with ankle injury
San Diego Padres pitcher Jake Peavy is expected to miss at least one month with an injured ankle, and may not be back until after baseball’s All-Star break. “I was getting treatment and we were getting by,” said Peavy, who was scratched from his start yesterday against the Los Angeles Angels after an MRI showed that a tendon in his right ankle was torn. Peavy had made his previous two starts with the ankle taped. “Up until yesterday, I thought it was manageable,” he said. “It could have gotten ugly if we didn’t take the action that we did.” Peavy, a right-hander, will remain in a walking boot for about four weeks. He’ll be re-evaluated in two weeks, when the team may get a better idea of just how long he’ll be sidelined. “That muscle basically helps support the arch in everything he does,” trainer Todd Hutchison said. So when his foot’s on the ground, his weight’s on it, so that muscle has to be working in order for him to function properly.”
■FOOTBALL
McNabb eyes Super Bowl
Having reworked his contract for a big raise, star quarterback Donovan McNabb wants to deliver an elusive NFL championship more than ever for the Philadelphia Eagles. The five-time Pro Bowler mentioned the Super Bowl five times in a 14-minute news conference on Friday. “With the type of team that we have, I think it’s important that we focus in on what we have to do in order to achieve that common goal, and that’s obviously to win a Super Bowl,” McNabb said. McNabb and the Eagles agreed late on Thursday to restructure the final two years of his contract instead of extending his current deal. McNabb will collect US$24.5 million over the next two seasons, a person familiar with the negotiations said. That’s a US$5.3 million raise over two years.
■GOLF
Courses threaten farms
Golf course development in Vietnam is threatening its agricultural land and almost one-third of the projects should be stopped, a newspaper quoted government ministers as saying yesterday. Fifty of the 166 golf courses under development or approved should be canceled, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc was quoted by Thanh Nien newspaper as saying in the National Assembly. He asked the communist-dominated assembly to tell provincial authorities to abort the projects, the report said. “There is no reason to use rice-growing land to build golf courses,” Phuc was quoted as saying. He said farmland accounted for a high ratio of the land being cleared for golf, and his ministry had proposed tighter regulation of the projects, Thanh Nien reported.
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