■HOCKEY
Coyotes stay put for now
The NHL’s Coyotes are staying in Phoenix after a bankruptcy judge on Monday rejected the proposed sale of the team to Canadian billionaire Jim Balsillie, who would have moved it to Hamilton, Ontario. Judge Redfield Baum issued a ruling concluding that the June 29 deadline imposed by Balsillie did not allow enough time to resolve the many issues raised in the complex case. The ruling is a victory for the NHL, which had argued Balsillie was using the US Bankruptcy Court to attempt to circumvent the league’s rules over who owns teams and where they are located. Balsillie refused to concede defeat, saying he wants to work with the league and move the franchise. The judge’s decision was a success for the city of Glendale, which spent US$183 million to build an arena for the Coyotes and had contended the franchise could not use bankruptcy to evade its lease. The NHL says four parties have filed preliminary applications to investigate purchasing the team and keeping it in Arizona. However, if no buyer can be found, the league would look to relocate the franchise. The Coyotes have lost more than US$300 million since the franchise moved from Winnipeg, Manitoba, in 1996 but the NHL contends the franchise can be viable with better management and more success on the ice.
■SOCCER
Gunmen kill player
The captain of Bayelsa United was killed by armed robbers hours after he helped his team win Nigeria’s Premier League, a club official said on Monday. Abiel Tabor, 24, was shot late on Sunday near the town of Oleh, in southern Nigeria’s Delta state, when he tried to drive away from the gunmen. Tabor was traveling with his younger brother and two others to visit his family after Bayelsa clinched the title with a 2-2 draw against Warri Wolves. “We were told he was [killed] by the armed robbers close to Warri,” said Bayelsa’s assistant chairman Ebi Ayah. Bayelsa is a state in the lawless Niger Delta, where violent crime is common and militant groups attack oil facilities and kidnap oil workers for extortion purposes.
■SUMO
US Congress hails pioneer
The US Congress on Monday saluted Hawaiian-born sumo wrestler and stablemaster Azumazeki, a foreign pioneer in sumo who is retiring after a 45-year career. Azumazeki — who was born Jesse Kuhaulua and changed his name to Daigoro Watanabe after taking Japanese nationality in 1980 — won hearts in Japan for his devotion to the sport and polite, cheerful manner off the ring. In a resolution, the US House of Representatives hailed Azumazeki for his “achievements to sumo and his contributions to enhancing United States-Japan relations.”
■SOCCER
Game comes under scrutiny
Authorities will investigate a league game between Terek Grozny and Krylya Sovietov Samara following match-fixing allegations, the president of the Russian FA (RFU) Vitaly Mutko said. “I had watched this match and I didn’t like what I saw,” Mutko told reporters. “The RFU’s ethics commission will now take a closer look at it but in any case, the special forces [police] have to deal with it. We’ll also talk to Samara officials.” Several online betting companies, including the British firm Betfair, reported irregular betting patterns for Saturday’s match in Grozny before suspending betting altogether. Chechen club Terek beat Samara 3-2 to ease relegation worries.
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