■ATHLETICS
Gran, 99, trains for games
A 99-year-old Australian great-grandmother is in training for the World Masters Games in Sydney, where she will turn heads as the oldest athlete. Sprightly Ruth Frith, who is nearly blind, plans to compete in five events at the seniors event in Sydney in October, by which time she will be 100. Since turning 85, Frith, who says she doesn’t believe in diets and “all that jazz,” has held world records for her age group in the shotput, discus, javelin, hammer, long jump, triple jump and 100m. She achieved 10.90m in 2006 in the discus — the actual world record for women is 76.80m. Frith is to appear in Sydney alongside her daughter, former Olympic athlete Helen Searle. The most nerve-racking thing about the Masters used to be having to wear shorts, Frith said, pleading support for the elderly at the event. “If you ever see creaky knees and grey-haired people walking around an oval or trying to throw, please don’t laugh. Just wave and say ‘good on you,’” she said.
■SOCCER
Advocaat to coach Belgium
Zenit St Petersburg coach Dick Advocaat was appointed Belgium manager on Wednesday and will take up the post at the start of next year, the Belgian Football Association said. Advocaat’s contract with Russian club Zenit expires in December. He will be given an initial two-year contract by the Belgian FA with the possibility of at least another 18 months should Belgium qualify for Euro 2012. Belgian media have reported that the 61-year-old Dutchman was keen on a move to Belgium to be nearer family and friends and that he would earn 600,000 euros (US$844,200) a year. Advocaat led Zenit to the UEFA Cup and European Super Cup double last year.
■SOCCER
Man City ditch big-name trio
German World Cup finalist Dietmar Hamann and former England internationals Darius Vassell and Danny Mills were among four players released by bigspending Manchester City on Wednesday. The trio were joined by former Rangers and Everton defender Michael Ball as club manager Mark Hughes pruned his squad ahead of potentially more big name signings to join those of Roque Santa Cruz and Gareth Barry. Hamann, who was a member of the German side that lost to Brazil in the 2002 World Cup final and the Liverpool side that won the Champions League in 2005, failed to play in the last months of the season because of a toe injury. Both Vassell and Mills also played in the 2002 World Cup finals but the 29-year-old striker has struggled for his place and has been linked with a move to Turkey. Mills, 32, left Leeds United for City in 2004 but rarely made a first team place his own and was loaned out to Hull City, Charlton and Derby. At Derby he picked up a serious knee injury in January last year and has not played since.
■BADMINTON
Organizers catch the drift
Organizers of next month’s world championships are scrambling to cool concerns that the air-conditioning system at the venue was causing shuttles to drift excessively. Players had complained about excessive drift during the India Open international event in March and organizers in Hyderbad want to fix the problem before the Aug. 10 to Aug. 16 tournament. “What we are doing is two-fold,” Indian badminton chief V.K. Verma said yesterday. “One is regulated release of cool air into the stadium and our engineers are working to see if the openings can be towards the spectators.” Cool air would be pumped in during breaks and then the air-conditioning system would be switched off, he said.
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