■CRICKET
Windies turn to government
Protesting West Indies players have turned to the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Governments for help in their current impasse with the West Indies Cricket Board (WICB). At the same time, the WICB reaffirmed its commitment to start paying out money owed to the players under what agreements it believes it had already established with them. These are the latest developments in the continuing saga between the two sides which has led to the leading West Indies players making themselves unavailable for the ongoing home series against Bangladesh. The West Indies Players’ Association said late on Wednesday that it had written to Guyana President Bharat Jagdeo to seek his intervention. Jagdeo is the current chairman of the Heads of Government of CARICOM committee, which is similar in its composition and function to the African Union.
■SOCCER
United cancel Jakarta game
Manchester United have canceled the Jakarta leg of their Asia tour after the hotel where they were due to stay in the Indonesian capital was bombed yesterday. The English champions were scheduled to play against an Indonesia “All Star” team on Monday on the second leg of their preseason tour, which also included stops in Malaysia, South Korea and China. The team canceled the trip, however, after bomb blasts ripped through the JW Marriott and Ritz-Carlton hotels in Jakarta’s business district.
■SOCCER
TV deal irks Old Firm clubs
Celtic and Rangers, the richest and most powerful clubs in Scottish soccer, have condemned the Scottish Premier League’s decision to accept a £65 million (US$107 million) broadcasting deal with Sky and ESPN. The 12 SPL clubs agreed, in a non-unanimous vote, to accept the contract that will see 60 live games screened per season but deliver only about half the income of the previous deal with Irish broadcaster Setanta, which has gone into administration. The new arrangement with satellite broadcaster British Sky Broadcasting and Walt Disney Co’s sports TV newtwork ESPN will last until the end of the 2011-2012 season with an option for a further two years but the Old Firm clubs are unhappy with it. “The whole SPL is now a commercial victim, in an uncompetitive TV market, in the middle of a recession, locked in for years to an income some 60 percent lower than last year’s bid,” Celtic chairman John Reid told www.celticfc.net. Celtic and Rangers have previously discussed the idea of buying the rights themselves and Reid said his club “reserved the right to continue to explore those options.”
■SOCCER
Austria bans the ‘vuvuzela’
The Austrian professional soccer league on Thursday imposed a stadium ban on the vuvuzela, the long plastic trumpet that made such a noisy impression in last month’s Confederations Cup in South Africa. But the league said the vuvuzela was being banned not for the deafening and tuneless din they produce, but because they might be used as missiles. “Vuvuzelas can be used as projectiles. Furthermore, they can incite aggressive behaviour amongst other fans,” Austrian league spokesman Christian Kircher said. The trumpets caused consternation among some in South Africa for the Confederations Cup, with several non-African players and coaches calling for their ban. But FIFA president Sepp Blatter has given them his blessing, blasting the detractors by telling them Africa is about dance and music and that moaning about the instrument bordered on discrimination.
■SKIING
Cody Marshall suffers fall
US alpine skier Cody Marshall was hospitalized with a head injury on Thursday, one day after he fell off the rail of an out-of-service escalator at a shopping center. Police said the 26-year-old was apparently sliding down the rail of the mechanical stairway, which was not in use and had been cordoned off. He tumbled backwards off the rail, falling about 6m. The 26-year-old Marshall, who finished third in the slalom at the US alpine championships earlier this year, was out with teammates when the accident happened. He was taken by ambulance to hospital in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he was listed in critical condition on Thursday.
■SKI JUMPING
Women to appeal ruling
A group of female ski jumpers will appeal a court decision that prevents them from competing at next year’s Winter Olympics. The appeal will be based on the argument that the organizers of the Vancouver Games must abide by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, said Ross Clark, the lawyer representing the jumpers. “It cannot host events on Canadian soil that implement discrimination,” Clark said in a statement on Thursday. The British Columbia Supreme Court ruled last week the International Olympic Committee is discriminating against the ski jumpers by keeping them from the Games. But the judge said the court does not have the power to order the sport be part of the program. The 15 former and current female ski jumpers went to court in April, saying their exclusion violated the charter. The women said the Vancouver organizing committee should either hold women’s ski jumping or cancel all ski jumping events. Justice Lauri Ann Fenlon said the IOC, not the local organizers, decides which sports are on the roster and that the organization does not fall under her court’s jurisdiction. The IOC has said its decision to not allow women’s ski jumping at the games was based on “technical issues without regard to gender.”
■BASEBALL
Israel wants to play ball
America’s favorite pastime could be heading back to the Holy Land. Israeli baseball authorities say they’ve reached a deal giving a group of US businessmen a two-year option to operate a pro league in Israel. The group is headed by Marvin Goldklang, a minority owner of the New York Yankees, and Jeff Rosen, a US businessman who owns the Haifa Heat in Israel’s pro basketball league. Israeli baseball official Nathan Pomerantz said the Americans were conducting “due diligence” on the venture. He hopes the league will be ready for play next year or in 2011. The announcement comes two years after a separate group of Americans tried to bring pro baseball to Israel. The Israel Baseball League folded after one season.
■OLYMPICS
London chief receives bonus
David Higgins, the man responsible for ensuring preparations for the London 2012 Olympics stay on track, was awarded a £200,000 (US$328,100) bonus this year on top of his £384,000 salary. The Olympic Delivery Authority’s (ODA) annual report released on Thursday revealed that a total of more than £500,000 in performance-related bonuses had been paid to its senior figures in the 2008-2009 financial year. ODA chief executive Higgins voluntarily deferred half of his bonus until no later than December 2012 subject to the Games being delivered on time and within the £9.3 billion budget, the report 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