■CRICKET
Hampshire beat Sussex
Veteran all-rounder Dominic Cork took four wickets as Hampshire beat south coast rivals Sussex by six wickets in English counties’ Friends Provident Trophy one-day final at Lord’s. Former England all-rounder Cork, 38 in a fortnight, took four wickets for 41 runs on Saturday as Hampshire restricted Sussex to 219 for nine in their full 50 overs, a score that would have been considerably less but for an unbeaten 92 from captain Mike Yardy. Hampshire made 221 for six, with more than nine overs to spare in reply. It was their fourth win in five Lord’s finals. Cork was named man-of-the-match — 16 years after he first won the award when with his native Derbyshire.
■RUGBY UNION
Carter returns after injury
All Blacks flyhalf Dan Carter played his first rugby match since he incurred a career-threatening injury in January, playing a full game for tiny Southbridge club in New Zealand’s Canterbury Province on Saturday. More than 3,000 people crowded into rural Southbridge, population 900, to watch Carter’s comeback match for his “home” club against Hornby. It was the first match Carter has played for Southbridge, a farming community on the Canterbury plains, since 2001. Carter played all 80 minutes and later said his Achilles tendon, which was partially ruptured during a match for the French club Perpignan on Jan. 31, had held up well. The All Blacks flyhalf missed four of four shots of goal in the first half but said he was otherwise happy with his comeback match.
■BOXING
Paulus Moses retains title
Paulus Moses of Namibia retained his World Boxing Association lightweight title yesterday with a unanimous points victory over Takehiro Shimada of Japan in a 12-round bout. Defending his title for the first time since becoming champion last January in Tokyo, the “Hitman” was ahead 118-110, 119-109 and 119-109 with the judges in Windhoek. Veteran Shimada hit the canvas in the first round after slipping while ducking a right hook. He appeared to hurt his left knee during the fall and required constant medical attention between rounds. Shimada still proved a stubborn opponent, defiantly holding out against a barrage of Moses uppercuts in the final three rounds.
■HORSE RACING
Conduit sweeps Stakes
Conduit led a clean sweep of the top three places for trainer Michael Stoute in the King George VI And Queen Elizabeth Stakes on Saturday. Ryan Moore rode the 13-8 favorite to a one-and-a-half-length victory over Tartan Bearer, with Ask finishing third. “This is a bit special,” Stoute said. The Aidan O’Brien-trained outsider Rockhampton set off in front and pulled five lengths clear at one point as Moore stayed near the back of the chasing pack. But Conduit then followed on the heels of Ask and Tartan Bearer as the trio moved up in the field, and Moore made his move inside the final furlong. It was Stoute’s fourth King George triumph.
■FENCING
Indians, coach have flu
Four Indian fencers and a coach have been diagnosed with swine flu on their return from the Asian junior championships in Singapore this week, domestic media reported yesterday. “Five members tested positive and were quarantined,” Fencing Association of India Secretary General Arun Kumar Vij said. They landed on Wednesday and after being diagnosed with the flu they were hospitalized, 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