■DOPING
Three Brazilians banned
Three Brazilian athletes have been suspended for two years after testing positive for a banned substance, the Brazilian Athletics Confederation said on Thursday. Sprinters Bruno Tenorio and Jorge Celio Sena and heptathlete Lucimara Silvestre, who tested positive for recombinant EPO, waived their right to have their B samples examined to avoid a possibly more stringent punishment, the confederation said on its Web site, www.cbat.org.br. The suspension runs until June 2011.
■SWIMMING
Hardy sets world record
American Jessica Hardy set a world record of 29.95 seconds in the 50m breaststroke at the US Open Championship in Federal Way, Washington, on Thursday, setting the mark as a split time in the 100m breaststroke. Hardy broke the prior mark of 30.09 seconds set by Russia’s Yuliya Efimova last Sunday at the World Championships in Rome. Canada’s Amanda Reason had just in July trimmed the world mark of 30.31 by Australian Jade Edmistone from 2006. Hardy withdrew from last year’s US Olympic swimming trials after a positive drug test and was banned from competing for one year by a US arbitration panel. The International Swimming Federation and the World Anti-Doping Agency appealed to the Court of Arbitration for Sport seeking to double Hardy’s ban to two years. CAS has said it would rule before the end of next month.
■CYCLING
Ballan takes lead in Poland
Italy’s Allesandro Ballan of the Lampre team won a sprint finish for the fifth stage of the Tour of Poland in the rain on Thursday. Ballan’s success on the 163km stage from Strzyzow to Krynica Zdroj also gave him possession of the race leader’s yellow jersey. The world champion finished ahead of Spaniard Daniel Moreno and Dutch rider Pieter Weening, who are second and third in the overall standings respectively.
■FORMULA ONE
Schumacher keeps karting
Michael Schumacher continued preparing for his return to Formula One with a second day of kart racing in northern Italy on Thursday. “We had two very good karting days,” the seven-time world champion said on his Web site, www.michael-schumacher.de. “Arms, upper body, shoulders, neck — an excellent practice indeed.” The 40-year-old German is coming out of retirement to fill in at Ferrari while Brazilian Felipe Massa recovers from injuries sustained in a nasty accident in qualifying at last month’s Hungarian Grand Prix. Schumacher is not allowed to use Ferrari’s F60 car before the European Grand Prix in Valencia on Aug. 23 because the sport’s regulations ban track testing during the season.
■FOOTBALL
Snoop hangs with Ravens
Rap star Snoop Dogg joined the Baltimore Ravens at training camp practice on Thursday, watching from the sideline before ending practice by leading a chant within the team huddle. Snoop Dogg arrived at practice in Westminster, Maryland, with an entourage that included someone who held an umbrella over the star’s head. Snoop made himself comfortable on the sideline and watched for about an hour before joining the team in the middle of the field at the end of the session. After Snoop Dogg led the Ravens through a chant taught to him by linebacker Ray Lewis, practice ended with a whoop from the players — several of whom posed for pictures with the rapper.
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