■BASKETBALL
Cubans seeking asylum
Four Cuban players who failed to turn up for their squad’s flight home from the Canary Islands this week have begun the process of seeking asylum in Spain, the local government said on Wednesday. Georvis Elias Sayus, Grismay Paumier, Taylor Garcia and Geofry Silvestre will now have to wait 30 days for a response from the Spanish authorities, a spokesman for the islands’ government said. Cuban athletes regularly abandon their national squads on trips abroad, often seeking the lucrative professional contracts they are denied at home. Baseball pitcher Aroldis Chapman went missing from a tournament in Rotterdam last month and three cyclists stayed on in Mexico after competing in a recent event there. The Cuban basketball squad had traveled to the Canary Islands for a series of friendly fixtures and lost 94-57 to Spain in Las Palmas on Friday.
■FOOTBALL
Williams in Dolphins talks
Venus and Serena Williams have found a new sport: American football. The tennis-playing sisters are set to become the latest big names to own a stake in the Miami Dolphins, with talks ongoing. “There have been preliminary talks and hopefully it’ll work out,” Serena Williams said on Wednesday after a win in Toronto. “That would be a great opportunity for both of us. You never know. We’ll see what happens.” The sisters live in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, about an hour’s drive from the Dolphins’ stadium. Musicians Gloria and Emilio Estefan and Marc Anthony recently bought small shares of the team.
■SOCCER
Salvio gives Lanus the edge
Eduardo Salvio scored twice in the final minutes to give Lanus a 2-1 win over fellow Argentine side River Plate in the preliminary round of the Copa Sudamericana on Wednesday. Cristian Fabbiani opened the scoring for River in the 68th minute after receiving a pass from veteran playmaker Marcelo Gallardo and hitting a powerful shot on the turn from the edge of the box. Salvio leveled the scores in the 80th minute after latching onto a through ball and striking first time across Daniel Vega in the River goal. Salvio then side-footed the winner on a counterattack in injury-time.
■SOCCER
Lescott’s future in doubt
Everton defender Joleon Lescott’s future at Goodison Park is in doubt after he was dropped for yesterday’s Europa League playoff first-leg match against Czech club Sigma Olomouc. Lescott did not train with the rest of David Moyes’ first teamers on Wednesday following weeks of transfer speculation linking him with Manchester City, who have had two bids for the defender rejected. The Everton boss admitted he was unhappy with his centerback’s attitude and said: “Joleon’s attitude has not been right these past days, he has disappointed me and he has disappointed his teammates. He is not in the right frame of mind.”
■SOCCER
Real put five past Dortmund
Spanish giants Real Madrid beat Bundesliga side Borussia Dortmund 5-0 on Wednesday in a friendly as part of the German club’s 100th anniversary celebrations. Esteban Granero opened the scoring for the Spaniards after just three minutes and only three minutes after the break Dutch star Arjen Robben slotted home the second. Gonzalo Higuain netted the third in the 73rd minute, before Brazil’s Kaka slotted home a 76th-minute penalty, with Raul adding the fifth with just a minute left.
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