■GERMANY
Bayern seal Robben deal
Bayern Munich signed Dutch winger Arjen Robben from Real Madrid yesterday in a bid to improve on their stuttering start to the season. The 25-year-old international signed a four-year contract after passing a medical earlier in the day, the Bundesliga club said. Bayern said Robben would train later on yesterday and would be available for today’s match at home to champions VfL Wolfsburg, when Bayern will attempt to chalk up their first win of the season. Under new coach Louis van Gaal, Bayern have taken only two points from their first three games in their worst start to a season for 43 years. Van Gaal said: “I’m delighted, because now I have another creative player. He’s an explosive player.”
■ENGLAND
Tevez gets off the mark
Argentine striker Carlos Tevez scored his first Manchester City goal on Thursday as the big-spending Premier League side defeated Crystal Palace 2-0 in the second round of the League Cup. Defender Joleon Lescott also made his City debut after his move from Everton. Shaun Wright-Phillips scored the opening goal on 50 minutes before Tevez struck 20 minutes later to seal City’s passage into the third round of the competition. City boss Mark Hughes backed Tevez, who scored 34 times for rivals Manchester United in two seasons, to keep adding to his tally. “That was important for him,” Hughes said. “I hoped he would get opportunities tonight and he was able to get off the mark. His energy and enthusiasm for the game shone through. The more he plays for us, the better he will become.”
■ENGLAND
Villa seek to boost defense
Aston Villa have agreed a fee with Manchester City for defender Richard Dunne and have signed Stephen Warnock from Blackburn Rovers. The 29-year-old City skipper and Ireland international Dunne was due to travel to Birmingham to discuss personal terms and undergo a medical, the club said. The recent signings of Joleon Lescott from Everton and Kolo Toure from Arsenal had cast doubt on Dunne’s future at Eastlands. Villa have also brought in left-back Warnock, 27, on a four-year deal for an undisclosed fee from Blackburn.
■ENGLAND
Chimbonda joins Blackburn
Tottenham defender Pascal Chimbonda on Thursday signed a two-year deal with Premier League rivals Blackburn. “We’ve got an experienced player who is desperate to play football again, having missed it at Spurs,” said manager Sam Allardyce. The Rovers boss is confident Chimbonda’s experience and desire to play regularly will allow him to adapt quickly. “When you meet someone who tells you they just want to play football it is a good thing from the start. When you see what he has achieved in his Wigan and Tottenham early days we want him to come and emulate that at Blackburn, whichever position we pick him in.”
■ENGLAND
Distin heads to Goodison
Everton moved to plug the gap left by the sale of Joleon Lescott to Manchester City by signing defender Sylvain Distin from Portsmouth on Thursday. Frenchman Distin, 31, has agreed a three-year deal at Goodison Park subject to a medical. “All the formalities have been completed. After Sylvain made it clear his preferred destination was Goodison the chairman moved quickly to finalize the deal and Sylvain is now on his way to undergo a medical,” chief executive Robert Elstone 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