■FORMULA ONE
Massa practices in public
Driver Felipe Massa got behind the wheels of a kart on Tuesday, practicing for the first time in public since sustaining multiple skull fractures in a crash in July. Television images showed Massa racing with his Ferrari uniform on a red kart at the Granja Viana track in Sao Paulo, and the Brazilian driver reportedly told friends he felt fine after the practice. Some local media said he had raced for a few laps on Monday in a secret session. Massa was hospitalized for nine days and underwent surgery following his life-threatening, high-speed crash in qualifying for the Hungarian Grand Prix on July 25. Massa had said he wants to race at the Brazilian GP next month, but Ferrari hinted he won’t be back until next year.
■BASKETBALL
Rockets train without Yao
Chinese superstar center Yao Ming and forward Tracy McGrady were among those not in uniform on Tuesday as the Houston Rockets began their NBA pre-season training camp. Seven-time NBA All-Star Yao is recovering from surgery to repair a broken left foot and is expected to miss the entire 2009-2010 season, while McGrady underwent microfracture surgery upon his left knee in February. “Far ahead of schedule” is how McGrady described his rehabilitation status after seven months, but he added: “It’s not time to really rush it back. Confidence-wise — running, cutting, jumping — I have that right now.”
■BASKETBALL
Taurasi named WNBA MVP
Phoenix Mercury guard Diana Taurasi was named the WNBA’s most valuable player on Tuesday. Taurasi was presented the award at a news conference before the team’s WNBA Finals opener against the Indiana Fever. Taurasi, a four-time WNBA all-star, led the league in scoring for the second straight year at 23.8 points per game. She and fellow first-team all-star Cappie Pondexter led the high-scoring Mercury to a 23-11 regular season record, best in the WNBA. A two-time Olympic gold medalist, Taurasi is in her sixth WNBA season after being drafted No. 1 by the Mercury out of the University of Connecticut in 2004.
■BOXING
Valero denies beating family
WBC lightweight champion Edwin Valero denied reports he was arrested on domestic violence charges. Valero told reporters on Tuesday the allegations were merely an effort to “provoke” him. “I’ve never hit my little sister and much less my mother,” Valero said in comments published by Venezuelan television station RCTV on its Web site. Venezuela daily El Universal reported Valero was arrested last week after a neighbor called emergency services and told authorities the boxer had struck his mother and a sister during a family dispute. The boxer’s mother, Eloisa Vivas, backed up Valero’s statement on Tuesday. “There wasn’t any sort of aggression, we weren’t mistreated or anything,” she said.
■SWIMMING
Jodie Henry retires
Three-time Olympic gold medalist Jodie Henry has quit competitive swimming. The 25-year-old Australian, who at one stage was the reigning Olympic and world champion in the 100m freestyle, handed her retirement forms to Swimming Australia yesterday. It came less than a month after fellow Australian sprinter Libby Trickett, a multiple Olympic and world championship gold medalist, announced she was taking a break from international competition with a view to retirement. At the 2004 Athens Olympics, Henry won the 100 freestyle, breaking the world record in the semi-finals.
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