■MOTOR RACING
Vatanen drops FIA vote suit
International Automobile Federation (FIA) presidential candidate Ari Vatanen has dropped the legal action he had lodged to impose measures for Friday’s election, the FIA said on Tuesday. “Following today’s meeting to agree procedures for the upcoming FIA elections, Ari Vatanen has withdrawn his court application,” motorsport’s ruling body said in a statement. Finn Vatanen had filed an application to a Paris court last week seeking safeguards over the transparency of Friday’s election in the French capital. Vatanen is battling with former Ferrari Formula One team boss Jean Todt to replace outgoing president Max Mosley for the most powerful position in world motor sport. “At the meeting, chaired by FIA President Max Mosley, both candidates endorsed the fairness of the FIA’s proposed voting procedure,” the FIA statement read. The procedure will include a public official supervising the election, a private voting area for marking ballot papers and an opportunity for each candidate to present their case prior to the election for a maximum of 15 minutes, the statement said.
■SWIMMING
Japan bans rock star style
Japan’s swimmers could face lifetime bans if they dye their hair, wear an earring or have brightly decorated fingernails. Officials have launched a strict policy to prevent athletes turning up for competitions looking more like rock stars than swimmers. Male and female swimmers caught sneaking into each other’s rooms at Japanese training camp, where the sexes have separate sleeping quarters, will also find themselves in hot water. The Japan Swimming Federation’s stringent new plan has been written into its charter following an executive board meeting on Tuesday and swimmers will have to sign a letter of oath. Rule-breakers face being booted out of the team and sent home in disgrace, a suspension of up to five years or even a lifetime ban.
■VOLLEYBALL
Cuban seeks US asylum
A Cuban volleyball player who vanished from his team’s hotel in Puerto Rico last week appeared at a US immigration office and requested political asylum on Tuesday. Leonardo Leyva, 20, received a notice to appear before an immigration judge for a hearing, said Ivan Ortiz, a spokesman for US Immigration and Customs Enforcement in San Juan. The Cuban appeared at the office with a lawyer and an unidentified friend, according to a police statement. He had been the subject of a police search after his team reported him missing from their hotel in San Juan on Friday. Attorney Sergio Ramos said Leyva’s plans were uncertain, but he was looking forward to settling in Puerto Rico. The Cuban team was visiting this US territory for a North, Central America and Caribbean Volleyball Confederation tournament. Despite Leyva’s absence, the team won the gold medal by defeating the US.
■RUGBY UNION
Super 15 talks deadlocked
Southern Hemisphere rugby chiefs yesterday headed for arbitration after failing to break the deadlock over which team will join an expanded Super 15 competition. Australian and South African officials were split on whether to back a Melbourne-based team or Eastern Cape’s Southern Kings for the provincial tournament, governing body SANZAR said. “SANZAR will move quickly to set up an independent arbitration process which will result in a binding decision,” it said in a statement.
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