■SOCCER
Ronaldo to miss derby
Real Madrid’s injured Portuguese star Cristiano Ronaldo is being referred to his former doctor, Professor Niek van Dyjk, as he seeks to overcome an ankle injury, his club said on Wednesday. “After examining the evolution of Cristiano Ronaldo’s injury today [Wednesday], it was determined that there has been no clinical improvement of the bone edema in the center of his right ankle,” a statement on Real’s Web site said. “The player cannot, therefore, begin training and must continue treatment and relief work until another examination is carried out.” Dutch physician van Dyjk, who has also treated Ronaldo’s teammate Ruud van Nistelrooy and AC Milan striker Filippo Inzaghi, operated on Ronaldo last year. Ronaldo will definitely miss the Madrid derby meeting with city rivals Atletico tomorrow.
■BASEBALL
Padilla accidentally shot
Los Angeles Dodgers pitcher Vicente Padilla is recovering from a bullet wound in his leg after a target shooting instructor in Nicaragua accidentally shot him. Eduardo Reguera said Padilla, who signed with the Dodgers in August, didn’t need surgery after spending time at Managua’s Metropolitan Hospital. Police spokesman Vilma Reyes said on Wednesday that Padilla’s pistol apparently jammed during a target shooting session late on Tuesday. Padilla handed the pistol to a shooting instructor, a former police captain, who didn’t realize there was a bullet in the chamber and shot himself in his hand, Padilla’s legal adviser Roberto Calderon said. The bullet also grazed Padilla’s leg, Calderon said.
■BASKETBALL
Adidas ends UCF contract
A fight over the shoes Michael Jordan’s son is to wear at the University of Central Florida (UCF) has cost the school any future sponsorship with Adidas. “The UCF has chosen not to deliver on their contractual commitment to Adidas,” company spokeswoman Andrea Corso wrote in an e-mail. “As a result, we have chosen not to continue our relationship with them moving forward.” First-year guard Marcus Jordan wore a pair of white Air Jordans during UCF’s 84-65 exhibition win against Saint Leo on Wednesday, the Orlando Sentinel reported on its Web site. Jordan has said he would wear only his father’s Nike Air Jordan shoes because they hold special meaning to his family. UCF is in the final year of a five-year contract with Adidas that requires coaches and athletes to use the company’s apparel and equipment.
■OLYMPICS
Condoms to be auctioned
A Chinese collector of Olympic memorabilia is putting some of his mementos on the auction block later this month, including a batch of 5,000 condoms given to competitors at last year’s Beijing Games. The items — labeled with the Olympic movement’s “faster, higher, stronger” motto — are left-overs from the 100,000 condoms distributed for free to athletes at the Beijing Olympic Village, the state China Daily said yesterday.
■SQUASH
Gaultier survives scare
Gregory Gaultier, playing his first tournament as world No. 1, survived a severe test of character, temperament and brains before reaching the semi-finals of the World Open in a thriller lasting until beyond midnight on Wednesday. Gaultier was 1-3 down in the fourth game, as well as two games to one down, before beating Nick Matthew, the British Open champion from England, 8-11, 11-8, 2-11, 11-6, 11-4 in the match of the tournament so far.
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