■GOLF
Accenture drops Tiger
Consulting firm Accenture announced on Sunday it was ending its six-year sponsorship of Tiger Woods, as a series of companies took a step back in their support of the world’s top golfer. The billionaire athlete, once a ubiquitous figure with priceless advertising value, has seen his squeaky clean image tarnished by a string of alleged affairs with a porn star, cocktail waitress and other women, raising concerns of sponsors pulling away from golf. “For the past six years, Accenture and Tiger Woods have had a very successful sponsorship arrangement and his achievements on the golf course have been a powerful metaphor for business success in Accenture’s advertising,” the technology, management and outsourcing consultancy said in a statement.
■EQUESTRIAN
Vision d’Etat takes top prize
Sacred Kingdom has won the US$1.5 million Hong Kong Sprint by a half-length over One World, while Good Ba Ba won the US$2 million Hong Kong Mile for the third year in a row and Vision d’Etat won the richest race of the day at Sha Tin Racecourse, the US$2.58 million Hong Kong Cup. In winning the Sprint for the second time in three years on Sunday, Sacred Kingdom topped a 14-horse field that included Breeders’ Cup Turf Sprint winner California Flag, who finished fifth. The first four finishers were trained in Hong Kong. Vision D’Etat overcame a skin infection and swept past Collection in the final yards to win the Hong Kong Cup. Good Ba Ba’s patented finishing kick allowed the horse to run down Happy Zero for a half-length win in the Mile.
■FORMULA ONE
Lotus takes Trulli, Kovalainen
Jarno Trulli and Heikki Kovalainen will race for Lotus when the Malaysian-backed Formula One team returns to the starting grid next season. Malaysian Sports Minister Ahmad Shabery Cheek told a news conference yesterday that Trulli and Kovalainen, who was replaced by F1 champion Jenson Button at McLaren, would drive for the team next season. Both have signed three-year contracts, said Lotus boss Tony Fernandes, the airline mogul backing the team. He declined to provide financial details.
■SWIMMING
Trickett retires at 24
Triple Olympic champion Libby Trickett retired from competitive swimming at the age of 24 yesterday, giving up her chance of competing at the 2012 London Games. The Australian’s retirement had been signalled after she took a break from training following this year’s world championships in Rome, where she failed to win a gold medal. “I sincerely believe I left at a great point for me,” Trickett told reporters in Sydney. “I don’t feel like I was getting slower and don’t feel like I was getting any less competitive at all. “I’m retiring on my own terms. I’m not being forced to.”
■SPEEDSKATING
Davis claims second title
Shani Davis claimed his second title in three days, winning the 1,000m in the final long-track speedskating World Cup before the Vancouver Olympics. The American skated the distance in one minute, 6.67 seconds on Sunday at the Utah Olympic Oval, again beating rival Chad Hedrick, who was fifth. Davis won the 1,500m on Friday, lowering his own world record. He also owns the world mark in the 1,000m, but didn’t come close to breaking it on the final day of competition. Davis clinched Olympic berths in the 500m, 1,000m, 1,500m and 5,000m.
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