■DAKAR RALLY
Sainz takes over lead
Carlos Sainz took over the lead in the Dakar Rally as Volkswagen swept the podium in a taxing fifth stage north through the foothills of the Atacama Desert on Wednesday. Mark Miller of the US won his first Dakar stage, the grueling 483km stretch from Copiapo to Antofagasta over rocks and the dust-like sand in 5 hours, 6 minutes, 15 seconds. Teammate Sainz finished 2:10 behind, and Qatar’s Nasser al-Attiyah was third, 4:27 back. Sainz led al-Attiyah by 4:37 overall and Miller was 9:39 off the pace in third. In motorbikes, defending champion Marc Coma’s Sherco blew a rear tire while leading by six minutes, allowing Contardo Lopez to win the stage on an Aprilla in 5:52:40. Cyril Despres’ KTM was 1:30 behind, allowing the Frenchman to extend his overall lead to 37:37 on Lopez. Rally great Stephane Peterhansel, who started the day as overall leader, stalled twice with mechanical problems and finished more than two hours behind Miller.
■SOCCER
Vieira joining Man City
Patrick Vieira confirmed yesterday he was leaving Inter to join Manchester City in a bid to secure more first team action and gain a place in France’s World Cup squad. “I set myself an objective, I want to go to the World Cup,” the 33-year-old former France captain told television channel Eurosport. “The important thing for me is to go to Manchester City and to show the coach [Roberto Mancini] I’m the same player than when he was in charge of Inter,” he said. “After a year in Turin and three and a half years in Milan, it’s over. To go to the World Cup I need playing time and I can’t reach my objective with Inter where I’m not a first choice player.”
■SOCCER
Atletico take Cup beating
Atletico Madrid’s miserable season took a turn for the worse when they were reduced to 10 men and beaten 3-0 at second division Recreativo Huelva in their King’s Cup last-16 first-leg match on Wednesday. Atletico were two goals behind and down to 10 men inside half an hour. Bruno Fornaroli gave the home side the lead on 14 minutes before Tomas Ujfalusi was shown a straight red card. The visitors’ misery deepened when Cedric brought Aitor down in the penalty area and Jeronimo Barrales scored from the spot. Recreativo easily contained a toothless Atletico in the second half and Daniel Candeias added a deserved third. The result left Atletico on the verge of elimination before next week’s second leg. In other King’s Cup games Deportivo Coruna won 2-1 at La Liga rivals Valencia, while Villarreal surrendered the lead to draw 1-1 at struggling second-tier side Celta Vigo. Third-tier Alcorcon, who dumped Real Madrid out in the last round, fell 3-1 behind at home to Racing Santander but scored a late goal to keep alive their hopes.
■SOCCER
Fergie Jr takes Preston job
Darren Ferguson, the 37-year-old son of Manchester United boss Sir Alex, on Wednesday returned to management as manager of Championship side Preston. Ferguson, who left Peterborough in November was installed as the successor to Alan Irvine. “I’m very, very ambitious and with my name I cannot afford to fail,” he told reporters, shrugging off the inevitability of comparisons with his illustrious father. “Pressure is there in any walk of life but you’ve got to try and be successful. If you win enough games you will be fine, if you don’t then you will be under pressure.”
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