■FRANCE
Bordeaux leave it late in Cup
Ligue 1 champions Girondins Bordeaux needed a late penalty to beat third division Rodez 1-0 in the French Cup round of 64 on Saturday. Bordeaux worried their fans until Jaroslav Plasil was fouled in the box and Wendel converted the resulting penalty 13 minutes from time. In the only all-Ligue 1 clash Le Mans beat visitors Valenciennes thanks to a first-half goal by Anthony Le Tallec. Monaco survived a few scares at home to second division Tours in a match that ended 0-0 after extra time. The hosts won the shootout 4-3. Olympique Lyon qualified in more impressive fashion with a 3-1 win at second division Racing Strasbourg. Several matches were called off because of wintry conditions.
■TURKEY
Club suspend midfielder
First division side Kayserispor said on Saturday that it had suspended midfielder Bilal Aziz Ozer after a newspaper report implicated him in the match-fixing scandal. “Unfortunately, our player Bilal Aziz has been accused of manipulating a match against Eskisehirspor. We won the said match with a goal assisted by the said player,” the club said in a statement on its Web site. “Despite this, we have suspended Bilal Aziz ... so as not to give rise to any rumors,” it said. The announcement came after the Milliyet newspaper published a report filed with German prosecutors that named Ozer as one of three Kayserispor players that tried to fix an Oct. 4 league match against Eskisehirspor.
■PORTUGAL
Benfica top after 1-0 win
Javier Saviola’s goal led Benfica to a 1-0 victory over Rio Ave that kept them joint-leaders as the Portuguese league resumed on Saturday after a three-week break. The Argentine’s goal sent Benfica to the top of the standings ahead of Braga on goal difference. It was Rio Ave’s first home loss this season. Sporting took advantage of its man advantage to beat Lexoies 1-0. Bruno Gallo was shown a red card in the 70th minute before Antonio Vilar headed home the winner with six minutes left. Also, Henrique Sereno’s goal led Guimaraes to a 1-0 win over Maritimo.
■ZAMBIA
Copper Bullets beat S Korea
Zambia sent out a strong message ahead of their departure for the African Nations Cup finals in Angola by beating South Korea 4-2 in a friendly on Saturday. Felix Katongo, Rainsford Kalaba, James Chamanaga and Noel Chivuta scored as the Copper Bullets took advantage of Korean errors. Katongo and Kalaba had Zambia two up before Kim Jung-woo pulled one back in the 34th minute. Chamanga extended the lead just before the hour and Chivuta added a fourth on 71 minutes. Korea got a late goal from Koo Ja-cheol. South Korea were in South Africa for a week of high altitude training and now head to Spain for two more internationals. Zambia play Tunisia in their opening match at the Nations Cup in Lubango on Wednesday.
■CAMEROON
Webo on target in 3-1 win
Achille Webo scored twice as African Nations Cup hopefuls Cameroon beat Kenya 3-1 in a warm-up match on Saturday. Cameroon stretched their unbeaten run to eight games despite going behind in the 20th minute to a James Situma goal. Webo equalized eight minutes before half-time and then put his side in the lead 11 minutes into the second half. Two minutes later Mohammadou Idrissou grabbed a third. Cameroon play their opening Group D match against Gabon on Wednesday.
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