Seven-time world champion Michael Schumacher said yesterday he had turned to dye to cover up his grey hair, but the 41-year-old said he was in perfect shape for Formula One.
The German star, who stunned the Formula One world in December by signing a three-year contract to drive for Mercedes GP, told mass circulation Bild: “I started to dye parts of my hair in, I think, 2005.”
Schumacher also revealed he had had his eyes tested recently but insisted: “I do not need glasses.”
And the former Ferrari legend said he had already burned off 5kg that he had put on since calling time on his career in 2006.
Now at the ideal racing weight of 74kg, Schumacher said his fitness regime revolved around swimming and playing soccer.
“I jog very little because I have had back and knee problems since the age of 14, but what is strange is that I can play three hours of football without any problems but I cannot jog for 45 minutes,” he said. “I now swim a lot. Half an hour of breaststroke per day makes an incredible difference.”
The new Formula One campaign gets under way today.
The three-day session at Valencia’s Cheste Circuit will be the first of four this month before the season-opening Bahrain Grand Prix on March 14.
It will offer the first glimpse of F1’s offseason shake-up, with defending champion Jenson Button’s move to McLaren to join 2008 winner Lewis Hamilton one of many driver changes. Also notably, two-time champ Fernando Alonso shifted to Ferrari.
Polish driver Robert Kubica has joined Renault, while Rubens Barrichello signed for Williams.
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