■SOCCER
Nigeria sack coach Amodu
Nigeria have sacked coach Shaibu Amodu following their third place finish at the Africa Cup of Nations and have begun the search to replace him with the World Cup finals just four months away. Amodu had been given official backing in Angola during the Cup by the federation’s board as the pressure began to mount, but a stormy meeting in Abuja that went late into the night on Friday sealed his fate. “The decision was taken during the board meeting,” Nigeria Football Federation media officer Idah Peterside said. “The technical committee of the federation has been mandated to have a new man in place by the end of the month.” Dutchman Guus Hiddink is among those on a shortlist of preferred candidates to replace Amodu. Others in the frame include former England caretaker manager Peter Taylor, Bruno Metsu, who coached Senegal to the 2002 World Cup quarter-finals, and Ratomir Dujkovic, Ghana’s coach at the last World Cup.
■SOCCER
Johnson out for the season
Fulham striker Andy Johnson has been ruled out for the rest of the season following surgery on his knee, the English Premier club confirmed on Friday. Johnson was operated on earlier this week in the US by renowned surgeon Richard Steadman — the man credited for saving the careers of Alan Shearer and Michael Owen. Fulham boss Roy Hodgson had hoped the striker would return to action before the season’s end, but his worst fears were confirmed.
■BASKETBALL
Yao, wife expecting girl
Houston Rockets star Yao Ming says he and his wife are having a baby girl and excited Chinese fans have already posted photo mashups of the couple’s faces online to predict what she’ll look like. A column in the China Daily newspaper first mentioned the news in passing on Thursday, but it made the front page on Saturday as fans sent Yao’s comments whizzing through online forums. “Yao told me about his excitement of becoming a father; especially when he first heard his daughter’s heartbeat on the monitor,” columnist Yang Lan wrote on Thursday.
■ATHLETICS
Hurdler Ross suspended
Olympic hurdler Duane Ross has received a two-year suspension from the US Anti-Doping Agency for using performance enhancing drugs. The agency announced the ban on Friday, along with the disqualification of all Ross’ results in competition since Nov. 2, 2001. Ross was the runner-up in 110m hurdles at the 2004 Olympic Trials. He competed at the Athens Games. He was one of several athletes to testify in federal court in 2008 against athletics coach Trevor Graham, who was convicted of lying to investigators in the BALCO steroid case.
■NORDIC SKIING
Di Centa wins over 15km
Italy’s Giorgio di Centa warmed up for the Winter Olympics later this month by winning the men’s World Cup 15km freestyle race in Canmore, Canada, on Friday. Di Centa, the reigning Olympic champion over 50km, clocked 34 minutes 8 seconds over the distance, to finish 5.1 seconds ahead of compatriot Pietro Piller Cottrer, with Switzerland’s reigning World Cup champion Dario Cologna third 11.9 seconds back. Meanwhile, Charlotte Kalla of Sweden edged overall leader Justyna Kowalczyk of Poland to win a women’s cross country World Cup on Friday. Kalla made two trips around the 5km course in 25 minutes, beating Kowalczyk by 10 seconds. Irina Khazova of Russia finished third.
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