Springbok Bryan Habana will be a notable absentee when Northern Bulls launch their defense of the Super 14 title this weekend. The 2007 World Rugby Player of the Year has been lured to rivals Western Stormers after helping the Bulls win the southern hemisphere championship twice in the last three seasons.
A last-gasp Habana try snatched victory over Coastal Sharks in an all-South Africa 2007 decider and he crossed the line twice last May in the final rout of Waikato Chiefs. The blow of losing Habana has been softened slightly by the return from Japan of utility back Jaco van der Westhuyzen while former hooker Gary Botha has quit England to bolster the pack.
Locks Victor Matfield and Bakkies Botha have no peers in world rugby, No. 8 Pierre Spies is a fearsome sight when he storms toward the tryline and the champions can choose their hooker from three top-class performers.
After visiting Central Cheetahs today, Bulls have four consecutive home fixtures which offers a chance to build a sizeable points tally before travelling to Australasia, where they often struggle.
The second most powerful South African challenge traditionally comes from the Durban Sharks, but perennial underachievers Western Stormers may step into that role this year. Apart from Habana, the Cape Town Stormers have also wooed ’Boka and Golden Lions center Jaque Fourie to compensate for the loss of Jean de Villiers to Munster.
Flanker Schalk Burger has replaced De Villiers as skipper and if the pack maintain the improvement of last season, Stormers can realistically hope for a top-four finish and a semi-finals slot.
Filling the shoes of Argentina fly-half Juan Martin Hernandez poses Sharks a major challenge with unproven Steve Meyer being touted for the pivotal role.
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