■SOCCER
Mourinho said no to England
Inter coach Jose Mourinho said on Tuesday he was once offered the position of managing England’s national team. The Portuguese was talking to reporters in the build up to his side’s Champions League clash with Chelsea when he made the claim following a question about John Terry being stripped of the England captaincy. “I am not England’s coach and therefore I don’t want to comment,” Mourinho said. “Just as I am not the president of Chelsea and so don’t comment on [Chelsea owner] Roman Abramovich’s decisions. I could have been England manager but I didn’t want to,” he added. “When England came looking for me I was the proudest coach in the world.” Mourinho didn’t say when he was offered the position, but hinted that it came before the Football Association chose Fabio Capello. When the Italian succeeded Steve McLaren in late 2007, Mourinho was a free agent. “I thought about it a lot, a lot,” he said. “On the one hand I wanted to do it, on the other I knew that it wasn’t the right job for me because I love coaching every day. Therefore I decided not to do it and England chose a coach with great experience to whom I wish my best.”
■SOCCER
Benfica rout Hertha Berlin
Oscar Cardozo scored twice on Tuesday as Benfica routed Hertha Berlin 4-0 to move into the final 16 of the Europa League. Pablo Aimar and Javi Garcia also found the net at the Stadium of Light to give Benfica a 5-1 victory on aggregate. The Portuguese league leaders will meet either FC Copenhagen or Marseille next month. Aimar put Benfica on course in the 26th minute. The Argentine playmaker received a short pass from Javier Saviola on the edge of the area, broke through the defense and fired a low shot past goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny. Cardozo headed in a cross from Angel Di Maria for his first goal in the 48th minute. Garcia pounced on a weak clearance 10 minutes later and scored from outside the area, making up for his own-goal in Berlin. Cardozo completed Benfica’s dominance in the 62nd, controlling a pass from Di Maria on his chest and volleying in from close range. Hertha, bottom of the Bundesliga, rarely tested Benfica’s defense.
■GOLF
Woods apologizes to parents
Tiger Woods has offered another apology, this time to parents of children at the preschool that his two-year-old daughter attends, an Orlando television station reported on Tuesday. WFTV reported on its Web site that it has obtained a letter that Woods and his wife, Elin, wrote to parents of children attending Premier Academy to apologize for increased media scrutiny around the school. “We hope that the paparazzi will find something better to do with their time in the near future,” the letter said.
■BASEBALL
Boone announces retirement
Infielder Aaron Boone, who came back from open-heart surgery to play briefly with the Houston Astros last year, has retired after 12 seasons in the Major Leagues, he said on Tuesday. “It is with a sense of pride, sadness, and enthusiasm that I formally announce my retirement,” Boone said in a statement on baseball’s official Web site. He said he planned to become a broadcaster with ESPN. Boone, who will be 37 in March, went hitless in 10 games with the Astros five months after his heart surgery. He is believed to be the first to play in the Major Leagues following open-heart surgery.
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