■NORDIC SKIING
Lamy Chappuis takes title
Jason Lamy Chappuis of France won the Nordic combined World Cup title on Friday after finishing 10th, his lowest position this season. Also, his jumping finish, 13th, was the worst this season in the World Cup, where he has been in the top three 11 times. Lamy Chappuis won the gold medal in the first of the two Olympic individual events in the Nordic Combined at Vancouver. On Friday, he needed to finish 25th to clinch the World Cup overall and 10th with 26 points gave him 995 points overall, enough to keep Austrian veteran Felix Gottwald out of contention. Gottwald was second, 276 points behind.
■ALPINE SKIING
Vonn wins second World Cup
Lindsey Vonn of the US won the women’s Alpine super-combined World Cup on Friday after organizers abandoned the discipline’s final event of the season because of gale-force winds. It was the second World Cup of the season for Vonn, after she wrapped up the super-G title. The Olympic downhill champion also leads the overall and downhill World Cup standings. Organizers had initially hoped to reschedule Friday’s super-combined, but later decided to cancel it. With the World Cup finals taking up most of next week in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, Germany, the super-combined could not be rescheduled, International Ski Federation spokeswoman Rikka Rakic said.
■CYCLING
Roberts wins third stage
Australia’s Luke Roberts on Friday won the third stage of the Tour of Murcia in a mass sprint finish that involved the race favorites, including seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong. Roberts, who rides for Team Milram, edged Uzbekistan’s Sergey Lagutin and Spain’s Josep Jufre to the line at the end of the 166.5km stage between Las Torres de Cotillas and Alhama de Murcia in Spain. Jufre took over the leader’s yellow jersey from South Africa’s Robert Hunter, who won the first two stages but withdrew from the event earlier on Friday because his wife went into labor. Armstrong, who is on only his second stage race of the year, finished with the same time as the leader, as did Britain’s Olympic gold medalist Bradley Wiggins and last year’s Tour of Murcia winner Dennis Menchov of Russia.
■ATHLETICS
Hurdler Priestley suspended
British hurdler Callum Priestley has been provisionally suspended after failing an out-of-competition doping test. UK Athletics said on Friday that clenbuterol, a stimulant used in asthma treatment, was found in his B sample after a test in South Africa in January and he was provisionally suspended. UK Anti-Doping said Priestley was not yet guilty of any offense, however, and he would have the opportunity to respond. Priestley, who won the 60m hurdles at the UK Indoor Championships, could face a two-year ban unless he proves he had a valid reason for having the drug in his system.
■FOOTBALL
Roethlisberger questioned
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is being investigated in an allegation of sexual assault at a Georgia nightclub, police said on Friday. Officers said the alleged assault occurred early on Friday morning at a nightclub in Milledgeville, about 135km southeast of Atlanta. The two-time Super Bowl champion was seen visiting local restaurants and bars on Thursday night. “He’s been identified as being at the scene and there are allegations naming him as the perpetrator,” Deputy Police Chief Richard Malone said.
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