■CYCLING
Grullon killed by truck
Dominican Republic cyclist Leonardo Grullon died on Thursday after he and four other cyclists were hit by a truck while training for the Pan American Championships. An unidentified truck driver apparently fell asleep and plowed into the group near the mountainous community of Jarabacoa, northwest of Santo Domingo, the Dominican Cycling Federation said. In February, the 24-year-old Grullon won the third stage of the annual international Independence Ride in the republic. He was a soldier in the Dominican Army. Four of the five cyclists hit were members of the national team, including Juan Carlos Polanco, who was critically injured, federation spokeswoman Ana Lebron said.
■CYCLING
Chinese rider tests positive
Chinese rider Li Fuyu on Lance Armstrong’s Team RadioShack was suspended by the International Cycling Union on Thursday for testing positive for a banned product at a race in Belgium last month. The UCI said Li tested positive for Clenbuterol — an anabolic agent that can be used to reduce body fat — during an in-competition test at the Dwars Door Vlaanderen on March 23. The UCI said it notified the 31-year-old rider on Thursday of the “provisional” suspension that would remain in effect until China’s cycling federation determines whether Li was doping. RadioShack said Li had been suspended and would be fired from the team if his B sample confirms the positive test.
■RUGBY UNION
Rebels chief resigns
The chief executive of new Super rugby franchise Melbourne Rebels has resigned after being accused of orchestrating systematic salary cap breaches that have brought National Rugby League club Melbourne Storm to its knees. Brian Waldron, who joined the Rebels earlier this year after being employed as chief executive of Storm from 2004 to last year, was labeled by his former employers as the “architect” of illegal player payments that helped the Storm win two premiership titles in the last three years. The Storm had those titles revoked on Thursday, were fined A$1.7 million (US$1.58 million) and will not be allowed to accrue any points this season.
■BASKETBALL
Players, coach fined by NBA
Boston Celtics forward Rasheed Wallace and Orlando Magic coach Stan Van Gundy and forward Matt Barnes were each fined US$35,000 by the NBA on Thursday for publicly criticizing game officials. Wallace was fined for comments made to the media on Monday. Van Gundy and Barnes said after the Magic beat Charlotte on Wednesday that they were not happy with the way officials called the game on Dwight Howard. Orlando’s All-Star center has been in foul trouble in the first two games of their series. Barnes said the officials need “to stop calling such tic-tac fouls on him.” Van Gundy said among other things that he doesn’t “see the other great players in this league on the bench all the time with foul trouble, especially on marginal calls.”
■ICE HOCKEY
Hasek wins league title
Twice Stanley Cup winner Dominik Hasek, 45, won the Czech ice hockey league title on Thursday with the club where he started his career. Hasek came out of retirement last year to play for Pardubice who swept past Vitkovice 4-0 in overtime to win the Czech final. The netminder retired from the NHL in 2008 after landing the Stanley Cup for the second time with the Detroit Red Wings.
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