■SOCCER
No go Agogo for World Cup
Ghana striker Junior Agogo will miss the World Cup after undergoing knee surgery. Ghana’s Football Association says the 30-year-old Agogo, who plays for Apollon Limassol in Cyprus, will be out of action for six months. The forward, who has also played for Chicago Fire and Colorado Rapids in the MLS, and Bristol Rovers and Nottingham Forest in England, starred at the 2008 African Cup in Ghana. He scored the winner in the quarter-finals against Nigeria and three goals in the tournament as the hosts finished third.
■SOCCER
Blackpool clinch spot
Blackpool clinched a place in the Championship play-offs, while Sheffield Wednesday were relegated to League One after being held to a 2-2 draw by Crystal Palace on a dramatic final day in English soccer’s second tier. Blackpool went into their last fixture knowing victory would guarantee a top-six finish and, although they drew 1-1 at home to Bristol City, they finished sixth anyway as seventh placed Swansea could only draw 0-0 against Doncaster. Blackpool are now just three games away from securing promotion to the top flight for the first time in 40 years. They will take on Nottingham Forest over two legs, with the winner meeting Cardiff or Leicester at Wembley on May 22.
■MOTOGP
Lorenzo leads Spanish 1-2
Jorge Lorenzo led a Spanish 1-2 at the world championship race in Jerez on Sunday ahead of compatriot Dani Pedrosa with Italy’s world champion Valentino Rossi finishing third. The victory sees Lorenzo overtake Rossi at the top of the world championship standings to the delight of the home crowd. “It’s the greatest victory of my career,” said Lorenzo, who picked up his sixth win in his third year in motorcycling’s elite category. Rossi said he had “struggled” throughout with the shoulder injury he recently suffered in a motocross accident, and with a choice of tires that left him simply trying to finish as high up as possible.
■SKATING
Chinese stars visit Taiwan
Triple gold medalist Wang Meng and other members of the Chinese skating teams that won five gold medals at the this year’s Winter Olympic Games arrived in Taipei yesterday for two shows. The delegation, featuring five top short track speed skaters and 19 figure skaters, will give two performances at the Taipei Arena ice rink tomorrow and on Thursday. The Chinese Taipei Olympic Committee’s secretary-general said the visit provides a rare opportunity for local audiences to see Olympic gold medal winners perform in person. Wang won short track speed skating gold in the women’s 500m, 1,000m and 3,000m relay races at the Winter Games in Vancouver in February and is China’s most decorated Winter Olympian. The figure skaters include Pang Qing and Tong Jian, who took silver in the pairs competition in Vancouver.
■CRICKET
Murali out of World Cup
Muttiah Muralitharan has been ruled out of the remainder of the Twenty20 World Cup after injuring his groin in Sri Lanka’s two-wicket loss to New Zealand. Team physiotherapist Tommy Simsek said Muralitharan had strained his right adductor muscle and would need up to three weeks rest, the Sri Lankan cricket board announced yesterday on its Web site. Muralitharan’s injury is a major setback for Sri Lanka’s chances. Muralitharan has more international wickets than any cricketer, with 792 in 132 Tests and 512 in 334 limited-overs internationals.
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