■TCHOUKBALL
Teams visit diplomats
Two teams from a senior high school in Taipei County visited Taiwanese diplomats in Rome on Wednesday after taking first and second place at last weekend’s Beach Tchoukball International Festival in Rimini, Italy. Huang Chin-cheng, president of the International Tchoukball Federation based in Kaohsiung County, led the two teams as they called on Taiwanese representative to Italy Yih Jung-tzung and Taiwan’s ambassador to the Holy See, Larry Wang. During the meeting, Yih said sports were an effective form of diplomacy and praised the players as the country’s “goodwill ambassadors.” Wang gave the teams commemorative pins that are used as a symbol of friendship between Taiwan and the Vatican, and talked with the players about diplomatic relations between the two countries. Huang said Taiwan’s wins at the competition — in which more than 100 teams competed — demonstrated the country’s leading edge in the sport.
■SOCCER
Lyon win, grab third place
Olympique Lyonnais took a big step toward Champions League qualification for next season by beating Monaco 3-0 on Wednesday. Goals either side of halftime from Miralem Pjanic and Bafetimbi Gomis, and a late strike by Lisandro Lopez secured a comfortable victory for Claude Puel’s side over the beaten French Cup finalists. Lyon are now third in the table, a point behind second-placed Lille and a point above Auxerre. With the top three qualifying for the Champions League, Lyon can make sure of a place in Europe’s top club competition with victory at home to already-relegated Le Mans tomorrow.
■SOCCER
Pohang knock out Kashima
Reigning champions Pohang Steelers beat Kashima Antlers 1-0 on Wednesday, joining three other South Korean clubs in the Asian Champions League quarter-finals. Mota’s deflected right-foot shot in the 29th minute was enough for Pohang to dispose of the last Japanese team in contention. Eninho scored once in each half, twice giving Jeonbuk Motors the lead at Adelaide United, but the visitors needed a late extra-time goal from Lee Dong-guk to win 3-2. That allowed Jeonbuk to join Pohang in the next round along with other South Korean clubs Seongnam Ilhwa and Suwon Bluewings. Also going through were Zobahan, who beat Mes Kerman 1-0, and Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal, 3-0 winners over Uzbekistan’s Bunyodkor.
■SOCCER
Teens to train at Barca
China will select 40 teenagers to train at Spanish club Barcelona next month in a major Chinese Football Association (CFA) initiative to develop elite players in Europe. The players, all under 15, will be chosen by Barca scouts at a two-month camp in Hebei Province and then will stay with more than a dozen youth clubs affiliated to the European champions over the next three years. The project is a part of the CFA’s ambition to train up to 500 teenagers overseas.
■ICE HOCKEY
US slump to third loss
Hosts Germany needed two goals from brothers Marcel and Nicolai Goc to seal their qualification to the world championship second round with a 3-1 win over Denmark in Cologne on Wednesday. The US slumped to their third straight group defeat, 3-2 against Finland, to fight for their place in the top division. The losing run by the US left Germany and Finland to progress from Group D along with Denmark. Switzerland beat Canada 4-1 to finish top of Group B, with Canada also advancing in second spot.
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