■RUGBY UNION
Hip injury rules out Toeava
A hip injury has ruled New Zealand utility back Isaia Toeava out of the All Blacks’ Tri-Nations campaign. The 26-Test Auckland Blues player will have surgery this week to remove a bone spur from his hip that hampered him during the Super rugby season, the All Blacks Web site said yesterday. “It is jamming up against a nerve and it’s pretty painful,” Toeava said. “I’ve had cortisone, but the pain keeps coming back. They say it will take about four to six months to heal and while it’s pretty disappointing, it’s best I get it fixed now.” Toeava’s absence leaves New Zealand coach Graham Henry with a selection dilemma in midfield for Tests against Ireland and Wales next month, given center Ma’a Nonu is likely to be out for at least six weeks with a knee injury.
■SOCCER
TP Mazembe kicked out
African champions TP Mazembe were kicked out of the on-going East and Central Africa club championship on Sunday after several players attacked match officials, tournament officials said. The fracas kicked off when skipper Tresor Mputu Mabi attacked the assistant referee from Burundi and the other players joined in, leading to the match being abandoned. Congolese side Mazembe were trailing 1-0 against APR of Rwanda in what was a decisive preliminary-round match. TP Mazembe had been given a special invitation as a guest team to the regional championship, but Council of East and Central Africa Football Association secretary Nicholas Musonye said the Lubumbashi club had shown the highest level of indiscipline. “We have been nice to them by inviting them to our tournaments, but they have abused our hospitality by continuously being a nuisance,” Musonye said.
■SOCCER
Gallas crashes dune buggy
France defender William Gallas rolled over while taking part in a dune buggy race at the team’s World Cup training camp in the French Alps on Sunday. Gallas got out of the buggy and waved to his teammates to indicate he had not been hurt in the crash, a Reuters photographer at the scene reported. The defender escaped with just a graze on his left hand, a team spokesman said. The former Arsenal skipper is recovering from a calf injury and has been back in training for several days, suggesting he will be fit to take part in the finals in South Africa next month.
■CRICKET
Clarke retained as captain
Michael Clarke was yesterday retained as skipper of Australia’s Twenty20 squad for July’s series with Pakistan in England, despite his below-par batting performances in Twenty20 cricket. Clarke admitted his place in the team was under threat after a poor run of form continued in a seven-wicket World Twenty20 final loss to England in Barbados earlier this month. His top score was just 27 in the Caribbean tournament and he ended the event with 92 runs at a meager average of 15.33.
■BASEBALL
Lima dies, aged 37
Former Major League pitcher Jose Lima died on Sunday from a heart attack at the age of 37, MLB.com reported. Lima, a native of the Dominican Republic, pitched for 13 seasons, from 1994 to 2006, and played for the Detroit Tigers, Houston Astros, Los Angeles Dodgers, Kansas City Royals and New York Mets. Dodgers owner Frank McCourt said in a statement: “We are shocked and saddened to learn of the tragic loss of Jose Lima. Though he was taken from us way too soon, he truly lived his life to the fullest and his personality was simply unforgettable.”
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