■MOTOGP
Rossi breaks leg in crash
Valentino Rossi fractured his right shin bone in a crash during practice on Saturday on the Mugello track in Rome ahead of the Italian Grand Prix. Rossi, who is second in the MotoGP riders’ standings, waved as he was moved on to a stretcher before being taken to Florence’s Careggi medical center by helicopter and said Ciao when he was taken out of the ambulance. Rossi has a “very ugly fracture, with the bone exposed,” said Claudio Costa, head of the Mugello medical facility where the rider was first treated. The nine-time world champion was being prepared for surgery on Saturday afternoon to have a pin and four screws inserted in his leg, Costa said. Although doctors were worried that the broken bone, protruding through the flesh, might have damaged veins, Rossi suffered no other injuries in the crash, Costa said. The Italian news agency ANSA said Rossi lost control of his Yamaha while changing direction between two curves on his second practice run. He was flipped in the air and landed hard on his right leg. He managed to get up but was gripping his right calf.
■BOXING
Pacquiao gets another award
Manny Pacquiao has been named fighter of the decade by the Boxing Writers Association of America on top of his third fighter of the year award. The newly elected Philippines congressman was the overwhelming winner of the annual award after a year in which he sealed a record seventh weight division world title. “I confronted poverty by trusting God and dreaming big. I was convinced I could succeed in boxing. The boxing ring could be the breeding ground for my dreams,” he said. Pacquiao produced a devastating second-round knockout of Briton Ricky Hatton in May last year to win a light welterweight belt and stopped Miguel Cotto in November to become world welterweight champion.
■MOTOGP
Pedrosa snatches pole
Dani Pedrosa stole pole position for yesterday’s Italian MotoGP after a late burst in qualifying on Saturday knocked fellow Spaniard Jorge Lorenzo down to second. MotoGP championship leader Lorenzo of Yamaha looked to be heading to the front of the grid for the fourth race of the season with a time of one minute, 48.996. However, Honda’s Pedrosa pulled out all the stops to set a best time of one minute, 48.819 seconds with Ducati’s Casey Stoner also burning late rubber to qualify third ahead of teammate Nicky Hayden.
■BASKETBALL
Coach John Wooden dies
John Wooden, the peerless US college basketball coach who became known as the “Wizard of Westwood” while winning a record 10 national championships at University of California Los Angeles (UCLA), died on Friday at age 99, a spokesman for the UCLA Medical Center said. Wooden was considered one of the greatest coaches of any type in US sports history. Former US president George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest US civilian honor, in 2003. He coached at UCLA — located in the city’s Westwood area — from 1948 to 1975. His teams won 10 National Collegiate Athletic Association championships in his final 12 years at the school, including an unmatched seven straight from 1967 to 1973. Wooden guided a succession of great players at UCLA including Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar).
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
HSIEH MAKES QUARTERS: Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei and Elise Mertens of Belgium won in the women’s doubles and face Bethanie Mattek-Sands and Sofia Kenin of the US Top-ranked Iga Swiatek and US Open champion Coco Gauff were knocked out of the women’s singles at the Miami Open on Monday, while Taiwan’s Hsieh Su-wei advanced in the women’s doubles. Swiatek lost to Ekaterina Alexandrova 6-4, 6-2, hours after third seed Gauff fell in three sets to No. 23 Caroline Garcia 6-3, 1-6, 6-2. Alexandrova beat a top-ranked player for the first time and advanced to face Jessica Pegula, a 7-6 (7/1), 6-3 winner over Emma Navarro, in the quarter-finals. Alexandrova recorded her second win over Swiatek, following a 2021 victory in Melbourne. Swiatek had won their three matches since. “We played quite