■ATHLETICS
CAS reinstates medalists
World sport’s highest court on Thursday reinstated Olympic medals for two Belarusian hammer throwers, saying their doping tests were mishandled by the Beijing laboratory. The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) said doping tests of Vadim Devyatovskiy and Ivan Tsikhan were invalid because international laboratory standards were not respected in what it said was an “unusually complex doping case.” CAS said the medals should be returned. Devyatovskiy and Tsikhan won silver and bronze medals, respectively, at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. They tested positive for elevated testosterone after the hammer throw final and were disqualified and stripped of the medals by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The silver medal was subsequently given to Krisztian Pars of Hungary and the bronze to Koji Murofushi of Japan. Primoz Kozmus of Slovenia won the gold medal. The IOC said it was disappointed by the CAS ruling, was studying its contents and “considering all possible options.” Devyatovskiy and Tsikhan denied doping and appealed to the CAS to overturn the IOC ruling. Although the CAS upheld their appeal on Thursday, it said the decision “should not be interpreted as an exoneration of the athletes,” and the court did not say the athletes are free of any doping suspicion.
■MOTORCYCLING
Rider dies at Isle of Man TT
New Zealand’s Paul Dobbs became the latest motorcyclist to die while competing at the Isle of Man Tourist Trophy (TT) event when he lost his life on Thursday in a Supersport race, organizers said. The 39-year-old was involved in a “racing incident” and leaves a wife and two children. Jim Parker, chairman of organizers the Auto Cycle Union, told www.iomtt.com: “Paul was a really popular rider in the paddock and was a great competitor. He was a very talented rider who made many friends in the racing community. He will be sorely missed.” Dobbs, who finished 22nd in Monday’s first Supersport race, competed at the TT for the first time in 1999, recording a best finish of sixth in the 400cc lightweight race in 2000. More than 200 racers have died on the road course on the Isle of Man since the first TT race was first staged more than a century ago.
■CYCLING
Soler a doubt for Tour
Former Tour de France “King of the Mountains” Mauricio Soler is in doubt for next month’s race because of a knee problem, his Caisse d’Epargne team said on Thursday. Soler, 27, hurt his knee in a crash earlier this week in the Dauphine Criterium, a key warm-up for the Tour de France. The Colombian battled on but finally surrendered to the pain, and a swollen knee, after finishing well behind in Wednesday’s third stage time trial. “We’ll see if he’s fit to ride the Route du Sud [June 17 to 20],” Soler’s team sports director Yvon Ledanois said. “If he can’t then his chances of the Tour are virtually nil because he won’t be fit enough to be competitive.”
■SPORTSCAR RACING
Bourdais fastest at Le Mans
Sebastien Bourdais put Peugeot on pole position for the Le Mans 24 Hours sportscar classic with the French manufacturer locking out the top four places on Thursday. Bourdais, a four times ChampCar champion in the US and ex-Formula One driver, made sure of the top spot with a best lap of three minutes 19.711 seconds set in Wednesday evening’s qualifying session. Nobody came close to beating that time on the damp and slippery 13.4km Sarthe track on Thursday.
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