■REDSKINS
Haynesworth skips training
Washington Redskins players blasted teammate Albert Haynesworth as “selfish” on Wednesday as the All Pro defensive tackle failed to show for the team’s mandatory training mini-camp. Haynesworth is protesting the new defensive system, continuing his showdown with coach Mike Shanahan. “Albert made a very selfish decision,” said linebacker London Fletcher, a respected veteran. “When you decide to play a team sport, you have to look at it and think about everybody involved in the situation. This is not golf, tennis, things like that, where it’s an all-about-you sport. What he’s decided to do is make a decision based on all-about-him,” he said. Shanahan said that the unhappy Haynesworth had been given the option of his freedom — and the chance to be released from his contract and go to another team — or money. He opted to stay and receive a US$21 million bonus that was due on April 1. “Obviously, he took the check,” Shanahan said. “So I was surprised he wasn’t here today ... Don’t take our check and then say that, hey, you don’t want to be part of our organization.”
■GIANTS
Hixon out for season
New York Giants wide receiver Domenik Hixon has torn knee ligaments and will miss the entire National Football League season, the team said on Wednesday. Hixon, the Giants’ leading punt and kickoff returner last year, injured his right knee returning a punt during his team’s first practice at the New Meadowlands Stadium on Tuesday. The return specialist was not hit, but his leg buckled and his knee bent awkwardly, the team said. The injury deals a blow to a Giants team looking to make a return to the playoffs after falling short last season.
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