■BASKETBALL
Johnson stays with Hawks
NBA All-Star guard Joe Johnson has agreed to a maximum contract to stay with the Atlanta Hawks, his agent said on Sunday. Arn Tellem confirmed an entry he wrote for the Huffington Post Web site, in which he said Johnson “announced his intention to re-sign with the Hawks for six more years.” Tellem wrote that Johnson chose to remain in Atlanta over Chicago and New York, where he would have been reunited with Mike D’Antoni, his former coach in Phoenix. The Hawks could pay him nearly US$120 million, while other teams could only give Johnson five years and pay him about US$25 million less.
■MOTOGP
Lorenzo wins in Catalunya
Jorge Lorenzo of Spain collected his fifth win of the season in the Catalunya Grand Prix on Sunday. The 23-year-old also became the first Yamaha rider since Eddie Lawson in 1986 to win three successive top class races from pole position — his win in Montmel coming after similar victories in Britain and the Netherlands. “It was a very difficult race, very hot, and very tiring. The tires were a real problem,” Lorenzo told Spanish state television. Compatriot Dani Pedrosa came second on his Honda 4.754 seconds behind, just edging out Australia’s Casey Stoner (Ducati) who managed his second successive podium by finishing third. Lorenzo now has 165 points in the championship race, a 52-point lead over Pedroso. The Italian Andrea Dovizioso, who could only finish 14th after coming off his bike on lap 14 while pursuing Lorenzo, is third with 91 points.
■GOLF
Jimenez wins after playoff
Spain’s Miguel Angel Jimenez held his nerve in a three-way playoff to win the French Open on Sunday. Jimenez’s par on the 18th, the first extra hole, ended the hopes of compatriot Alejandro Canizares and Italy’s Francesco Molinari after the trio finished a stroke ahead of the field. Jimenez had looked a safe bet to earn his second title of the season and 17th overall, but he sent the final round into the playoff by finding the lake with his approach on the 18th to double-bogey. It left him with a closing four-under 67 to match Molinari. Canizares had a final-round 68 as all three finished on 11 under for the tournament. The playoff was full of errors, Canizares hitting into the lake twice and Molinari taking four to find the green. However, although Jimenez again missed the green, the 46-year-old stayed calm to hole a 12-footer for his par. Molinari had holed from twice that distance for bogey to put the pressure on Jimenez. “It was very dramatic, I made it dramatic,” Jimenez told reporters. “But my experience probably helped.”
■SOCCER
Czech ’keeper joins Hamburg
Czech goalkeeper Jaroslav Drobny is joining Hamburg from relegated Hertha Berlin on a three-year contract. Hamburg announced the Czech international player’s arrival on a free transfer yesterday. The 30-year-old has played 114 Bundesliga games for Bochum and Berlin. Droby says it is “no problem” for him that there is competition for the regular goalkeeping spot at Hamburg. Veteran No. 1 Frank Rost has another year on his contract. Drobny’s departure from Hertha Berlin was widely expected and comes days after the team’s captain, Germany defender Arne Friedrich, agreed a move to Wolfsburg.
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