■MOTOGP
Rossi cleared to race
MotoGP world champion Valentino Rossi has been cleared to race in this weekend’s German Grand Prix, six weeks after breaking his leg, his Yamaha team said on Thursday. The 31-year-old Italian, who told reporters later that he hoped to announce his plans for next year at the Aug. 15 Czech Grand Prix, was examined by circuit chief medical officer Huber Fischer at the Sachsenring and deemed fit enough to compete. Rossi suffered the injury in practice for last month’s Italian Grand Prix and was initially told by doctors that he would be out for at least three months. He has missed four races and dropped to seventh in the standings led by Spanish teammate Jorge Lorenzo.
■BASKETBALL
West given home detention
Cleveland Cavaliers guard Delonte West pleaded guilty to weapons charges and was given a home detention sentence that will not interfere with his NBA season, the Washington Post reported on Thursday. The sentence, which was part of a plea bargain, begins on July 26 and allows West to attend practices, home games and road games, according to a report on the Washington Post’s Web site. West’s attorney said at a court hearing in Maryland that the Cavaliers guard was taking the weapons from his mother’s home to his house when he was stopped by police. The player was charged with six weapons offenses and two traffic violations, but pleaded guilty to carrying a dangerous weapon — an eight-inch knife — and illegally transporting a handgun, the paper said.
■BASKETBALL
Nuggets re-sign Carter
The Denver Nuggets have re-signed veteran guard Anthony Carter and signed free-agent forward-center Shelden Williams, the NBA team said on Thursday. Carter, 35, will be beginning his 12th NBA season. He has spent the past four seasons with Denver, averaging 5.6 points and 4.5 assists in 204 regular-season games, the Nuggets said on their Web site. He has also played for Miami, San Antonio and Minnesota. Williams averaged 3.7 points and 2.7 points in 54 games with the Boston Celtics last season. The Nuggets were 53-29 last season, but lost in the first round of the playoffs to the Utah Jazz.
■BASEBALL
Kids enter World Series
A team from Kaohsiung became the third squad to advance to the Little League World Series after a pitcher tossed a no-hitter in the Asia-Pacific Region championship game. Chen Wei-chih also had two hits and an RBI in the 10-0 shutout of the Philippines on Thursday. The Taiwanese team comes from the Fu-Hsing Little League, which won the World Series title in 1996. Squads from Tokyo, Japan, and Manati, Puerto Rico, have already qualified for the 16-team field. Five more international berths are still at stake. The eight US berths will be decided next month. The World Series starts on Aug. 20 in South Williamsport.
■BASKETBALL
Spurs, Clippers head south
The San Antonio Spurs will face the Los Angeles Clippers on Oct. 12 in a pre-season game Mexico City, the 19th game the NBA will have played in Mexico, the league said on Thursday. The NBA first traveled to Mexico City in 1992 when the Spurs lost to the Dallas Mavericks. The NBA will host a series of pre-season games outside the US and Canada in October when the Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Minnesota Timberwolves play in Barcelona, London, Milan and Paris.
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