■ BOXING
Taiwan’s Wu to stand again
Wu Ching-kuo will stand for a second four-year term as president of amateur boxing’s governing body the AIBA. The Taiwanese declared his intention to run on Wednesday in a letter to the AIBA’s membership of almost 200 national federations. Wu took office in 2006 by defeating longtime incumbent Anwar Chowdhry from Pakistan, who was later barred for alleged financial corruption. Rival candidates can be nominated up to 30 days before the AIBA Congress opens on Nov. 1 in Almaty, Kazakhstan, where the poll will be held. Candidates must have served a full four-year term on the ruling executive and be supported by their national federation and at least 20 other AIBA members.
■SOCCER
Player charged with murder
Prosecutors have charged Brazilian player Bruno with ordering the murder of an ex-lover who was allegedly trying to prove he was the father of her young son, officials said on Wednesday. Prosecutor Gustavo Fantini filed charges in the state court in Minas Gerais against Bruno Souza and eight others, Fantini’s office and court officials said. Among those also charged in the case are Bruno’s wife, Dayanne Souza, and another woman whom police say is the player’s lover. Bruno was the goalkeeper and captain of Brazil’s most popular team, Flamengo, and helped lead the team to a national championship last year. Bruno allegedly ordered the kidnapping and killing of 25-year-old Eliza Samudio. She has been missing since June and her body has yet to be found. Police say the player arranged for Samudio to be kidnapped in June in Rio de Janeiro and driven to a rural property he owns in Minas Gerais state, where police say the woman was imprisoned, beaten and finally strangled to death by a former policeman and friend of Bruno’s, Marcos Aparecido dos Santos. Police allege that her body was then cut up and fed to dogs. No remains have been located.
■ CRICKET
Twitter tirade earns ban
England under-19 captain Azeem Rafiq has been banned from all cricket for one month for criticizing team manager John Abrahams, the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) said in a statement on Wednesday. Off-spinner Rafiq, who plays for Yorkshire, admitted making a personal attack on Abrahams in a public statement and bringing the game into disrepute. Media reports said Rafiq made his outburst on his Twitter feed. “The panel considered this to be a serious breach of the regulations particularly given Rafiq’s position as captain of the England Under-19 side,” the ECB said.
■ CYCLING
Lorenzetto wins stage
Italian sprinter Mirco Lorenzetto won the fourth stage of the Tour of Poland on Wednesday after a 177.9km circuit that ended with six crossings of the divided city of Cieszyn’s river border with the Czech Republic. The Lampre rider burst clear just after the leading pack of 55 returned to Poland for the final time in the last of three 6.8km laps over the border, crossing the line ahead of his teammate Grega Bole of Slovenia and Italy’s Alessandro Ballan of BMC Racing. “It was the sort of finish that suited me well, but with such a tricky urban circuit, with a climb thrown in as well, you had to calculate your strength really well,” Lorenzetto, 29, said. “I tried to stay close to the front and not use up too much energy,” he said. “The race is a great way of bringing our two sides of the city, Poles and Czechs, together,” said Weodzimerz Cybulski, deputy mayor of the Polish sector.
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