■SOCCER
Ibrahimovic slams Guardiola
Zlatan Ibrahimovic on Wednesday took a swipe at Barcelona coach Pep Guardiola, dismissing him as “small time.” “In my book, a great coach solves his problems. A small-time coach runs from them,” the Swede said. “There was only one person [on the Barcelona team] who wanted to get rid of me,” he said, explaining why he left the team and signed for AC Milan over the weekend on an initial one-year loan with a pre-arranged 24 million euro (US$31 million) permanent deal arranged for the end of the season. “I have never had problems with any coach before during my career,” he said. “But suddenly I had a thousand problems and I had no communication with ‘the Philosopher.’ No communication whatsoever. I don’t know what his problem was,” he said of Guardiola. “I couldn’t take it. I had no choice but to find a new place of work and I was lucky to go to a club like Milan. I am 28 years old and can not afford to lose a year sitting on the bench and watching the weather,” he said.
■SOCCER
Spurs seal deal
English Premier League club Tottenham were allowed to sign Rafael van der Vaart from Real Madrid on Wednesday after their last-ditch move for the Dutch playmaker on deadline day. Spurs boss Harry Redknapp moved for van der Vaart just two hours before the transfer window closed late on Tuesday, causing a frantic scramble to file the paperwork in time, and the north London outfit were left to wait overnight to discover if the Premier League would ratify the deal. Redknapp was finally able to plan a team that includes van der Vaart on Wednesday after the Premier League rubber-stamped the deal. “We are delighted to announce that we have reached agreement with Real Madrid for the transfer of Rafael van der Vaart,” a statement on Tottenham’s Web site confirmed. Real confirmed the deal. Van der Vaart was available at a cut-price rate after new Real Madrid manager Jose Mourinho decided to cash in on a player who would have struggled to win a first-team place.
■SOCCER
Girls prone to knee injuries
“Kicking like a girl” is a real phenomenon and may explain why females are more likely to suffer knee injuries in sports such as soccer, US researchers said on Wednesday. The researchers found significant differences in knee alignment and muscle activation between men and women while kicking a ball. The study appearing in the Journal of Bone and Joint Surgery offers a possible explanation on why female players are more than twice as likely as males to sustain an anterior cruciate ligament injury. “By analyzing the detailed motion of a soccer kick in progress, our goal was to home in on some of the differences between the sexes and how they may relate to injury risk,” said orthopedic surgeon Robert Brophy of the Washington University School of Medicine in St Louis, Missouri.
■FOOTBALL
Dockett signs new deal
Arizona Cardinals’ defensive lineman Darnell Dockett has signed a four-year contract extension which will keep him with the NFC West team until 2015. The Cardinals did not disclose details of the terms but Dockett told a news conference that he believed he was now up with the best paid players in his position. Media reports said the two-times Pro Bowl selection could earn up to US$50 million with US$31 million guaranteed. The former Florida State lineman was taken by the Cardinals in the third round of the 2004 draft and helped the Arizona team to the Super Bowl last year.
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