■ RUGBY UNION
De Villiers under review
A disastrous South Africa Tri-Nations campaign and controversial comments by embattled coach Peter de Villiers will be reviewed this month, a statement said on Sunday. “Rugby followers are extremely disappointed with results in the Tri-Nations as are the Springbok team and management,” South African Rugby Union (SARU) president Oregan Hoskins said. “We take the situation very seriously, but there is a process in place and we will follow that through. SARU will make no further comment until the review process is complete.” Sections of the South African media predicted De Villiers, who became the first black coach of the Springboks when appointed two years ago, would be fired on Sunday with one blogger labeling him a “clown.” The thick-skinned coach has grown used to hostile reporters and repeatedly claims that when his team triumphs he is a “superman” and when they flop he is a “clown.”
■ RUGBY UNION
NZ wins women’s cup
New Zealand won the women’s rugby World Cup for the fourth successive time when they overcame three sin-binnings to beat England 13-10 at Harlequins’ Stoop Memorial ground on Sunday. Despite being reduced to 13 players for a spell in the first half after yellow cards for Anna Richards and Mel Bosman, New Zealand led 7-0 at the break after a try by winger Carla Hohepa, who also scored two in the 45-7 semi-final thrashing of France. After a penalty apiece England, who have now lost the last three finals, drew level at 10-10 with a Charlotte Barras try when the Kiwis were again reduced to 14. However, a 65th-minute Kelly Brazier penalty put the holders back in front and they held out to maintain their stranglehold on the tournament despite playing far fewer regular matches than their European opponents.
■BASEBALL
Hamilton out with injury
Texas Rangers All-Star Josh Hamilton sat out his team’s 6-5 loss to the Minnesota Twins on Sunday and will miss extended time with a rib injury. Major League Baseball does not have a disabled list during the month of September, but Hamilton will be out of the lineup for an undetermined amount of time after slamming into the wall while making a catch on Saturday against the Twins. “It’s not good. All signs point to not soon,” Hamilton told the team’s Web site in regards to his timetable for return. “I feel like I have been in a car wreck.” Hamilton is enjoying the best year of his career and is leading the American League with a .361 batting average while hitting 31 home runs and driving in 97 runs. The absence of slugger Hamilton leaves a sizeable hole. “The last time it happened I felt a lot better after a week,” said Hamilton, who had a similar injury last year when he missed 13 games. “So we’ll see.”
■ GOLF
Blind golfers tee up
Three blind golfers will test their skills this week against Asian Tour professionals during the inaugural Handa Singapore Classic in a drive to encourage more people with disabilities to tee off. Australian David Blyth, England’s Neil Baxter and Yam Ting Woo of Malaysia will play a three-hole challenge, each paired with a professional who will be blind-folded. The initiative is the brainchild of Japanese philanthropist and businessman Haruhisa Handa, whose Tokyo-based company International Sports Promotion Society is the main tournament sponsor. Australian Unho Park has been confirmed as one of the Asian Tour professionals to take the challenge.
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