ATHLETICS
Ousted chief files lawsuit
Former USA Track and Field (USATF) chief executive Doug Logan filed a wrongful termination lawsuit against the governing body in New York on Wednesday, five weeks after being sacked from the post. Logan’s contract ran through 2013, and his ouster could result in a settlement approaching US$1 million. “USATF looks forward to the resolution of the lawsuit, which we vigorously will defend against,” USATF president and chairman Stephanie Hightower said in a statement. Logan, a former Major League Soccer commissioner, became chief executive just before the 2008 Olympics and set in motion a major review of USATF after the US athletics team’s poor showing in Beijing. The study resulted in sweeping proposals for change, not all of which were greeted favorably by athletes and long-time members of the organization. The decision to oust him came at a meeting in Las Vegas in September, although no specific reasons were given for his sacking.
CYCLING
Court upholds appeal
Kazakhstan’s Alexandre Vinokourov will no longer have to pay a US$1.7 million fine to cycling’s governing body after the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) in Paris upheld his appeal. Vinokourov was ordered by the International Cycling Union (UCI) to pay the equivalent of a year’s salary after failing two dope tests during the 2007 Tour de France. “There is no legal basis for UCI to claim the payment ... Accordingly, Mr Vinokourov is not obliged to make the payment requested by the UCI,” CAS said in a statement on Wednesday. Vinokourov and his Astana team left the 2007 Tour after the Kazakh was found guilty of blood doping after winning a time trial in Albi.
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