SOCCER
New Chinese coach named
China named Croatia’s Miroslav Blazevic the new head coach of its Olympic team yesterday, state media reported. The Chinese Football Association (CFA) is bringing Blazevic in after the team’s poor performance at the Asian Games in Guangzhou last month, the official Xinhua news agency said. He replaces Chinese coach Sun Wei. Blazevic signed a two-year contract with the CFA, which expires in December 2012, Xinhua said. Li Bing was named assistant coach. Blazevic, 75, who coached Croatia to third place in the 1998 World Cup, led the Chinese Super League team Shanghai Shenhua to third place this year. He resigned as Bosnia’s national coach last year after the team failed to qualify for this year’s World Cup.
BASEBALL
LA Angels sign Downs
The Los Angeles Angels have bolstered their bullpen by signing left-handed reliever Scott Downs to a three-year contract, the club said on Friday. Terms of the contract were not disclosed. Free agent Downs, 34, who pitched the last five seasons for the Toronto Blue Jays, has been one of the league’s most durable middle relievers. In 67 appearances for Toronto this past season, Downs was 5-5 with a 2.64 ERA. Since 2007, he has compiled an ERA of 2.36, which was the lowest among left-handed relievers over the span and fifth lowest overall in the American League.
LUGE
Huefner notches up win
Olympic champion Tatjana Huefner gave Germany its 101st straight women’s World Cup victory on Friday, leading a one-two sweep for her third win in three races this season. Huefner had a two-run time of one minute, 33.658 seconds at Canada Olympic Park in Calgary. “It was a very difficult race. My two runs were not so good, but I was happy to still lead,” Huefner said. “Conditions were very difficult because it was so cold tonight. No grip.” She opened the season with victories in Igls, Austria, and Winterberg, Germany. Germany’s Anke Wischnewski was second in 1:33.801 and the US’ Erin Hamlin was third in 1:33.955.
BOBSLED
Russia duo win World Cup
Russia’s Alexsandr Zubkov and Dmitry Trunenkov overcame poor visibility to win the men’s two-man bobsled World Cup event in Park City, Utah, on Friday night. The Russian team finished in one minute, 37.33 seconds — 0.14 ahead of the Italian team of Simone Bertazzo and Sergio Riva. Germans Andreas Bredau and Manuel Machata took third (1:37.87) after Germany 2 was disqualified for having a brakeman who wasn’t registered in the event. Snow began falling during the second run of the men’s race. “My vision was not very clear, especially on the second run,” said Zubkov, who came out of retirement after crashing in the four-man race in the Vancouver Olympics.
SNOWBOARD
Karl wins giant slalom event
Olympic silver medalist Benjamin Karl of Austria won a snowboard parallel giant slalom World Cup event on Friday. Karl led an all-Austrian podium, beating teammate Andreas Prommegger in the big final, while Manuel Veith edged Swiss boarder Nevin Galmarini in the small final. There was an all-Russian podium in the women’s event, with Ekaterina Tudegesheva beating Alena Zavarzina for first and Svetlana Boldykova finishing ahead of Austria’s Claudia Riegler for third.
FOOTBALL
Patriots’ Spikes suspended
New England Patriots rookie linebacker Brandon Spikes has been suspended for four games without pay for violating the NFL’s policy on performance-enhancing substances, the league said on Friday. The suspension for the unnamed substance was effective immediately, starting with today’s game against the Chicago Bears, the NFL said in a statement. Spikes will be eligible to return to the Patriots on Monday, Jan. 3, following the team’s final regular season game against the Miami Dolphins. He would be eligible to participate in all playoff games, should the Patriots qualify for the postseason. “The substance was a medication that I should have gotten clarification on before taking. It was not a performance enhancer or an illegal drug,” Spikes said.
RUGBY SEVENS
Kiwis trounce England
New Zealand powered to a 20-7 win over England at the South Africa Sevens on Friday to send last week’s Dubai winner into a quarter-final against host South Africa. England hasn’t beaten New Zealand in South Africa since 2003, and the Kiwis were highly motivated to avenge a loss to the English in the Dubai semi-finals last weekend. As winners of Pool C, New Zealand will face Argentina in Saturday’s quarters. Defending series champion Samoa gave up a 14-0 lead with a minute remaining to draw 14-14 with Fiji, who took top spot in Pool B. Fiji faces Australia in the last eight while Samoa plays Pool A winner Wales. South Africa beat Argentina 29-5 in Friday’s final game for a 3-0 record in the pool stage.
CRICKET
Pair denied play in league
The Pakistan Cricket Board has refused permission for former captain Shoaib Malik and wicketkeeper Kamran Akmal to play league cricket in Bangladesh. The pair had applied for no-objection certificates after they were overlooked for Pakistan’s tour to New Zealand starting this month. “I was very keen to go and play in the Bangladesh league, but the board has told us to just focus on playing in the Quaid-e-Azam Trophy in domestic cricket,” Akmal told reporters. “I had got a good offer and wanted to go and play there, but unfortunately the clearance has not come.”
TENNIS
Navratilova gets ill on climb
Tennis legend Martina Navratilova was recovering in a Nairobi hospital on Friday after suffering a pulmonary edema during a charity climb of Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania. Navratilova, who was leading a team of 27 climbers to raise funds for the Laureus Sport for Good Foundation charity, fell ill on the fourth day of the climb up Kilimanjaro, the highest mountain in Africa at 5,895m. The 54-year-old, who won 18 Grand Slam singles titles, 31 Grand Slam women’s doubles titles and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles titles, was helped down the mountain and flown to Nairobi for further tests that revealed the edema.
FOOTBALL
Fines levied for hard hits
Philadelphia defensive end Trent Cole topped the list of fines imposed by the NFL for improper hits last week, when he was fined US$20,000 for striking Houston quarterback Matt Schaub in the knee area last week, the NFL’s Web site reported on Friday. Four other players were also sanctioned by the league: Detroit Lion defensive end Cliff Avril was fined US$15,000; Arizona Cardinals defensive end Alan Branch was docked US$10,000; Buffalo Bills running back Quinton Ganther was hit with a US$5,000, while Bills guard Andy Levitre was fined $7,500.
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