RUGBY SEVENS
Kiwis win with penalty kick
New Zealand kept the South Africa Sevens rugby title with a last-gasp penalty by Tomasi Cama for a 22-19 win over England in the final on Saturday. Cama slotted his drop-kick in the fourth minute of injury time as New Zealand won in South Africa for the fourth time in five years, and prevented England from winning successive tournaments for the first time. England won the world series opener last weekend in Dubai. England led the Kiwis 14-0, but New Zealand battled back in the second half and at 19-19 down to six players, Cama succeeded with his pressure penalty for the dramatic win.
HOCKEY
113,411 fans attend game
A world record for attendance at a hockey game was set when 113,411 watched a university game between the University of Michigan and Michigan State at Michigan Stadium on Saturday. Michigan announced the attendance during the third period. A representative from Guinness World Records was on hand to verify the record. The previous mark for a hockey game was 77,803 at this year’s world championship in Germany. This is also the largest crowd to see any event at Michigan Stadium, surpassing the 113,090 for a college football game this year. The hockey game — dubbed “The Big Chill at the Big House” — took place nine years after the same two teams played another outdoor game at Michigan State’s football stadium.
UFC
St-Pierre cruises to win
Welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre defeated trash-talking Josh Koscheck on Saturday at UFC 124, winning 50-45 on all three judges’ cards. The 29-year-old Canadian (21-2) carved up Koscheck’s face with his jab and punished his legs with kicks in his fifth successful title defense. In the co-main event, 2.11m Dutch heavyweight Stefan Struve stopped 2.01m Sean McCorkle 3 minutes, 55 seconds into the first round to improve to 10-1. Also, Brazilian welterweight Thiago Alves won a unanimous decision over John Howard and Jim Miller upset rising lightweight star Charles Oliveira.
FOOTBALL
Snow delays Vikings, Giants
Yesterday’s NFL game between the New York Giants and Minnesota Vikings was postponed until today as heavy snow in the Minneapolis, Minnesota, area kept the Giants from arriving on Saturday, the league announced on Saturday. With more than 0.3m of snow blanketing the area in a storm that also brought gusting winds, the Giants’ charter flight was diverted to Kansas City, Missouri, where the team was forced to spend the night. The day’s delay might benefit veteran Vikings quarterback Brett Favre, whose record consecutive game starting streak of 297 games was in jeopardy because of a strained throwing shoulder.
BOBSLED
Zubkov races to second gold
Russia’s Alexsandr Zubkov won his second World Cup gold in two days in Park City, Utah, edging Germany’s top four-man bobsled by 0.03 on Saturday, while hometown favorite Steve Holcomb finished a disappointing sixth. Zubkov’s team finished two runs in 1 minute, 34.62 seconds, just ahead of the the sled piloted by Germany’s Manuel Machata. Canada’s Lyndon Rush took the bronze in 1 minute, 34.72 seconds. Winning the two- and four-man competitions was a first for Zubkov, who is back racing after a brief retirement following a crash at the Vancouver Olympics. However, the bigger surprise was Holcomb faring so poorly.
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