FORMULA ONE
Walkinshaw passes away
Former team Arrows boss and Gloucester rugby club chairman Tom Walkinshaw has died at age 64, the rugby club said on Sunday. Walkinshaw, who had been suffering from cancer, was a former racing driver whose F1 career began with Benetton after successes at Le Mans and in touring cars with Jaguar. The Scotsman brought Ross Brawn along with him and then helped lure Michael Schumacher to the team from Jordan. Walkinshaw moved to Ligier after Schumacher’s first of seven championships in 1994 before taking over the top position at Arrows two years later. Arrows — which first raced in 1978 — folded in 2002 after 382 Grand Prixs without a single victory.
BOXING
King stopped with ammo
Promoter Don King was stopped by security at Cleveland Hopkins International Airport in Ohio for having ammunition in his carry-on luggage. Hopkins Airport spokeswoman Jacqueline Mayo said the 79-year-old King was stopped by members of the US Transportation Safety Administration on Sunday night. She said King had ammunition for .38-caliber and .357-caliber firearms in his bag. Mayo said the ammunition was taken and that King was released to continue his trip, she believes to Florida. WIOI-TV in Cleveland first reported the incident and said King was in Cleveland for his wife’s funeral. Henrietta King, 87, died on Thursday in Florida from complications from stomach cancer.
OLYMPICS
Grospiron quits as bid head
Edgar Grospiron has resigned as the head of the French region of Annecy’s struggling bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics. Grospiron announced his decision on Sunday during a meeting of the bid’s supervisory board, the board’s chairman Christian Monteil told The Associated Press by telephone. Monteil said Grospiron “will no longer be general director” and “we will have to recruit someone to replace him” within the next two weeks. Grospiron, Olympic moguls champion in 1992, “remains at the disposal” of the Annecy bid to help in other roles and with the transition toward a new leader, Monteil said, adding that the split was amicable.
ATHLETICS
Lebid wins ninth Euro title
Ukrainian veteran Sergiy Lebid won the men’s European cross country title for the ninth time in Albufeira, Portugal, on Sunday. The 35-year-old — who won the first of his nine titles back in 1998 — beat home Spain’s Ayal Lamdassem while Youssef El Kalai of Portugal took bronze. Lebid took full advantage of the absence of Spanish holder Alemayehu Bezabeh, who was withdrawn from the event on Thursday after being implicated in the latest doping scandal to hit Spanish sport, and Britain’s runner-up last year Mo Farah. Lebid — who also has three bronzes and a silver in the event — was dropped from the leaders after Lamdassem upped the pace with a kilometer to go but Lebid fought back using his experience and his powerful sprint finish to prevail.
GOLF
Song earns LPGA tour card
Aree Song won the LPGA Final Qualifying Tournament on Sunday, shooting a one-over 73 in wind, rain and cold for a two-stroke victory over 17-year-old Jessica Korda. The 24-year-old Song finished at six-under 354 in the five-round event at LPGA International to earn one of 20 full tour exemptions for next year. Korda, the daughter of former tennis star Petr Korda, closed with a 77.
ASIAN CUP
Tough calls for coaches
The vexed debate over club versus country has made its way to Asia as club coaches in England and elsewhere in Europe voice their reluctance to lose players ahead of next month’s Asian Cup. English Premier League clubs have been regularly annoyed every other January at the demand for players at African Nations Cup. This biennial competition robs many teams of a several of their stars for several weeks. And while there is no African competition in 2012, Asia’s top national team will meet next month in Qatar for next year’s edition of its regional tournament.
WORLD CUP
Prince urges Cup switch
Prince Ali of Jordan has called on FIFA to switch the 2022 football World Cup in Qatar from summer to winter and to allow neighboring Arab nations to host games. Prince Ali told the Australian Associated Press he understood concerns expressed by England and other nations at FIFA’s decision to award the world tournament to the Middle East for the first time. Concerns have been expressed around the ability of tiny Qatar to host such a mammoth sporting event, particularly during its summer when temperatures can reach 50oC. Prince Ali said he understood Australians were upset at having lost the chance to host the 2022 World Cup, but he was not surprised FIFA awarded the tournament to a nation of 1.7 million people.
NIGERIA
Player dies on pitch
A 21-year-old Nigerian soccer player died on Sunday after collapsing during the first-half of a Nigeria Premier League (NPL) match. Ocean Boys defender Emma Ogoli slumped to the pitch in the 39th minute of the home game against Niger Tornadoes in Yenagoa and died on his way to hospital. “Ogoli is dead. He collapsed around the 39th minute of action and was rushed to hospital where he was confirmed dead,” Ocean Boys spokesman Eddy Ohis said. Ohis said an autopsy was to be carried out yesterday at the Federal Medical Center in Yenagoa. “I have received the official report from the match commissioner for the game on this very tragic incident,” NPL official Tunji Babalola said. “The player was not involved in any contact. He died on his way to hospital.”
FRANCE
Auxerre signs South Korean
South Korean striker Jung Jo-gook has signed for French club Auxerre, state news agency Yonhap reported yesterday, citing Jung’s agent. Jung, who plays for FC Seoul, was to have a medical later yesterday before joining the Ligue One side when the transfer window opens next month, his agent told Yonhap. FC Seoul won their first Korean league title in 10 years earlier this month with Jung scoring in the final game. The 26-year old notched 12 goals in the domestic league this season.
ENGLAND
Chile miners meet Charlton
Some of the Chilean miners rescued after two months trapped underground have arrived in England to watch Manchester United play Arsenal in the Premier League. The men flew into Manchester airport as guests of the 18-time English champions, who hosted Arsenal yesterday. They later posed for photographs with United great Bobby Charlton, who suggested inviting the miners to meet the players and watch a match while he was visiting Chile. Charlton is the son of a miner. The trip was organized with Chilean wine producer Vina Concha y Toro, which sponsors United.
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