Following the shameful exit of its national soccer team from the World Cup and the struggle by its top clubs to compete in Europe, Italy has found a new sporting hero in Mario Ferri, who has slipped past stewards to invade soccer pitches on three continents this year.
The 23-year-old from Pescara has won sponsorship and a celebrity agent, telling one primetime chat show he was happily unhinged after stopping play during Real Madrid’s Champions League game with AC Milan in October.
However, Ferri’s luck ran out in Abu Dhabi over Christmas following his arrest for running on to the pitch at the Club World Cup final, dressed in his customary Superman T-shirt with the added slogan “Free Sakineh,” a reference to the Iranian woman who risks being put to death by stoning.
With his passport in the hands of local police as he awaited trial, Ferri decided to smuggle himself out of the Emirates in the hold of a passing cruise ship, only to be promptly arrested after he made the mistake of announcing his secret plan on Facebook, telling fans: “I hope they don’t catch me, otherwise I will be in a heap of trouble.”
Ferri’s problems will only mount if he can make it home, where he is officially under house arrest after a series of pitch invasions.
His spell in the cells in Abu Dhabi has pushed Ferri to promise his pitch-invading days are over.
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