GOLF
Avid golfer guilty of fraud
A woman who had claimed that back pain meant she had difficulty even getting out of bed has been found guilty of swindling thousands of pounds in benefits after secret footage caught her regularly teeing off on the golf course. A court in northern England found Valerie Lewis, 55, guilty of dishonestly claiming £40,842 (US$63,950) in disability benefits over almost 10 years, after surveillance footage showed her carting her golf bag round the fairways without any apparent difficulty. “During the course of her claim, she was playing golf very frequently and, in 2001, was riding horses at her local stables,” prosecutor Charlotte Atherton told the court on Tuesday, the Press Association reported. Lewis first applied for Disability Living Allowance (DLA) in March 2001, saying back pain made it difficult for her to walk, dress and wash herself or prepare food without “severe discomfort.” Shortly afterwards, Lewis, who said she could walk no more than 140 yards (128m), was traipsing 8km across the fairways at her local golf club three or four times a week. Diaries seized by benefit fraud investigators also showed she even played a round of golf the day after her medical assessment, the prosecution said. In 2003, Lewis reapplied for DLA and received increased payments after maintaining that walking outdoors was “virtually impossible,” Atherton said. “By 2004, her own diaries record her playing golf up to 11 times a month. By 2008, those same diaries showed she was playing golf up to 18 times a month,” she said. The court has sentenced her to 24 weeks in jail, suspended for two years.
ALPINE SKIING
Innerhofer opens the fastest
Christof Innerhofer was fastest in the opening training run for a men’s World Cup downhill on the Lauberhorn course, in Wengen, Switzerland, on Tuesday. The Italian finished in two minutes and 34.07 seconds down the event’s longest track, which measures 4.43km this, year. Didier Cuche, the defending World Cup downhill champion, was 0.96 seconds back in second place. The 36-year-old Swiss has never won his home classic race. Michael Walchhofer of Austria, who leads the downhill standings, trailed by 1.46 in third. Ivica Kostelic of Croatia, the World Cup overall leader, was fifth despite being a slalom specialist. Miller won in Wengen in 2007 and 2008.
OLYMPICS
Munich retains hope: Witt
Figure skating great Katarina Witt said Munich retains hope of reaching an agreement with landowners opposed to Germany’s bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, but has alternate plans if there is no deal. Witt, who chairs the Munich bid committee, delivered the city’s 396-page candidature file on Tuesday to the International Olympic Committee. The two other bid cities — Annecy, France and Pyeongchang, South Korea — submitted their documents on Monday. Munich’s bid has been dogged by a dispute with a group of 59 Bavarian farmers and landowners in Garmisch-Partenkirchen, the proposed site for Alpine skiing events.
BASKETBALL
Jackson home for treatment
Lauren Jackson, the Most Valuable Player in the WNBA, has returned to Australia from Russia for treatment on her injured Achilles tendon. Basketball Australia chief executive Larry Sengstock said in a statement on Tuesday that Jackson had an assessment at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra.
BASEBALL
Trevor Hoffman to retire
Trevor Hoffman, the most prolific closer in Major League Baseball, has decided to retire after an 18-year career. The 43-year-old relief pitcher, whose 601 regular season saves remains an MLB record, told the sport’s official Web site (www.mlb.com) on Tuesday that he was calling it quits to take up an administrative role with the San Diego Padres. “It’s time to retire. It’s time to move on,” Hoffman said. “This is more of a self-evaluation. I expect to pitch at a certain level and I had to be honest with myself that I wasn’t certain I could maintain that anymore.” A formal announcement from the Padres about his new job was expected on Wednesday. The right-handed Hoffman, a master of change of pace, spent most his career with the Padres, recording 552 of his saves between 1993 and 2008, but left as a free agent after the club decided not to renew an option to re-sign him. “I understand that some of it is about baseball being a business, but I don’t really want to rehash all that,” Hoffman said. “There’s been a turnover of people there who wanted to reconcile and I’ve been cool with it. A couple of years definitely makes a big difference.” Hoffman spent his last two seasons with the Milwaukee Brewers and had a 2-7 record in 2010 with 10 saves and a 5.89 earned run average, well above his career ERA of 2.87. Hoffman surpassed Lee Smith’s MLB record of 478 saves in 2006 and became the first pitcher to reach the 500 and 600 barriers. His career total could be tested by the New York Yankees’ Mariano Rivera, who has 559. “Some guys leave the game and they really don’t know. But for me, having a commitment from the organization I made my name with is pretty big,” Hoffman said.
BASEBALL
No expanded playoffs: Selig
Major League Baseball will not expand its postseason or have wider use of instant replays this year, commissioner Bud Selig said. “There continues to be fruitful talks about it, but they’re definitely off the table for this year,” Selig told the MLB’s official Web site. He made the comments ahead of meetings of baseball owners and general managers near Phoenix this week. Although expansion of the playoffs beyond the current eight teams has been discussed, “We couldn’t do that for ‘11,” Selig said. “The schedules are already done. But we’re making good progress.” On expanding the use of replays, Selig said: “It’s still under discussion.” Baseball’s limited replay policy drew heated criticism last year after an umpire’s botched call cost Detroit pitcher Armando Galarraga a perfect game in June.
BASEBALL
Josh Hamilton hospitalized
Texas Rangers outfielder Josh Hamilton, the American League’s Most Valuable Player last year, has been hospitalized with an early case of pneumonia, the team said on Tuesday. Hamilton is being treated at a Texas hospital and should be able to resume his conditioning and baseball activities within the next several days, the Rangers said in a statement. Hamilton hit .359 with 32 home runs and 100 RBIs last year for the Rangers, who advanced to the World Series for the first time in the 50th year of the franchise.
BASKETBALL
Bucks-Hawks game postponed
The Milwaukee Bucks-Atlanta Hawks game to be played in Atlanta on Tuesday has been postponed because of severe weather conditions, the NBA said. A major winter storm has left roads in the area treacherous, the NBA said in a statement, adding that the game had been rescheduled for March 15 in Atlanta.
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