SOCCER
Valdano mends with coach
Real Madrid director-general Jorge Valdano sought to mend his fractured relationship with coach Jose Mourinho on Wednesday by offering the Portuguese more autonomy within the La Liga club. Mourinho has barely concealed his contempt for Valdano, who is No. 2 to president Florentino Perez, and pointedly told reporters last week he does not speak to the Argentine about player transfers. “The most important thing, from my responsibility, is to avoid creating more tension,” Valdano said after Real won 1-0 at Sevilla in their King’s Cup semi-final first leg on Wednesday. “We have to see in what way the coach can feel more comfortable,” he added. “We are working to create the necessary conditions for the coach to act autonomously.” Mourinho has complained of a lack of support from club officials over his criticism of referees and was unhappy that Real initially appeared reluctant to bring in a striker to replace the injured Gonzalo Higuain. The former Inter and Chelsea manager’s request was granted this week when Real signed Emmanuel Adebayor from Manchester City on loan until the end of the season.
HOCKEY
Jewish player sues Ducks
A Jewish hockey player is suing the Anaheim Ducks alleging he was discriminated against while a member of the National Hockey League’s California-based affiliate team. Bakersfield Condors head coach Marty Raymond and Mark Pederson have both apologized to Jason Bailey for apparently making anti-Semitic remarks in the ECHL team’s facilities. The 23-year-old minor league hockey player filed the lawsuit on Tuesday in Orange County Superior Court. The suit says Bailey, a forward, was given limited ice time despite being one of the top players on the team.
BASKETBALL
Cavaliers take a nosedive
The downtrodden Cleveland Cavaliers are on the verge of a record-setting tailspin just one year after being the NBA’s best regular-season team. A Cleveland loss to Denver today would equal the longest single-season losing streak ever by the once-proud franchise, which has been in a nosedive since the offseason departure of LeBron James. Not since 1982 has a Cleveland team dropped 19 consecutive games. “That’s something that we don’t need [reminding about],” Cavaliers forward Antawn Jamison told reporters after loss No. 18, a demoralizing 112-97 defeat at Boston on Tuesday. The Cavaliers of 1982 combined for an NBA record 24 consecutive defeats over two seasons, not winning a game from March 19 until Nov. 10, 1982. The single-season record is 23 by Vancouver, in 1996, and Denver, in 1997-1998.
SOCCER
Bayern chair seeks calm
Bayern Munich chairman Karl-Heinz Rummenigge on Wednesday moved to calm the troubled waters at the German giants in the wake of captain Mark van Bommel’s shock move to AC Milan. It has been a difficult week for Bayern after van Bommel, 33, who was out of contract at the end of the season, quit the club in dramatic fashion on Tuesday and revealed he had not said goodbye to coach Louis van Gaal. Then last weekend, Bayern president Uli Hoeness re-ignited his feud with van Gaal when he questioned the Dutchman’s methods. Rummenigge has moved to calm Munich’s troubles. “We shouldn’t make life any harder for ourselves,” Rummenigge told Munich newspaper TZ. “There is a motto at Bayern, ‘Mia san mia,’ that means harmony, loyalty and a desire to work for the well-being of Bayern.”
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