ATHLETICS
Keitany sets world record
Kenyan Mary Keitany smashed the women’s world half marathon record by 35 seconds in Ras al Khaimah, United Arab Emirates, on Friday. Keitany, the 2009 world half marathon champion, clocked 1 hour, 5 minutes, 50 seconds in perfect conditions to eclipse Lornah Kiplagat’s 2007 record set at the world half marathon championships in Udine, Italy. “I’m so delighted with her performance,” Keitany’s Italian manager Gianni Demadonna said. “Even though we knew she could achieve it, we did not state that she was going for it before the race since we do not like putting our athletes under pressure to perform.”
SOCCER
Toads force exit closure
The migration of hundreds of toads to a nearby lake forced Bundesliga side SC Freiburg to close an exit road from its stadium after a game against VfL Wolfsburg yesterday. The club said on Friday that Waldsee Street, which runs west of the Badenova stadium on the edge of the Black Forest, would remain closed after the final whistle, meaning fans had to make alternative plans to get home. A team statement said that “as an environmentally committed club, SC Freiburg is taking the migration to the forest lake into account, and asks supporters for understanding.”
RUGBY UNION
Fiji, IRB reach agreement
The International Rugby Board (IRB) said yesterday it had brokered an agreement between Fiji’s rugby union and the government, which should keep the Pacific island nation in this year’s World Cup. “The government’s commitment to significant investment in Fiji’s Rugby World Cup 2011 campaign [will] go ahead as previously planned,” the IRB said in a statement. The agreement follows talks in Suva earlier this month involving IRB chief executive Mike Miller, Fijian Sports Minister Filipe Bole and local rugby officials. Miller flew to Fiji following reports the military government was withholding 3 million Fijian dollars (US$1.6 million) in World Cup funding after an investigation found the rugby union had mismanaged funds from a lottery.
FORMULA ONE
Vettle sets pace in testing
Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull was quickest on the first day of Formula One’s penultimate testing session before the start of the new season. Vettel, the reigning world champion, set the pace with a lap of 1 minute, 24.374 seconds late in the session on Friday after the Catalunya Circuit dried out. Fernando Alonso of Ferrari trailed by more than a second, ahead of fellow Spanish driver Jaime Alguersuari of Toro Rosso and Kamui Kobayashi of Sauber. McLaren driver Jenson Button was just under two seconds behind in fifth. Michael Schumacher of Mercedes was eighth as teams were able to assess the new Pirelli tires in wet conditions early on.
FOOTBALL
Colts jettison Sanders
Often-injured safety Bob Sanders has been released by the Indianapolis Colts, the team said on Friday. The two-time Pro Bowl selection played in only nine regular-season games the past three seasons. Sanders, who will be 30 next week, missed the final 15 regular-season games and the playoff loss to the New York Jets last season after tearing his right biceps tendon in the season opener. “We thank Bob for all his incredible contributions, from his Super Bowl interception to his defensive player of the year honour,” Colts owner Jim Irsay said in a statement.
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