A Francesco Totti double saw Roma past nine-man Lazio in Serie A program on Sunday, his goals giving his side a 2-0 victory for their fifth successive Rome derby win.
Totti lit up the Stadio Olimpico on 69 minutes, lashing a touched free-kick through the wall and past goalkeeper Fernando Muslera.
Stefan Radu and Cristian Ledesma were sent off as tempers flared in the final minutes before Totti provided the finishing touch, converting a penalty to leave sixth-placed Roma two points behind Lazio, who slip to fifth.
In Sunday’s late game, Napoli’s poor form looked set to continue as Parma went ahead through a sweet Raffaele Palladino volley, but a different second half brought goals for Marek Hamsik, Ezequiel Lavezzi and Christian Maggio.
In Sardinia, Udinese defeated Cagliari 4-0 to go fourth, while Fiorentina kept up their good recent form with a 1-0 win at Chievo Verona.
Bari, 10 points adrift at the bottom of Serie A at the start of play, took a shock lead against AC Milan on 39 minutes at the San Siro when Sergio Almiron slipped in Rudolf to fire low into the corner.
However, Antonio Cassano had the last word, winning a point for Milan with a close-range header.
Elsewhere, Genoa beat Palermo 1-0 and improving Bologna won 1-0 at Lecce to move into midtable positions, while Christian Llama gave Catania a precious three points in a 1-0 win over Sampdoria as they climbed four places above the drop zone.
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