SOCCER
Two contest FIFA presidency
Nominations for the FIFA presidency closed at 10pm GMT on Friday with incumbent Sepp Blatter and challenger Mohamed bin Hammam set to be the only two candidates at the June 1 election. A spokeswoman would not comment on the number of candidates FIFA had by Friday, but US journalist Grant Wahl told Reuters in an e-mail he had not received a nomination after searching for one national association to back him. The Sports Illustrated writer was attempting to launch his campaign in protest at FIFA’s inner workings after recent corruption scandals. “If FIFA were truly a representative democracy I’m convinced that not only would I have been nominated, but I also would have beaten Blatter and Bin Hammam in a landslide on election day,” he said in his latest article.
SOCCER
1860 Munich gets cash help
German second-tier club 1860 Munich were on Friday thrown a cash lifeline of 1.5 million euros (US$2.14 million), which will enable them to pay players’ salaries for last month. “We now have four or five weeks to find a definitive solution,” club president Dieter Schneider said, adding that he was optimistic of finding a solution. “Doors are open. It’s 99 percent certain that the club will remain in business.” The club needs 10 million euros to stave off bankruptcy. According to the Munich-based German daily, investors from the Gulf region are set to inject an “immediate 10 to 12 million euros,” with a Munich bank acting as intermediary.
RUGBY UNION
Toulouse edge Perpignan
Leaders Toulouse claimed a tight 25-24 victory at Perpignan in the French Top 14 on Friday, but were hit by a further injury blow with fly-half Frederic Michalak hobbling off. After a run of five consecutive wins, Perpignan had been favorites against an injury-depleted Toulouse, but lost the chance to clinch another victory in the dying seconds of the game when Jerome Porical missed a crucial penalty. The European champions bounced back from their 43-21 defeat to Racing-Metro last weekend, despite former France star Michalak limping off after 55 minutes following a tackle, which left him with an apparently serious left ankle injury.
BASEBALL
MLB is 27% foreign born
More than a quarter of all players on major league rosters or disabled lists on opening day were born outside of the US. Major League Baseball said 234 players, or 27.7 percent, of the 846 players on rosters as of Thursday were foreign born, representing 14 countries and territories. Last season, there were 231 foreign-born players. The Dominican Republic leads all with 86 players and Venezuela ranks second at 62, its highest total ever on opening day. Puerto Rico is next with 20 and Canada has 16. The Yankees have the most players born outside the 50 US states with 16, while the Dodgers have players from eight countries, including Taiwan, Curacao and Nicaragua. The number is down slightly from the all-time high of 29.2 percent in 2005.
BASEBALL
Holliday has appendectomy
Matt Holliday’s hot start to the Major League Baseball season came to a screeching halt as the St Louis Cardinals outfielder had an appendectomy on Friday, the team said. Holliday homered and went 3 for 4 in Thursday’s Opening Day 5-3 loss to the San Diego Padres before complaining of stomach discomfort. The club did not offer a timetable for the 31-year-old Holliday’s return.
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