AUSTRALIAN RULES
Player sent off for hairstyle
A player was sent off because his gelled mohawk haircut was deemed dangerous, a report said yesterday. Nathan van Someren, who plays for the Simpson Tigers, was told to leave the field in the third quarter of their match against Otway Districts at the weekend. Tigers coach Leigh Walsh told Fairfax Radio the reason given was “because his hair was too dangerous” and it might have poked another player in the eye. Van Someren said he had played with the hairdo for three years without a problem. “I was just standing there and [the umpire] came across to me and goes: ‘I thought I told you you couldn’t come on the ground,’” van Someren told Fairfax Radio. “I sort of just looked at him like: ‘What?’ And he’s like: ‘No, I told you you couldn’t come on the ground with that hairstyle, you have to go off.’” The Victorian Country Football League said the umpire was wrong, with the rule used to have van Someren sent off referring to items such as jewelry and protective equipment that could injure another player. “In this case, it’s probably been interpreted a little bit too broadly,” umpiring general manager Gerard Ryan told reporters.
SWIMMING
Beach hole traps swimmer
It took 60 rescuers two hours to free a member of the Austrian Olympic swimming team who was buried in sand up to his neck on Florida’s Pompano Beach. Authorities say 19-year-old Jakub Maly had spent much of Sunday digging a hole that was more than 2m deep and nearly 2m across. The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported that at 7pm, Maly jumped into the hole as a joke and sand collapsed around him. Pompano Beach Fire-Rescue spokeswoman Sandra King said the man was in danger of being crushed by the pressure from the sand. He was freed at about 9pm and taken to a hospital, where he was treated and released.
SOCCER
Cash-strapped team crushed
Caroni, already relegated after one season marked by serious financial problems in Venezuela’s first division, were crushed by a national record score of 15-0 by El Vigia at the weekend. The team from Puerto Ordaz made the 25-hour journey to El Vigia with 11 youth players, the daily El Medidiano reported on its Web site. The referee ended the match five minutes before time when Caroni, who had no substitutes, were down to seven players because of injuries. Striker Genlis Pinero scored a hat-trick and substitute Yan Salazar four goals. The first team squad, owed unpaid wages, refused to play.
BASKETBALL
Howard wins defensive vote
Orlando Magic center Dwight Howard, who won a record third consecutive defensive player of the year award last month, headlines the NBA all-defensive team, the league said on Monday. Howard comfortably beat Boston Celtics guard Rajon Rondo as the team’s top vote getter, receiving 56 points to Rondo’s 39. Miami Heat forward LeBron James, Celtics forward Kevin Garnett and Los Angeles Lakers guard Kobe Bryant completed the first team. The voting was done by the NBA’s 30 head coaches.
GOLF
Els voted into Hall of Fame
Ernie Els led a class of six inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame on Monday. Japanese icon Masashi “Jumbo” Ozaki was elected on the international ballot. The two were inducted along with the late Jock Hutchison and Doug Ford, former US president George H.W. Bush and the late Frank Chirkinian, whose work set a standard for TV golf coverage.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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