ICE HOCKEY
Rangers’ Boogaard dies
New York Rangers player Derek Boogaard died in Minneapolis, Minnesota, from an accidental overdose after mixing a potent painkiller with alcohol, officials announced on Friday. The Minnesota medical examiner said Boogaard, who was found dead at his Minneapolis apartment, died after taking a combination of oxycodone and alcohol. No other details were released. The body of 28-year-old Boogaard, who also played for the Minnesota Wild, was discovered on Friday. He had not played with his National Hockey League team in five months after he suffered a season-ending concussion against the Ottawa Senators. Oxycodone is a powerful painkiller that doctors warn can cause addiction. It has also been identified in some overdose deaths. In July last year, Boogaard signed a four-year US$6.5 million contract with the Rangers. He had one goal and an assist in 22 games this past season and has had 70 career fights.
RUGBY UNION
Harlequins beat Stade
Argentine winger Gonzalo Camacho scored a try three minutes from time to give the Harlequins a dramatic 19-18 win over Stade Francais in the European Challenge Cup final in Cardiff, Wales, on Friday. It was the Harlequins’ third triumph in the tournament to add to their 2001 and 2004 wins. However, the UK side left it late to secure victory. With the clock ticking down and with the French side deservedly 18-12 ahead, the Harlequins’ scrum-half Danny Care chipped ahead to leave the Paris club back-tracking and Camacho picked up to score the only try of the evening. That made the score 18-17 to Stade, who had dominated the second half, having trailed 9-6 at the break. Former All Blacks flyhalf Nick Evans then stepped up to knock over a nerveless conversion from a difficult angle to add to his four penalties.
FOOTBALL
Leagues side with players
The unions for hockey, baseball and basketball are siding with the players in the NFL lockout court battle, saying the league’s lockout should be lifted. The players associations for MLB, the NHL and the NBA filed a brief on Friday in a federal appeals court, saying the case presents “vitally important issues” for the unions and their members. The unions say professional athletes’ careers are short and the loss of even part of a season causes personal and professional injuries that can’t be compensated. That reiterates the NFL players’ argument that the lockout is causing them irreparable harm. A federal judge in Minnesota agreed with and lifted it last month, but the league appealed.
SOCCER
Player challenges Twitter
A British soccer player is taking legal action to force Twitter to give the details of users who broke a gagging order granting him anonymity over an alleged affair, his lawyers said on Friday. The married player had earlier obtained an order from a judge banning publication of his identity over an alleged sexual relationship with a female contestant on the reality television show Big Brother. The player is not identified in the court documents. A spokesman for US-based Twitter said: “We’re not able to comment.” Earlier this month, a Twitter user published the names of several British celebrities who have allegedly obtained anonymized injunctions or so-called super-injunctions, which prevent even the mention of the order itself.
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