CYCLING
Armstrong hires lawyers
Seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong has hired two prominent attorneys who won a legal case involving the lead investigator in a current US federal probe of Armstrong. San Francisco-based John Keker and Elliot Peters said on Thursday they were now representing Armstrong. The attorneys won a major case for the Major League Baseball Players Association in 2009 when an appeals court panel ruled federal agents had no right to seize baseball’s anonymous drug-test results from 2003. Jeff Novitzky had been a key investigator in that case, part of the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative investigation. Keker on Thursday accused Novitzky of leaking information that resulted in doping accusations against Armstrong, who has never failed a drugs test. “We know Novitzky and plan to prove that these are his repeated, illegal leaks aimed solely at destroying a true hero,” Keker said.
SOCCER
Toure banned six months
Manchester City center back Kolo Toure was on Thursday banned for six months for testing positive for a banned substance earlier this season. The ban was backdated to March 2, the date of his provisional suspension, meaning the Ivory Coast international will be available to play for his club in September. Toure will also be target-tested for a period of two years, starting on Thursday, following an independent regulatory commission hearing convened at Wembley by the FA. Toure admitted the offense — his first. However, the panel took into consideration the circumstances behind his use of water tablets belonging to his wife. The commission was satisfied Toure did not intend to enhance sporting performance or to mask the use of a performance--enhancing substance.
BASKETBALL
WNBA legend Dydek dies
Former WNBA star Margo Dydek died yesterday at age 37, a week after suffering a heart attack. Cathy Roberts, the operations manager for the Northside Wizards in the Queensland Basketball League, where Dydek was head coach, confirmed her death. The Poland-born Dydek, who was pregnant with her third child, suffered the heart attack on May 19. She collapsed at her home in Brisbane, Australia, and was put in a medically induced coma. Roberts said that Dydek was at an early stage in her pregnancy and that her fetus had also died. Dydek was the No. 1 pick in the 1998 WNBA draft by the Utah Starzz. She also played for San Antonio, Connecticut and Los Angeles. Dydek held the record for most blocks in a WNBA career, with 877 in 323 games, and led the league in blocks nine times, from 1998 to 2003 and again from 2005 to 2007.
ICE HOCKEY
Islanders captain retires
New York Islanders captain Doug Weight announced his retirement on Thursday, ending a career that spanned 19 seasons in the NHL. The 40-year-old, who played for six NHL teams, but mostly with the Edmonton Oilers and St Louis Blues, will remain with the Islanders as an assistant coach and adviser. “He has taken our young core of players over the past three years and helped elevate their game to a point where we now see our franchise competing with the top teams in the league,” Islanders general manager Garth Snow said. A four-time All-Star, Weight played 1,238 regular season and 97 postseason games in his career, winning a Stanley Cup with the Carolina Hurricanes in 2006, and played on three US Olympic teams, winning silver in 2006. He had 278 goals and 1,033 points during his career.
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