BASEBALL
Chamberlain out for season
New York Yankees reliever Joba Chamberlain was found to have a ligament tear in his pitching elbow and will likely miss the rest of the season, manager Joe Girardi told reporters on Thursday. The injury was revealed by a test done on the burly right-hander, who had been placed on the 15-day disabled list on Wednesday with what was thought to be a strained muscle. “The interesting thing about this is if you do every strength exercise on Joba, he passes it with flying colors,” Girardi said. “And he has no idea when it happened. He’s pitched. He played long-toss yesterday and his power was there. He said it was a normal long-toss for him, so it really has us all kind of scratching our head.” Girardi said Chamberlain would be getting another medical opinion, but was likely headed for surgery that would end his season.
FORMULA ONE
Bahrain Grand Prix canceled
Bahrain Grand Prix organizers accepted the cancelation of their postponed Formula One race on Thursday after teams objected to it being rescheduled in October. “Whilst Bahrain would have been delighted to see the Grand Prix progress on Oct. 30 ... it has been made clear that this fixture cannot progress and we fully respect that decision,” circuit chairman Zayed Alzayani said in a statement. “We want our role in Formula One to continue to be as positive and constructive as it has always been; therefore, in the best interest of the sport, we will not pursue the rescheduling of a race this season,” he added.
SOCCER
Liverpool signs Henderson
Premier League giants Liverpool on Thursday completed the signing of highly rated midfielder Jordan Henderson from Sunderland for a fee believed to be about £20 million (US$32.55 million). The 20-year-old Henderson put pen to paper on what the Merseyside club described as a “long-term deal,” having agreed personal terms and visited their Melwood training complex before undergoing a medical.
LE MANS 24 HOURS
Treluyer takes pole position
Frenchman Benoit Treluyer seized pole position for the Le Mans 24 Hours sportscar race on Thursday night as holders Audi swept the front row of the grid at the La Sarthe circuit. Treluyer made sure of the top slot for the No. 2 Audi, co-driven by Marcel Faessler and Andre Lotterer, with a best time of three minutes, 25.738 seconds. The pole was the first at Le Mans for the German manufacturer since 2006. The No. 1 Audi driven by Timo Bernhard/Romain Dumas/Mike Rockenfeller will start alongside on the grid. Simon Pagenaud, Sebastien Bourdais and Pedro Lamy qualified third for the race starting today in the No. 1 Peugeot.
BASKETBALL
Mike Mitchell dies at 55
Former NBA All-Star Mike Mitchell has died after a long battle with cancer at the age of 55, the San Antonio Spurs said on Thursday. Mitchell, a first-round draft choice of the Cleveland Cavaliers in 1978, spent 10 seasons in the NBA, the final six-and-a-half of them with San Antonio. He later played in Italy before retiring in 1999. “At each stop in his distinguished career, he was a fan favorite thanks to his outstanding offensive skills and his humble, down-to-earth personality,” Spurs coach Gregg Popovich said in a statement. Mitchell, a forward, ranked among the NBA’s top 10 scorers in four of his 10 seasons, averaging 19.8 points and 5.6 rebounds for his career. He scored 14 points in 15 minutes in the 1981 All-Star game.
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