SOCCER
Costa Rica defender killed
Costa Rica defender Dennis Marshall, who five days ago scored a goal at the CONCACAF Gold Cup, was killed in a road accident on Thursday, the soccer player’s agent said. “It’s incredible, I can’t believe it ... You never know what’s going to happen to you tomorrow, but that’s life,” agent Jorge Ulloa told a local radio station. The 25-year-old Marshall, who played for Danish club Aalborg, died in a head-on collision with a truck on a mountain highway in eastern San Jose, local media quoted the Red Cross as saying. “He was a young man with a bright future, well loved for his easy-going nature ... We’re all shocked, it’s a blow,” Costa Rica coach Ricardo La Volpe said.
Photo: AFP
CRICKET
Styris ends run as Black Cap
New Zealand allrounder Scott Styris has announced his retirement from international cricket, ending a 12-year career in which he played 29 tests and 188 one-day internationals. The 35-year-old Styris said he reviewed his international future after this year’s World Cup and decided it was the time to retire as the Black Caps entered a new era under recently appointed captain Ross Taylor. Styris will continue to play in New Zealand domestic competitions and for the Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League. Styris scored 1,586 Test runs, including five centuries, at an average of 36, and 4,483 runs, including four hundreds, in ODIs at 32.48. His stingy bowling was an asset in ODIs in which he took 137 wickets.
SOCCER
Paraguay draw with Chile
Hosts Uruguay beat Estonia 3-0, while Paraguay drew 0-0 with Chile in Asuncion in their final Copa America warm-ups on Thursday. In Montevideo, defender Martin Caceres headed Uruguay in front in the 12th minute from a Diego Forlan corner against Estonia, who had beaten the World Cup semi-finalists 2-0 at home in March. Uruguay went further ahead in the 55th with an own goal by Mikk Reinham, from another Forlan corner, and midfielder Nicolas Lodeiro crowned a good performance with the third in the 71st.
BASKETBALL
Artest eyes name change
Los Angeles Lakers forward Ron Artest is seeking to change his name to Metta World Peace. The 31-year-old Artest filed a petition in a Los Angeles court on Thursday trying to get approval for the name change. His full name is Ronald William Artest Jr. Artest, who helped the Lakers win the NBA title last year, has cited personal reasons for the name change, the US media reported on Thursday. No details where given why he chose such an out of the ordinary moniker.
CRICKET
NZ will host Zimbabwe
New Zealand will host Zimbabwe for the first time in 11 years as part of a home international schedule early next year that also features South Africa, officials said yesterday. New Zealand has long-standing travel sanctions on sports teams from Zimbabwe because of alleged human rights abuses by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe’s government, but agreed to waive them this month provided the political situation did not deteriorate
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