COLOMBIA
Backup goalie fails test
Backup Colombia goalkeeper Yineth Varon failed a drug test at the women’s World Cup and was provisionally suspended by FIFA on Tuesday. Varon failed an out-of-competition doping control on Saturday in Leverkusen, Germany, the world governing body of soccer said. Colombia played Sweden in its opener on Tuesday in Leverkusen with Sandra Sepulveda in goal, losing 1-0. Colombia coach Ricardo Rozo refused to comment on Varon’s suspension after the game. FIFA did not say what substance was involved, but that the player had the right for her “B” sample to be tested. The last doping case at the men’s World Cup was Diego Maradona, who was kicked out from the 1994 World Cup in the US after testing positive for stimulants.
AUSTRALIA
Neill accepts apology
Lucas Neill has accepted a public apology from television soccer analyst Les Murray for alleging in a book that the Socceroos captain led a mutiny against Australia’s coach at last year’s World Cup in South Africa. Murray has retracted his claim that Neill instructed his teammates to defy the defensive gameplan of then-coach Pim Verbeek immediately prior to Australia’s opening World Cup match against Germany in Durban. Australia lost 4-0. Neill, a former West Ham, Blackburn and Everton defender, said in a statement yesterday that he is not pursuing legal damages, but that he’s “obviously still disappointed that my name has been wrongly attached to these allegations.”
FRANCE
Payet transfers to Lille
France international winger Dimitri Payet completed his 10 million euro (US$14.3 million) transfer from Saint-Etienne to Lille on Tuesday, the French champions announced on their Web site. The 24-year-old, who scored 13 goals for Saint-Etienne last season, signed a four-year deal. “The directors and the coach convinced me during our discussions,” Payet said in the Lille statement. “I was tempted by the long-term plans of the club. A new stadium in a year, a competitive team. Here, there is everything you need to succeed.” Saint-Etienne coach Christophe Galtier had announced earlier in the day that Payet was on his way.
SAUDI ARABIA
Frank Rijkaard hired
Saudi Arabia’s soccer federation has hired former Dutch star and Barcelona coach Frank Rijkaard to lead the national team. -Rijkaard, whose lasting coaching assignment was at the Turkish club Galatasaray, is expected to sign the US$11 million, three-year deal in London today. Saudi Arabia, once among the top teams in Asia, has been without a coach since it crashed out of the Asian Cup in January. It signed a deal with Ricardo Gomes, but canceled it after rejecting his demands for taking over its national team.
SWITZERLAND
Basel signs N Korean teen
Teenage North Korea forward Pak Kwang-ryong has joined Swiss champion FC Basel. Basel says the 18-year-old Pak has signed a five-year deal after moving from FC Wil, having been ineligible to play for the Swiss second-tier side last season. Pak has played seven times for the national team and scored in an Olympics qualifier against the United Arab Emirates last week. Basel has also signed a South Korean international, defender Park Joo-ho, to help defend its national title and play in the Champions League group stage next season.
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