Brazilian swimming star Cesar Cielo escaped a drugs ban yesterday after a high-profile case that left him clear to defend his 50m and 100m titles and lifted a doping cloud from the world championships.
The Olympic champion was let off with a warning after testing positive for a banned diuretic, despite calls for a three-month suspension which would have sent him home from Shanghai and interrupted his buildup to London 2012.
The Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) dismissed appeals by world body FINA to ban Cielo and teammates Nicholas dos Santos and Henrique Barbosa, who also failed a test for furosemide in May.
Photo: Reuters
However, CAS, which held a six-hour special tribunal in Shanghai on Wednesday, slapped a one-year ban on another Brazilian, Vinicius Waked, because it was his second drugs violation.
Attention will now swing back to the action at the Oriental Sports Center, where hosts China took a giant stride toward a historic sweep of all 10 diving medals.
Chen Ruolin and Hu Yatan led a one-two in the women’s 10m platform event, relegating Mexico’s defending champion Paola Espinosa to bronze and handing China seven titles out of seven.
Then, six days after the competition started, the US finally bagged their first medal of the championships with victory in the 5km team swim, an event not raced at the worlds since 1998.
Andrew Gemmell, Sean Ryan and Ashley Twichell completed the Jinshan City Beach course in 57 minutes, 0.6 seconds, more than a second ahead of the Australian team, with Germany taking bronze.
The win places the US equal fourth on the medals table alongside Britain and behind hosts China, Russia and Greece. Most of the 15 golds handed out so far have been for diving and synchronized swimming, but the US will be expected to dominate the second week of competition when their swimming stars, led by 14-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps, take to the Sea Crown indoor pool.
Meanwhile Russia claimed gold in the synchronized swimming free combination, extending their dominance of the event. China were second and Canada placed third.
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
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