BOXING
Agbeko looses to Mares
Mexico’s Abner Mares won the International Boxing Federation bantamweight title and remained unbeaten as a professional with a majority decision over Joseph Agbeko in Las Vegas, Nevada, on Saturday. Mares knocked Agbeko down in the 11th round with an apparent low blow before going on to win the fight on two of the three judges scorecards in the bantamweight tournament final. Two judges scored the bout 115-111 for Mares, while the other scored the 118-pound bout 113-113. Mares was the aggressor from the outset, landing a left hook in the opening round that knocked Agbeko through the ropes. However, Agbeko battled back and had a strong fourth round, using his jab effectively and at one point staggering Mares with a right hand. The Ghana-born Agbeko falls to 28-3 with 22 knockouts, while Mares is now 22-0 with one draw and 13 knockouts. Mares lived up to his billing and was a 2-1 favorite for the fight, which took place at The Hard Rock Hotel and Casino.
Photo: Reuters
SAILING
Oracle Racing wins race
Jimmy Spithill of San Francisco’s Oracle Racing has won the inaugural America’s Cup World Series (ACWS) regatta with a two-race sweep of Dean Barker and Emirates Team New Zealand in Cascais, Portuhgal, on Saturday. There were four lead changes during the two races in the first stop of the series. Sweden’s Artemis Racing was third, Team Korea fourth and Oracle Racing’s other crew, skippered by four-time America’s Cup winner Russell Coutts, was fifth. Rounding out the field in the fleet of 14m catamarans were Team Energy, Green Comm Racing, Aleph and China Team. A winner-takes-all fleet race involving all nine teams was scheduled for yesterday for ranking points that will carry forward through the ACWS. The next stop is Plymouth, England, next month.
ATHLETICS
Liam Adams wins Bondi race
Australian cross country runner Liam Adams won Sydney’s famous city run to Bondi Beach yesterday, sprinting to the finish to outpace race favorite Michael Shelley. Adams, 24, said he never expected to win his first City2Surf, a 14km run that features the steep “Heartbreak Hill” and attracts serious athletes among its huge field, which this year swelled to a record 85,000. However, Adams beat fellow Australian Shelley, who won the race in 2009 and was runner-up last year, with a sprint to the finish on the final 400m to complete the course in just over 41 minutes. Martin Dent finished third. “I never thought I was going to win it,” Adams said of the race, which was this year unusually affected by wet weather. “He’s [Shelley] won it before and he knows how to win this race. I thought he was going to drop me many times during that race.” Jessica Trengove, 23, was the first woman across the line, in just over 47 minutes, while Emily Brichacek was the second and Claire Geraghty the 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
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