Bayer 04 Leverkusen needed an 85th-minute goal from defender Michal Kadlec to beat Werder Bremen 1-0 on Sunday for their first points of the season.
The Czech leftback slotted home a pass from substitute Simon Rolfes, the ball going in off the post.
Kadlec had come close eight minutes earlier when his free-kick was palmed away by Bremen goalkeeper Tim Wiese.
Photo: Reuters
Michael Ballack made his first start of the season for Leverkusen and Peruvian striker Claudio Pizarro was included in Bremen’s squad as a substitute after his long injury lay-off.
Lennart Thy missed a glorious first-half chance for Werder when he fired over the bar from 3m out.
In Sunday’s other game, Israeli striker Itay Shechter snatched an 80th-minute equalizer to rescue a 1-1 draw for Kaiserslautern against visitors Augsburg.
The Bundesliga newcomers struck after 10 minutes when Sascha Moelders was sent through to fire in his third goal in two games, but new signing Shechter weaved through the Augsburg defense and released a powerful left-footed low drive to level.
The promoted Bavarians were better in the first half and missed a string of clear chances to double their lead, with Kaiserslautern looking out of sorts.
The hosts upped the tempo in the second half and came close more than half a dozen times, only to be denied by goalkeeper Simon Jentzsch.
He could do nothing, though, to stop 24-year-old Shechter’s missile from just inside the box that gave Kaiserslautern their first point from two games.
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