BASKETBALL
NBA postpones camps
The NBA on Friday said it had postponed training camps and canceled the first week of preseason games as it struggles to reach a new collective bargaining agreement with players. The NBA, in the midst of its first work stoppage in 13 years, said training camps scheduled to open Oct. 3 have been postponed indefinitely and 43 preseason games from Oct. 9 to Oct. 15 have been canceled. “We have regretfully reached the point on the calendar where we are not able to open training camps on time and need to cancel the first week of preseason games,” NBA deputy commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “We will make further decisions as warranted.”
FOOTBALL
Ravens’ Brown dies at 40
Orlando Brown, a former Baltimore Ravens offensive tackle best known for shoving an NFL official in a 1999 game, was found dead at his Baltimore home on Friday. Brown was 40. Police said no cause of death has been determined for Brown, who was dead when firefighters arrived at his home after attempts to contact him proved in vain. Police said there were no signs of trauma or suspicious circumstances. Brown began his NFL career with the Cleveland Browns in 1993 and also played for the Ravens before retiring in 2005. The most notable moment of Brown’s career as an NFL blocker came in 1999 when he was playing for the Browns against Jacksonville and was accidentally struck in the right eye by a penalty flag thrown by official Jeff Triplette. Brown, whose father was blind due to glaucoma, said concern over possible eyesight damage prompted him to push Triplette. Brown was suspended for two weeks, but also spent six days in a hospital with bleeding behind his eye. The injury would cause Brown, who was nicknamed “Zeus,” to miss the next three seasons before he made a comeback with the Ravens in 2003.
BADMINTON
Injured Lin Dan withdraws
World champion Lin Dan withdrew from the Japan Open yesterday with an injured left foot, giving his teammate Chen Long a free ticket to the men’s singles final where he will face defending champion Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia. The Chinese second seed, the sport’s biggest name and the winner in Tokyo in 2004 and 2005, said the skin on his left foot came off after a tough match against another teammate, Chen Jin, in the quarter-finals on Friday. In the women’s singles, Juliane Schenk defeated Indian star Saina Nehwal to set up a final against world champion Wang Yihan of China. The German eighth seed, who eliminated All England champion Wang Shixian of China in the quarter-finals, gained another major scalp with a 21-19, 21-10 victory over the fourth seed. Wang Yihan was given a walkover into the final as fellow Chinese Liu Xin withdrew with a left leg injury.
SOCCER
Colin Klass banned
Guyana Football Association president Colin Klass became the second high-ranking official, and the fourth in all, to be banned for their part in a bribery scandal when world soccer’s ruling body FIFA suspended him on Friday for 26 months. Klass, who was also fined 5,000 Swiss francs (US$5,537), was provisionally suspended on Aug. 11 after the Ethics Committee ruled he had breached their Code of Ethics for his part in the scandal that also led to the lifetime ban for Qatari Mohammed Bin Hammam following a meeting of the Caribbean Football Union in May.
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