RUGBY WORLD CUP
Best to start against Wales
Rory Best is set to start in Ireland’s front row for today’s Rugby World Cup quarter-final against Wales after recovering more quickly than expected from a right shoulder injury. Best’s chances of playing again in the tournament were in doubt after he was hurt in last weekend’s 36-6 win over Italy, but he trained fully in Wellington yesterday following intensive treatment all week. Best threw lineout ball in training without problems and he is set to keep his place in the side, with Sean Cronin filling the reserve hooker spot on the bench. Prop Mike Ross said: “He’s a tremendous scrummager ... he’s very experienced and he’s a very key member of this side.”
RUGBY WORLD CUP
Muliaina to win 100th cap
Mils Muliaina will play his 100th Test for New Zealand against Argentina in the Rugby World Cup quarter-finals tomorrow after first-choice fullback Israel Dagg was ruled out with a badly bruised thigh. Dagg’s electric form had appeared to end Muliaina’s chance of retiring after the tournament as the second All Black to reach 100 caps following captain Richie McCaw, but Dagg was injured in the 37-17 win over France two weeks ago and Muliaina played his 99th Test in the win over Canada last weekend. Richard Kahui’s sore hamstring has also ruled him out of tomorrow’s match at Eden Park, giving Sonny Bill Williams his first start on the wing. From the team which beat France, there are four changes for the All Blacks.
RUGBY WORLD CUP
Powerhouses losing money
Australia, New Zealand and South Africa have lost more than US$30 million in revenue this year because of the World Cup and the southern hemisphere rugby powerhouses want the game’s governing body to re-examine the tournament’s commercial impact, Wallabies head coach John O’Neill said. The comments were another shot across the bow of the International Rugby Board (IRB) following Steve Tew of New Zealand’s suggestion they would assess the team’s participation in England in four years’ time unless the IRB changes the commercial model and revenue sharing. IRB chief executive Mike Miller responded earlier this week that “everyone is replaceable” when asked whether the World Cup would miss the All Blacks. O’Neill was not prepared to suggest that Australia would boycott the 2015 World Cup at this stage, but for the IRB to suggest the All Blacks were dispensable was “nonsensical,” he said.
SOCCER
Polish referees arrested
Three Polish referees have been detained in the latest round of a probe into match-fixing, the country’s CBA anti-corruption force said on Thursday. CBA spokesman Jacek Dobrzynski told Poland’s PAP news agency that two referees from the top-flight Ekstraklasa and one from the second division had been detained. According to Polish legal custom, the men’s full names were not released. They were identified only as Wlodzimierz B, 40, Radoslaw T, 29, and Mariusz P, 39. They are suspected of involvement in match-fixing in the third division in the 2004-2005 season. Repeated corruption scandals have tarnished the image of the Polish game in recent years and anti-graft investigators have launched a series of sweeps since 2005. Indictments have been issued against about 400 individuals in over a dozen probes, with those accused including players, referees and officials from clubs in various divisions. The courts have handed down prison sentences of up to four years in a number of cases.
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