SOCCER
Jury rules on fan’s death
A Moscow jury has convicted a native of Russia’s Caucasus in the killing of a Slavic soccer fan during a fight last year. Anger over the killing of Yegor Sviridov on Dec. 6 inflamed ethnic tensions in Moscow and led to riots outside the Kremlin walls several days later. About 5,000 soccer fans and nationalists rallied for hours, chanting “Russia for Russians” and an obscene slur against dark-complexioned Muslims from the Caucasus. When police eventually moved in, rioting broke out that injured more than 30 people. The Moscow City Court said the jury voted eight to four on Thursday to find Aslan Cherkesov guilty of premeditated murder. Five other men accused of taking part in the fight were convicted of hooliganism.
SOCCER
Blatter to report on progress
FIFA president Sepp Blatter is expected to give a progress report on the fight to stamp out corruption following an executive committee meeting yesterday. Blatter was re-elected for a fourth term as president at the FIFA Congress in June and immediately pushed through measures aimed at cleaning up soccer’s governing body following a series of scandals. “The executive committee will receive a report from the FIFA President on the proposals approved at the 61st FIFA Congress in Zurich,” FIFA said in a statement. The congress accepted his proposal to strengthen the ethics committee by changing the current system under which the chairman acts as both investigator and judge. Blatter would like to see those roles performed by different individuals. His other measure was to create a so-called “Solutions Committee,” possibly occupied by influential figures from outside FIFA, to act as a watchdog.
GOLF
Latin America gets PGA tour
PGA Tour Latinoamerica, an 11-event pro golf series played across seven nations, was unveiled by USPGA Tour officials on Thursday with plans to debut in September next year. Events with a minimum prize money of US$100,000 will be staged from September through December next year in Mexico, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Peru. Mexico could host two events. The move will raise golf’s profile in Latin America ahead of the sport’s return to the Olympics, after an absence of more than a century, at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro games. Tour Latinoamerica will feature 72-hole stroke-play events with up to 144 players featuring top regional talent with the season’s money leaders advancing to the Nationwide Tour, a US series one step below the USPGA Tour.
SOCCER
Watching sports is ‘illness’
One in five British women believe that the debilitating “man-flu” disease that temporarily leaves sufferers prostrate on the sofa watching televised sports like soccer is real, according to a new study. The survey, which questioned 2,000 British adults about health and wellbeing, showed that misconceptions and old wives’ tales, including the myth that eating carrots improves night vision, prevail among the population when it comes to beliefs about common illnesses. “Unbelievably, there are still a lot of misconceptions around how minor illnesses and conditions are caused or prevented,” study leader Mike Smith said in a statement. The top 10 health myths ranged from the theory that eating carrots will aid night vision to the belief that too much stress will turn your hair gray, both subscribed to by one in 10 of the population.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later