FORMULA ONE
New Jersey lands race
Formula One will unveil a New Jersey Grand Prix for the 2013 season, the mayor of West New York said on Monday. F1 chief Bernie Ecclestone has long hoped to bring the world’s most lucrative motor sports championship to the New York area and that would be realized as a deal was reached with a consortium of investors, and city and state governments. New Jersey Governor Chris Christie was set to announce the deal at a press conference in Weehawken, New Jersey, yesterday. The race will run along the Hudson River in Weehawken and West New York, said Joe DeMarco, an attorney with West New York. “It will provide a very challenging course — they compare it to Spa in Belgium, but it will have the feel of Monaco,” said DeMarco, who added that the race would take place on a four-lane highway, two lanes in each direction.
BASKETBALL
NBA to cancel more games
The NBA was set to cancel at least another two weeks of its season yesterday as owners and players remain at odds over a new collective contract, the New York Daily News reported. In an article posted on its Web site, the newspaper cited a person “familiar with the league’s plans” as saying the widely expected announcement would come yesterday. The first two weeks of the regular season — 100 games scheduled from Nov. 1 to Nov. 14 — have already been lost as league owners and players wrangle over a deal to replace the one that expired on July 1, when owners locked out players. Further games have been in jeopardy since talks collapsed on Thursday.
BASEBALL
Bautista, Kemp scoop gongs
Jose Bautista of the Toronto Blue Jays and Matt Kemp of the Los Angeles Dodgers were named winners of the Hank Aaron Award on Monday as the outstanding offensive players in their respective leagues. Bautista led the major leagues in home runs (43), slugging percentage (.608) and walks (132). Kemp narrowly missed winning the Triple Crown, leading the National League in home runs (39) and runs batted in (126), while finishing third in the batting averages (.324). Bautista was the first American League player since Babe Ruth in 1930 to record at least 40 home runs, 130 walks and nine stolen bases in the same season.
SOCCER
Eriksson quits the Foxes
Former England manager Sven-Goran Eriksson has left his position as Leicester City manager by “mutual agreement,” the Championship club confirmed in a statement on their Web site on Monday. The 63-year-old had held talks with the club’s Thai owners on Monday after Saturday’s 3-0 home defeat to Millwall left them 13th in the table, albeit only two points outside the playoff places. However, Thailand-based owners Asia Football Investments were unhappy that after spending £10 million (US$16 million) on new players during the close season results had not been better. Martin O’Neill will be high on the list of possible replacements, according to reports.
SOCCER
United’s Vidic quits Serbia
Manchester United defender Nemanja Vidic confirmed his retirement from international duty on Monday because of criticism of his attitude toward the national team. The last of Vidic’s 56 appearances for Serbia came against Slovenia this month, when he missed a penalty in a 1-0 defeat that cost the team a place in the playoffs for Euro 2012. Vidic announced his decision in a statement carried by Serbia’s soccer federation.
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