BOXING
Aoh edges Italy’s Boschiero
Japan’s Takahiro Aoh defeated the previously unbeaten Devis Boschiero of Italy by a split points decision to successfully defend his WBC super featherweight title on Sunday in Tokyo. Two judges scored it 115-113 in favor of the defending champion, while one judge counted it 116-113 for the Italian. Boschiero tried to make it a brawl and fight at close range, as Aoh attempted to pick him off and targeted the feisty Italian’s stomach. It was the 27-year-old Aoh’s second defense since winning the title in November last year, stretching his record to 22 wins including 10 KOs, against two defeats and a draw. For Boschiero, 30, ranked eighth in the WBC, it was his first defeat after 29 wins, including 14 KOs and a draw. Third ranked Shinsuke Yamanaka of Japan defeated second ranked Christian Esquivel of Mexico by technical knockout 1 minute, 28 seconds into the 11th round to become the new WBC bantamweight champion.
Photo: Reuters
ICE HOCKEY
Blues send Payne packing
The St Louis Blues fired head coach Davis Payne after a slow start to the NHL season and replaced him with Ken Hitchcock, the team said on Sunday. Payne, the first coaching casualty of the young season, was relieved of his duties after leading St Louis to a 6-7 record that left them 13th in the 15-team Western Conference. The Blues failed to make the playoffs since he took over as coach during the 2009-2010 season. Hitchcock, who was coach of the Dallas Stars when they won a Stanley Cup in 1999 and an assistant with Canada when they won gold medals at the 2002 and last year’s Olympics, agreed to a contract through the 2012-2013 season. The 59-year-old last coached in the NHL for the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2009-2010 season and has coached more than 1,000 games with Dallas, Philadelphia and Columbus.
TENNIS
Del Potro pulls out of Paris
Juan Martin del Potro’s hopes of making the ATP Tour finals are over after the Argentine announced on Sunday he was pulling out of this week’s Paris Masters. “I felt pain in my right shoulder in Valencia and it hurt more and more as matches went on,” the injury-prone Del Potro said in a statement released by Paris organizers. “I must now think about rest.” The Tour finals in London between Nov. 20 and Nov. 27 bring together the eight best players in the world. Novak Djokovic, Rafa Nadal, Andy Murray, Roger Federer and David Ferrer have qualified with the Paris Masters a last chance for others to join them.
SKIING
Vonn attends school dance
Superstar US skier Lindsey Vonn never got a chance to go to her high-school homecoming dance, so she could not resist saying yes to a second chance. During a visit to a Vail skiing academy on Friday, one of the students worked up the courage to ask Vonn to go with him to the homecoming dance that night and she gladly accepted. Vonn’s 15-year-old fan, Parker McDonald, got the thrill of his young life when she agreed to the impromptu date. “Growing up I never got the chance to go to a school dance so I am excited,” said Vonn, who posted pictures of the two together at the dance on her social networking Facebook site.
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