IRELAND
Fan dons Estonia’s kit
A stolen tracksuit and a bag of balls helped one ticketless Ireland fan to the best seat in the house for their Euro 2012 playoff win over Estonia — in the opposition dugout. Conor Cunningham from Cork traveled to Tallinn’s A. Le Coq Arena and managed to bypass security after sneaking in a stadium side entrance. After sitting next to Estonia manager Tarmo Ruutli for Ireland’s 4-0 first victory on Friday last week, he was spotted by TV cameras on the pitch afterward celebrating with the Ireland players. “I just spotted an open door and I thought I will stick my head through there, but it was just a closed-in room, but I found an Estonian tracksuit and I just threw it on,” he said on the Mirror newspaper Web site. “I threw the bag of balls over my shoulder and just went for it. I didn’t know what to do, to be honest, so I thought I’d better go into the Estonian dug-out.” He was unable to travel to Dublin for Tuesday’s return leg as Ireland qualified for Euro 2012 with a 5-1 aggregate win.
ENGLAND
Rooney’s appeal moved
England striker Wayne Rooney’s appeal against a three-match international ban that will force him to miss the group stage of Euro 2012 has been brought forward one day to Dec. 8, UEFA said on Thursday. The European governing body said the English Football Association (FA) had requested the new date for logistical reasons as Rooney will be in Switzerland with Manchester United for a Champions League match at FC Basel on Dec. 7. The FA said Rooney and England manager Fabio Capello would appear at the personal hearing before the UEFA Appeals Body, along with Club England managing director Adrian Bevington.
ENGLAND
Barry gets goal No. 2,000
Gareth Barry has been officially credited with scoring England’s winning goal against Sweden in a friendly on Tuesday, the Football Association (FA) confirmed on Thursday. There was doubt whether Barry would be listed as the official scorer of England’s 2,000th international goal, or whether it would be recorded as an own-goal by Swedish defender Daniel Majstorovic, who deflected Barry’s 22nd minute header into his own net. As the match was a friendly and not a competitive game, Czech referee Pavel Kralovec had the final decision. An FA spokesman said: “We have now received the referee’s report and he has stated Gareth Barry as the scorer, so he is awarded the goal officially.” As well as recording their 2,000th goal since playing their first international in 1872, England’s 1-0 win was also their first over Sweden in 43 years.
ENGLAND
Redknapp could be back
Tottenham Hotspur manager Harry Redknapp could return to the dugout for Monday’s Premier League match against Aston Villa after undergoing heart surgery, first team coach Joe Jordan said on Thursday. Redknapp, the favorite to take over as England manager from Fabio Capello, had said he expected to be out of action for up to five weeks after having an operation to unblock coronary arteries two weeks ago. However, the 64-year-old could be ready to return after missing just two matches. “It will depend on his conversation with the medical people who will give him advice,” Jordan told the club Web site. “He’s feeling good, he sounds good and I would think there is a possibility he will be back for the Villa game. “The way he sounds, he’s very keen and optimistic that will happen.”
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