GOLF
Rookie duo win Shootout
PGA Championship winner Keegan Bradley and Brendan Steele combined to shoot a 13-under 59 in the scramble format final round on Sunday to become the first rookie duo to win the Franklin Templeton Shootout in Naples, Florida. Bradley and Steele took control with an eagle by Steele on the 14th followed by a birdie at 15. They finished the three-round unofficial event hosted by Greg Norman with a 32-under total of 184. The two said they’d been talking about playing in the Shootout since spring and weren’t at the silly--season event to “goof off.” They shared the lead after the modified alternate shot first round with Champions Tour golfers Mark Calcavecchia and Nick Price of Zimbabwe. Bradley and Steele made seven straight birdies from the sixth and Steele then holed an eagle putt from off the green at 14 before draining a 4-footer for birdie at 15. Calcavecchia birdied the last at Tiburon to give him and Price a 61, moving them into a tie for second place on 187, with South African Rory Sabbatini and Venezuela’s Jhonattan Vegas, who shot 60.
BASKETBALL
Kobe against Odom trade
Los Angeles Lakers superstar Kobe Bryant was scratching his head on Sunday after news that the club was shipping Lamar Odom to Western Conference rivals — and NBA champions — Dallas. “To be honest with you, I don’t like it,” Bryant said at the team’s training camp. “It’s tough to lose Lamar,” he said. “Pau [Gasol] is still here and we’re all thankful for that. It’s hard when you’ve been through so many battles with players to just see them go somewhere else. It’s tough.” The Lakers and Mavericks announced the deal late on Sunday, after Dallas coach Rick Carlisle and star Dirk Nowitzki said they were excited to welcome Odom. He averaged 14.4 points 8.7 rebounds and three assists in winning the sixth-man award as the league’s top reserve last season — all while starring in a reality television series with his wife, Khloe Kardashian, that some feared would be a distraction to his team. “You’re talking about the sixth man of the year last year,” Bryant said. “He played lights-out. He had his best season last year, clearly wasn’t a distraction, played his butt off. I don’t get where that comes from.”
CRICKET
Warne burns his fingers
Legspinning legend Shane Warne said yesterday he had badly burned the fingers of his bowling hand, putting him in doubt for his comeback in Australia’s Big Bash League this weekend. Warne, 42, put pictures of his blistered hand on Twitter and appealed for help from the public to hasten his recovery in time to play for the Melbourne Stars against Sydney Thunder on Saturday. “Not ideal preparation for practice match today — burning the bowling hand. Get better quickly please, any suggestions — HELP,” Warne tweeted. The photo showed the little finger of his right hand was the worst affected from the accident, thought to have happened while cooking at home. The Melbourne Stars said they were confidant Warne would be fit to play this weekend and that he would miss a practice match yesterday. Warne had apparently ended his stellar cricket career at the Indian Premier League in May, but said recently he had never felt fitter in confirming his signing with the Stars. Warne has not played Test cricket since helping Australia to a 5-0 Ashes whitewash over England in January 2007 but he led the Rajasthan Royals in the IPL until earlier this year.
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