RALLYING
Defending champs win stage
Defending bike champion Marc Coma of Spain won Monday’s second stage of the Dakar Rally and also claimed the category lead after the 295km leg. In cars, defending champion Nasser Al-Attiyah won the stage with Stephane Peterhansel of France taking the overall lead. This year’s edition of the rally, considered one of the most dangerous events in motor sports, has already claimed three lives. Argentine bike rider Jorge Martinez Boero died in a crash in Sunday’s first stage and on the same day the pilot of an ultralight plane, and his son, died when the aircraft went down as it was following the race. Rescue officials identified the dead as Luis Marcelo Soldavini, 37, and his son Tomas, 11. Coma finished the special stage in 3 hours, 7 minutes, 21 seconds. He was 1 minute, 18 seconds ahead of KTM teammate Cyril Despres of France and 2:33 ahead of Spanish rider Joan Barreda Bort. In the overall standings, Coma was 2:30 ahead of Francisco Lopez of Chile and 2:52 in front of Despres. Al-Attiyah, driving a Hummer, finished the stage in 2:47:18. He was 54 seconds in front of Peterhansel in a Mini, and 2:42 ahead of Hummer teammate Robby Gordon of the US. Overall, Peterhansel is 2:28 ahead of Gordon and 2:33 in front of first-day leader Krzysztof Holowczyc of Poland. Al-Attiyah is in sixth place overall, 8:47 back.
SOCCER
Gary Ablett dies aged 46
Gary Ablett, who made history by becoming the only player to win the FA Cup with both Liverpool and Everton, has died at the age of 46 after a long battle against cancer. Ablett, who had a season as Stockport manager in 2009-2010, lost his 16-month fight against non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma on Sunday. Liverpool manager Kenny Dalglish, who handed Ablett his debut during his first stint as boss at Anfield, offered his condolences. “It’s a sad, sad day for his family and everyone connected with Liverpool Football Club,” he told the club’s Web site. “The most important thing just now is to pay our respects to Gary, his wife Jacqueline, the two boys and his wee girl. Obviously, he had a long battle and I’m sure it was a lot of suffering and a lot of pain for him, but the only thing you can say is at least he won’t be suffering any longer ... He was a really good servant to the football club not only as a player, but also as reserve team coach ... It’s very sad for everybody.”
SOCCER
Chinese inks Brazil deal
He was born in China’s Guangdong Province and speaks just a smattering of Portuguese, but by this time next year fans of one of Brazil’s most famous teams may well be calling him “Chenzinho.” Chen Zhizhao, a 23-year-old midfielder, has become the first Chinese player to join a top-flight club in the land of the “beautiful game.” In an interview with the Globo Esporte Web site, Flavio Pires, the agent behind Chen’s arrival, said he hoped more players would follow. “We want to bring more players from China and Japan to play in Brazilian football,” he said. The idea of bringing a Chinese player to Corinthians surfaced earlier this year when marketing director Luis Paulo Rosenberg reportedly said his club planned to bring in “any old rubbish from China” in order to promote his club’s brand in Asia. Pires admitted Chen was not expected to become the next Pele. “He’s not a player who is coming to play immediately [or] to fight for a place with Corinthians’ top athletes,” Pires said. “We will all need to be patient with him and, if it works out, it will be important to take the club’s name to a country where more than 1 billion people live.”
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