ITALY
Juventus’ trip canceled
Serie A leaders Juventus’ trip to Parma on Tuesday night was called off less than an hour before kickoff because of heavy snow making areas in and around the stadium too dangerous. The decision was taken after consultation between the two side’s captains, the referee, the local prefect and security officials. Parma chief executive Pietro Leonardi said he agreed with the decision. “At 8pm, I accepted the decision. It wasn’t possible to play,” he told SkySport.
TURKEY
President resigns from TFT
Mehmet Ali Aydinlar, president of the Turkish Football Federation (TFF), and his two deputies announced their resignation in Istanbul on Tuesday in light of a match-fixing scandal that has embroiled the sport in the country. “In a context where non-ethical behavior from certain people and institutions is considered authorized, and where trust does not exist, I don’t have the means to resist anymore,” Aydinlar said in a statement posted on the TFF Web site. Aydinlar refused to disclose the reasons for his resignation. However, the move comes five days after a special meeting of the General Assembly of the TFF, during which no agreement could be reached as to what sanctions should be imposed on clubs involved in match-fixing.
FRANCE
Remy hit by paternity suit
Olympique de Marseille’s France international striker Loic Remy is the subject of a paternity suit, the lawyer of the mother of the child he is accused of fathering told reporters on Tuesday. The complainant has asked for Remy to submit to a blood or DNA test to ascertain whether he is the father of the boy, who was born on Nov. 4 last year, according to the lawyer, Laurie Delclos. Remy, 25, is Marseille’s top scorer with nine goals in Ligue 1 this season.
QATAR
Olympic hopes dealt blow
Qatar’s hopes of winning a spot in this year’s Olympic soccer competition have been dealt a blow after FIFA overturned a draw in Oman for fielding an ineligible player, awarding the home side a 3-0 victory. The London Olympics qualifier on Nov. 27 last year ended in a 1-1 stalemate, but Qatar’s Abdelaziz Hatim should not have been on the pitch in Muscat. The midfielder had been booked in the second round of qualifiers against India and picked up a second yellow card in the round three game with South Korea. The Qatar Football Association has been fined US$7,600, while the team have now slipped to third place in Group A with two points, the Asian Football Confederation said on its Web site yesterday.
NORTH KOREA
North refuses to play South
A North Korean youth soccer team refused to play a South Korean side in a tournament held in China, citing cross-border tension after the death of leader Kim Jong-il, an official said on Tuesday. The two countries were preparing to play each other on Monday in Kunming, China, as part of an annual regional event between young soccer players from the two Koreas, Japan and China. However, the North’s players were ordered to leave the field before kickoff “due to a government policy not to deal with the South,” according to an official from the South Korean city of Incheon that helped arrange the event. “The players [from the two sides] were taking photos together and warming up for the game, but only 30 minutes later, the North’s players were ordered to leave.”
TENNIS
Tomic faces traffic charges
Teenage Australian star Bernard Tomic will go to court later this month after being charged with two traffic offenses following a recent standoff with police outside his home. The 19-year-old was fined twice in the space of an hour driving his BMW M3 on the Gold Coast just days after being knocked out of the Australian Open by Roger Federer last month. However, in a statement late on Tuesday, police alleged he refused to stop when asked to pull over a third time. A police car followed him home with siren blaring and officers had to wait outside his house, barred by security gates, for several hours for Tomic to come out in an incident. Tomic was charged with failing to stop his car. He is also accused of not keeping to the left of double dividing lines on the road. Tomic, who has repeatedly alleged he is being persecuted by police, has hired the Gold Coast’s foremost civil lawyer Chris Nyst. Tomic is due to face court on Feb. 14.
TENNIS
Venus ready to play: Serena
Serena Williams said her sister Venus would be ready for this weekend’s Fed Cup matches against Belarus. Serena said Venus has been training every day and is “coming along awesome.” The sisters are teammates on the US team that will face Belarus and new No. 1 Victoria Azarenka, the Australian Open champion. It will be Venus’ first competitive appearance since last year’s US Open, when she revealed she had Sjogren’s syndrome, an autoimmune disease that can cause fatigue and joint pain.
ATHLETICS
Runners get doping bans
South Korean sprinter Lim Hee-nam and Portugal’s European 5,000m bronze medalist Sara Moreira received six-month bans from the International Association of Athletics Federations on Tuesday for doping. Both athletes tested positive for the stimulant methylhexanamine at last year’s world championships in Daegu, South Korea. Lim’s suspension runs until April 10, while Moreira’s will expire on March 7.
BASEBALL
D’Backs avoid arbitration
The Arizona Diamondbacks avoided arbitration with two players by agreeing to one-year contracts with All-Star catcher Miguel Montero and infielder Ryan Roberts, the team said on Tuesday. Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed, but reports on MLB’s Web site said Montero would earn US$5.9 million this year and Roberts would make US$2 million. Montero’s agreement came moments before the Venezuelan was scheduled to have an arbitration hearing. “I was sitting in the [hearing] room,” Montero told MLB.com by telephone from Tampa, Florida. “I was getting a bottle of water right before it was supposed to start and they told me to step outside to talk.”
OLYMPICS
Suspected fraudster arrested
London police arrested a 24-year-old man on suspicion of fraud after he allegedly duped a 69-year-old US woman into handing over tens of thousands of dollars for an investment related to the upcoming Summer Games. Police issued a statement on Tuesday saying the online scam involved a contract to supply buses for police officers for the Games. The man allegedly contacted the woman on an online dating Web site. Police said that once he befriended her, he tricked her into handing over £140,000 (US$220,000) as an “initial” investment into the business. Police say they were worried about the suspect using the prestige of London’s Metropolitan Police department to secure the victim’s trust.
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