TABLE TENNIS
Taiwan men’s team ousted
Taiwan crashed out of the quarter-finals of the men’s world team table tennis championships in Dortmund, Germany, losing to South Korea 3-1 on Friday. Top seeds China and hosts Germany booked their places in the semi-finals by recording commanding last eight victories. China’s Zhang Jike (pictured), Ma Lin and Ma Long showed Austria no mercy as the defending champions romped to a 3-0 victory, while Germany also blasted past Sweden with a clean-sweep. For a place in the finals, the Germans will now play Japan, who beat Singapore 3-1 in their quarter-final, while China take on South Korea.
Photo: EPA
SOCCER
Fans point way to goal
Cheeky fans of German minnows FC Magdeburg decided to help their team end a five-match goalless streak with huge fluorescent arrows to show their players the way to the goal. With their team bottom of the northern regional league, Germany’s fourth division, a group of fans gathered behind their opponents’ net, each armed with a giant arrow. The trick worked, as Magdeburg finally found the back of the net after 558 minutes without a goal when US striker Chris Wright equalized in the 78th minute of their 2-1 defeat at home to Berliner AK 07 last Sunday. Footage of the humorous prank has already proved a hit on the Internet with more than a quarter of a million people watching the video “Pfeile [Arrows]” on YouTube.
BASKETBALL
Japan drops dope charges
Former Indiana basketball player Lynn Washington has been released from a jail in Osaka, Japan, after charges he attempted to smuggle marijuana into the country were dropped. The 33-year-old Osaka Evessa forward spent 18 days in jail after being arrested on March 13 over allegations he violated Japan’s Cannabis Control Law. Japan’s professional basketball league issued a statement late on Friday saying all charges against Washington had been dropped. Washington had been alleged to have conspired with his wife to smuggle more than 1.36kg of marijuana, with a street value of about US$110,000, through the international mail in November last year.
FOOTBALL
Payton to appeal suspension
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton will appeal his one-year suspension for his role in the team’s “bounty” scandal, the NFL Network said on Friday. The network, citing an unnamed source, said Payton was expected to “seek guidance on the amount of time he will have to prepare his appeal, and will attempt to obtain the full reports from NFL security regarding the bounty evidence against him.” The report said former Saints defensive coach Gregg Willliams, now with the St Louis Rams, would not appeal his penalty. He was suspended indefinitely in the wake of the pay-for-pain scandal. Payton had until tomorrow to file the appeal. He was suspended after the NFL took a dim view of the revelations that the Saints had been rewarding their players for deliberately injuring their opponents. The NFL also said it was investigating several players, raising the possibility that more penalties could be handed out.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later