HOCKEY
Coyotes atop the Pacific
The Phoenix Coyotes seized the NHL Pacific Division lead with a 4-1 win against the Blues in St Louis, Missouri, on Friday. Keith Yandle, Radim Vrbata, Shane Doan and Mikkel Boedker scored for Phoenix, who have won four straight. They lead Los Angeles and San Jose by one point. Coyotes goalie Mike Smith made 31 saves in another stingy start, although his shutout streak was ended at 234 minutes. Patrik Berglund scored in the first period for the Blues.
CYCLING
Rodriquez takes stage
Spain’s Joaquin Rodriguez of Team Katusha won his second successive stage on the Tour of the Basque Country in Spain on Friday to maintain the overall lead. Rodriguez triumphed on the 183km run from Bera to Onati, ahead of compatriot Samuel Sanchez and Robert Kiserlovski of Croatia. Rodriguez had trouble following Sanchez when he attacked 3km from the finish, but the race leader just nipped ahead at the line to push the Olympic champion back to second spot. Sanchez stays second in the overall standings, nine seconds off the lead with Kiserlovski in third, 26 seconds back.
FORMULA ONE
Lotus cancels sponsorship
A title sponsorship agreement between loss-making Malaysian-owned sportscar maker Group Lotus and Lotus F1 has been canceled, but the team will race on as Lotus, owner Gerard Lopez said on Friday. Lopez, whose Genii Capital runs the former Renault team that have Finland’s Kimi Raikkonen and France’s Romain Grosjean as drivers, told the autosport.com Web site that “the sponsorship agreement and the obligations of Lotus have been terminated.” “There is no option from Group Lotus to buy into F1 now,” the entrepreneur added. Group Lotus had agreed their title sponsorship deal with the British-based team in 2010 and it was supposed to last until the end of 2017 with the ultimate aim of becoming co-owners along with Genii. The car company is owned by Proton, which has been sold recently by Malaysia’s state investment arm Khazanah to Malaysian conglomerate DRB-HICOM.
CANOEING
Tony Estanguet into London
Olympic 2000 and 2004 canoe slalom champion Tony Estanguet qualified for the London Games at the French selection competition in Pau on Friday. Estanguet, 33, had the best results after three qualification races in the week and defeated Denis Gargaud-Chanut, last year’s world champion. Estanguet won the world championships in 2009 and 2010.
HOCKEY
NY coach fined for comments
The NHL slapped New York Rangers coach John Tortorella with a US$20,000 fine on Friday after he called the Pittsburgh Penguins “one of the most arrogant organizations in the league.” “They whine about this stuff all the time and look what happens, but they’ll whine about something else over there, won’t they,” Tortorella said of the Penguins. Tortorella was upset with the Penguins after Rangers center Derek Stepan took a knee-on-knee hit from Pittsburgh defenseman Brooks Orpik on Thursday. Tortorella blasted the Penguins organization and their star players in a post-game rant to reporters. “I wonder what would happen if we did this to their two whining stars,” Tortorella said. “I wonder what would happen, so I’m anxious to see what happens with the league with this. Just no respect amongst players, none. It’s sickening.”
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