MOTORSPORTS
Legendary car maker dies
Race car driver and automobile manufacturer Carroll Shelby, who created the best-known US sports cars of the 1960s — the AC Cobra and the Shelby Mustang — has died at age 89, his company said on Friday. Carroll Shelby International hailed its founder as “a man whose vision for performance transformed the automobile industry.” It said he died on Thursday of an undisclosed illness at Baylor Hospital in Dallas, Texas. One of the top race car drivers in the US after World War II, Shelby turned to building cars starting in the 1960s, when he wedged a huge Ford V8 engine into a lightweight British-made AC roadster to give birth to the AC Cobra. This combination of power and speed tore up the racetrack, enabling the Cobra to win in its category in the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Impressed, Ford entrusted Shelby with the development of its GT40 race car, which ended Ferrari’s supremacy at the Circuit de la Sarthe in 1966 and again in 1967. Shelby was also the father of the special Ford Mustang series, the GT350 and the GT500, built at the end of the 1960s.
SOCCER
Alan Pardew wins honors
Newcastle United’s Alan Pardew was named Premier League manager of the season on Friday to cap an impressive campaign in which he turned his unfancied side into contenders for Champions League qualification. Manchester City captain Vincent Kompany was named player of the season. Newcastle are fifth in the table with one game to play at Everton today and could qualify for the Champions League if other results go their way. Former Charlton Athletic and West Ham United manager Pardew has won plaudits for rebuilding his side with some astute moves in the transfer market. In place of Andy Carroll, who joined Liverpool for £35 million (US$56.34 million) in January last year, Pardew brought in strikers Demba Ba in June and Papiss Cisse in January this year. The Senegalese duo have scored 29 league goals between them and Pardew also did well to sign France midfielder Yohan Cabaye in the close season. Belgian international Kompany has led league leaders City to the brink of their first top-flight crown since 1968. The center back has been at the heart of a well-orchestrated defense that has conceded six goals fewer than title rivals Manchester United.
TRIATHLON
Jenkins wins in San Diego
Britain’s Helen Jenkins took out the World Triathlon San Diego on Friday. Jenkins won the 1,500m swim, 40km bike and 10km run in 1 hour 58 minutes, 20 seconds, while Australia’s Erin Densham was second in 1:59:25. Laura Bennett was third in 2:00:11, enough to give her a berth in the US Olympic team for London. Bennett will join Sarah Groff and Gwen Jorgenson in London. They both previously qualified for the US team.
FOOTBALL
Seau buried in hometown
Junior Seau has been buried in his hometown of Oceanside, California, after a private funeral. Members of Seau’s family and former teammates, including LaDainian Tomlinson, were among those packing a church for the funeral, followed by burial at Eternal Hills cemetery. Seau committed suicide on May 2 at his Oceanside home. He played parts of 20 seasons in the NFL, with the San Diego Chargers, Miami Dolphins and New England Patriots. On Friday evening, up to 60,000 fans were expected at a public memorial service at Qualcomm Stadium, where Seau starred for 13 seasons with the Chargers.
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