ICE HOCKEY
NHL star Lidstrom retires
Swedish defenseman Nicklas Lidstrom retired after 20 seasons with the Detroit Red Wings, ending one of the best careers in NHL history on Thursday. The four-time Stanley Cup champion and seven-time Norris Trophy winner as the league’s best defenseman fought back tears as he made the announcement. The 42-year-old set an NHL record by playing 1,564 games with a single team. He had put retirement on hold in each of the previous two years by signing one-year contracts. Lidstrom had 264 career goals with 1,142 points. He plans to move his family to Sweden and hopes to have an off-ice role with the Red Wings. Lidstrom was named the NHL’s best defenseman last year for a seventh time. The four-time Olympian also scored the gold-medal winning goal for Sweden over Finland in 2006.
BOXING
Mayweather due for jail
Free time has run out for Floyd Mayweather Jr, who was due to begin a three-month jail sentence yesterday in Las Vegas stemming from a hair-pulling, arm-twisting attack in September 2010 on the mother of three of his children. The unbeaten five-division champion’s legal and ring advisers were not immediately commenting on Thursday about Mayweather’s scheduled surrender before Las Vegas Justice of the Peace Melissa Saragosa. The judge sentenced him on Dec. 22 for his guilty plea to reduced charges in the domestic battery case. Saragosa said when she sentenced Mayweather that she was particularly troubled that he threatened and hit ex-girlfriend Josie Harris while their two sons watched.
ICE HOCKEY
Hartley to coach Flames
Bob Hartley has returned to the NHL as coach of the Calgary Flames. He succeeds Brent Sutter, who left the team in April after three seasons. Hartley coached Colorado for five seasons and won a Stanley Cup with the Avalanche in 2001. He joined the Flames on Thursday following a championship season with the ZSC Lions in Switzerland. Hartley also spent parts of five seasons as coach of the Atlanta Thrashers. He agreed to a three-year deal with Calgary. The Flames had to secure his release from the Lions because he had a year remaining on a two-year contract. Calgary missed the playoffs under Sutter for three years in a row.
SOCCER
AEK out of Europa League
Greece’s AEK were kicked out of next season’s Europa League for financial irregularities by the Hellenic Football Federation on Thursday. “It is a black page in the history of AEK,” club president Andreas Dimitrelos told a press conference after the decision by the federation. “We have a debt of 35 million euros [US43.27 million] and 23 million euros of this is owed to the state. We are asking for help from AEK supporters. The next 15 days will be crucial for the future of the team.” PAE Asteras Tripolis will replace AEK in European action.
ICE HOCKEY
Wild sign Gustafsson
The Minnesota Wild have signed rookie goaltender Johan Gustafsson to a three-year, entry-level contract. The Wild announced the signing on Thursday, giving them five picks from the 2010 draft under contract. The 20-year-old Gustafsson had a 1.68 goals-against average and a .932 save percentage in the Swedish Elite League this season. He also helped lead Sweden to the gold medal at this year’s world junior championship.
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