SOCCER
Tahiti beat New Caledonia
Lorenzo Tehau scored his fifth goal in two matches as Tahiti held off a brave rally from nine-man New Caledonia to win 4-3 in Honiara, Solomon Islands, on Saturday and stay unbeaten atop Group A at the Oceania Nations Cup tournament. Tehau scored four goals in Tahiti’s 10-1 opening-round win over Samoa and was again joined by brother Alvin Tehau among the goalscorers as Tahiti stayed on track for the semi-finals. However, they had to battle hard for their second win of the tournament as New Caledonia, who won their opening match 5-2 over Vanuatu, rallied strongly after trailing 3-0 in the 54th minute when they lost a second player to a yellow card. Georges Gope-Fenepej was sent off in the 28th minute for a deliberate handball and Jean-Patrick Wakanumune in the 54th minute for a dangerous challenge.
SOCCER
Honduras defeat El Salvador
Carlo Costly and Allan Lalin scored in the second half as Honduras beat El Salvador 3-0 at RFK Memorial Stadium in Washington on Saturday in the final tuneup for both teams before resuming World Cup qualifying. Victor Bernardez also scored early for Honduras. Emilio Izaguirre set up two of the goals with crosses from the wing. Honduras’ Brayan Beckles was sent off for a reckless challenge in the 84th minute, moments before Lalin’s goal.
RUGBY UNION
Weepu named an All Black
New All Blacks coach Steve Hansen made his first major team announcement a contentious one when he included scrumhalf Piri Weepu in his 30-man squad for Tests against Ireland, despite Weepu’s recent lack of fitness or form. Hansen, who took over from Graham Henry after New Zealand’s World Cup victory in October last year, had previously named 35 players to attend training camps in preparation for the three-Test series, which begins in Auckland on Saturday. In refining that squad, including seven new caps, Hansen gave the first clear sign of the player he believes will take New Zealand on from the World Cup success.
CRICKET
Barath, Bravo save Windies
Adrian Barath and Darren Bravo both made 50s against Leicestershire as they rescued the West Indies from yet another top-order collapse on their tour of England on Saturday. The West Indies are already 2-0 down in the three-match Test series heading into this week’s climax at Edgbaston, with their top order having repeatedly slumped during the series. It looked like the tourists were set to suffer yet more embarrassment when the struggling Kieran Powell and Kirk Edwards both fell in the same over at Grace Road in Leicester from seamer Nadeem Malik to leave the Windies 25 for two. However, a third-wicket stand of 111 between opener Barath (53 not out) and Bravo (66) helped propel their side to 150 for three at the close of the first day of this two-day match. Edwards, the Windies’ acting captain, opted to bat after winning the toss. Powell had managed just nine when he was caught behind by Ned Eckersley off Malik’s first ball. However, Barath, who has looked the most promising member of a weak top four, got the tourists going again with his favored cover-drive and Bravo followed suit to bring up the West Indies’ 100 off Malik. Barath’s 50 took 136 balls, but was no less valuable for that, before bad light ended play for the day with Assad Fudadin 7 not out.
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