BASKETBALL
Jeremy Lin withdraws
New York Knicks guard Jeremy Lin has withdrawn from the US men’s select team that is set to train this month against the US men’s national basketball team during a training camp in Las Vegas. Lin told USA Basketball on Monday that he was withdrawing because he is now a NBA restricted free agent. “Unfortunately, I am not going to be able to participate in the 2012 USA men’s select team this summer,” Lin said. “It was such an incredible honor to be selected, but I have withdrawn my name from the team because of my status as a free agent. I hope to have the opportunity to participate with USA Basketball at some point in the future.” Members of the US select team are scheduled to be in Nevada from tomorrow to train with the US national team.
BASKETBALL
Top teams win first games
Russia, Greece, Angola and Venezuela won their opening games on Monday in the final qualifying tournament for men’s basketball at the London Olympics. Russia defeated South Korea 91-56 in Group C. Andrey Kirlenko had 16 points for Russia, with Sergey Monya adding 14. Lee Seung-jun led South Korea with 15. Greece beat Jordan 107-63 in Group A. Konstantinos Papanikolaou had 19 points and Georgios Printezis added 16. Enver Soobzokov was best for Jordan with 14. Angola edged Macedonia 88-84 in Group D, with Eduardo Mingas scoring 24 and Olimpio Cipriano adding 23. Carlos Morais had 18. Lester McCalebb scored 21 for the Macedonia. In Group B, home team Venezuela slipped by Nigeria 71-69. Greivis Vasquez led the South Americans with 24. Ike Diogu was Nigeria’s top scorer with 14. Three teams will claim the final berths for the Olympics. Group play ends today with the quarter-finals on Friday, semi-finals on Saturday and the final match on Sunday to decide the remaining spot.
ICE HOCKEY
Brodeur stays with Devils
Goaltender Martin Brodeur, the National Hockey League’s all-time wins leader, has re-signed with the New Jersey Devils ensuring he will return for a 19th season with the club, team president and general manager Lou Lamoriello said on Monday. The 40-year-old Brodeur, a member of all three of New Jersey’s Stanley Cup championship teams, appeared in 59 games last season, recording a 31-21-4 mark, and started all 24 playoff games on the Devils’ way to the Stanley Cup Finals. The team would not comment on terms of the deal, but local reports said Brodeur signed a two-year deal worth US$9 million. A four-time winner of the Vezina Trophy as top goalie in the NHL, Brodeur has accumulated 656 victories and 119 shutouts, both NHL career records. His 113 playoff victories are second all-time, while his 24 shutouts are first.
SAILING
Cammas seals Volvo win
Frenchman Franck Cammas sealed victory in the Volvo Ocean Race yesterday after his Groupama team made it over the finish line in Galway to build an unassailable lead and complete a great comeback in the eight-month adventure. Cammas’ victory gives France only their second win in the 39-year history of the offshore race, following Lionel Pean’s triumph on board L’Esprit d’Equipe in 1985-1986. Tens of thousands of people came out to welcome the team to the final stopover port of a race around the world that began in Alicante in October last year. Victory for Spanish/New Zealand team Camper in the final leg secured them second spot overall, with US team PUMA finishing third on the day to seal third overall.
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