OLYMPICS
Le Clos makes girl’s day
South African swimming hunk and Olympic gold medalist Chad le Clos made a girl’s day by agreeing to go to her school dance when she wooed him with a poster at a Johannesburg airport. “I just started to cry. I was shaking and I was so nervous,” said Melanie Olhaus, 17, after Le Clos, 20, agreed to be her date. Le Clos beat US legend Michael Phelps by five-hundredths of a second to take gold in the 200m butterfly on July 31. The final-year pupil at Glenvista High School in Johannesburg skipped class on Tuesday to try her luck when Le Clos was at the O.R. Tambo International Airport to welcome back the rest of the country’s Olympic team returning from London. The pretty blonde held up a baby-blue poster with the words: “Chad, will you be my matric dance date???” together with pictures of her and him holding his gold medal. “He said he thinks he’s in the country at that time and he’ll try and make it,” Olhaus told Beeld newspaper on Thursday. School principal Marius Robinson showed understanding for her bunking. “Let’s just say it was an urgent personal appointment,” he joked.
SOCCER
Maradona’s son to join club
The son of soccer great Diego Maradona is close to joining a third-division Argentine club. Diego Sinagra Maradona — known as Diego Junior — is expected to join the club El Porvenir. The club’s coach says the paperwork is being completed and that the midfielder is expected to arrive in Argentina next week. Diego Junior was born in Italy in 1986, the offspring of a relationship Maradona had with an Italian woman, Cristina Sinagra, while he was playing with Italian club Napoli. “I love Argentine football and to play there is something I’ve wished to do,’’ Diego Junior told the Argentine sports daily Ole. El Porvenir coach Luis Ventura said on his Twitter feed that signing Diego Junior “would not cost the club a cent, but could generate interest and income.” Diego Junior has had little contact with his father and has none of his soccer talent, with his career limited to lower-level clubs in Italy.
CRICKET
Akhtar eyes coach job
Controversial former fast bowler Shoaib Akhtar threw his hat into the ring yesterday to become Pakistan’s next bowling coach. Pakistan have been hunting for a bowling coach since appointing Australian Dav Whatmore as head coach in March, with former Essex paceman Ian Pont the leading contender. Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) set up a three-man committee to find a suitable candidate. “I am ready to be the bowling coach for Pakistan. If the PCB contacts me then I will offer my services,” Akhtar, 37, told reporters. The paceman, whose career was plagued by fitness and discipline problems, retired from cricket after the World Cup last year. He took 178 wickets in 46 Tests and 247 in 163 one-day internationals. “It’s an honor to serve the country and it can be done by helping the upcoming bowlers. It will give me a chance to pay back what the country has given me,” Akhtar said.
SOCCER
Liverpool to sign Assaidi
Liverpool have agreed to sign Morocco winger Oussama Assaidi from Heerenveen, the Premier League club said on their Web site on Thursday. The 24-year-old winger, who has 22 caps, scored 20 goals in 68 games for the Dutch first division side last season. He is now to undergo a medical before the transfer is completed. Brendan Rodgers, the new Liverpool manager, has already signed Swansea City midfielder Joe Allen and Italy striker Fabio Borini from AS Roma for the new campaign.
GOLF
Tseng, Choi set for rematch
Taiwanese world No. 1 Yani Tseng and South Korea’s Choi Na-yeon will return for October’s Sime Darby LPGA Malaysia, where Choi edged out Tseng in a thriller last year, organizers said. Besides Tseng and the world No. 4 Choi, top players Cristie Kerr and Paula Creamer of the US have also committed to the US$1.9 million tournament on Oct. 11-14 at the Kuala Lumpur Golf and Country Club (KLGCC). Last year it went down to the wire, with Choi holding off the hard-charging Tseng, who shot a six-under 65 in the final round, equaling the course record. “I’m looking forward to getting back to the KLGCC. I finished one shot behind Na-yeon last year after a pretty tense fourth round so will see what I can do this year,” Tseng said in a statement released by the organizers. Tseng, who was in dominant form last year, has cooled somewhat this year, but has still won three LPGA events this year, while Choi bagged the US Women’s Open title last month.
SOCCER
Ref threatened with death
A Swiss second-division player has been banned for 10 league matches after telling the referee he would kill him after being sent off in a game. The Swiss Football League (SFL) said in a statement that FC Wil’s Adis Jahovic, furious at being dismissed in the first half, told the official: “If I see you after, I kill you.” The incident happened against FC Biel on Aug. 5. The SFL said Macedonian Jahovic had been guilty of “threatening the referee and serious unsporting conduct.”
SOCCER
World Cup fraud trial starts
Powerful South African soccer boss Bobby Motaung and two others appeared in court on Thursday for 2010 World Cup tender fraud amid claims of political assassinations to cover up the dirt, media reported. Motaung, the administrator of Soweto-based Kaizer Chiefs, and his co-accused were granted bail of 50,000 rand (US$6,000) each at the Nelspruit Magistrates’ Court, 702 Talk Radio reported. They are charged with forging tax certificates and municipal letters in a tender to design the Mbombela Stadium in the regional hub next to the world-famous Kruger National Park. Low-key matches were played in the stadium, whose pillars are designed to look like giraffes in a reference to the province’s wildlife. Fraud and corruption related to World Cup tenders and other wrongdoing have been linked to political murders in the province.
CRICKET
Pietersen waits longer
England batsman Kevin Pietersen has several extra days in which to discover if he will be a member of the defending champions’ World Twenty20 squad. The International Cricket Council (ICC) had originally made today their deadline for all teams to announce their final 15-man squads for the tournament in Sri Lanka starting next month. However, the global governing body announced on Thursday they had put this back until Friday next week, at the behest of several countries, with England now due to announce their squad on Tuesday. An England spokeswoman said they had not asked specifically for an extension in order to reach agreement with Pietersen, dropped for the ongoing third Test at Lord’s against his native South Africa after admitting sending “provocative texts” to Proteas players. She said the reason was that England did not want a squad announcement deflecting attention away from a Test the hosts must win to prevent South Africa dethroning them as the world’s top-ranked side in the five-day game.
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