MOTOGP
Stoner may be out of race
Reigning world champion Casey Stoner may not get a chance to defend his Indianapolis Grand Prix title after a crash-filled day in Indianapolis on Saturday. And Nicky Hayden will not get to race in front of his home fans. Stoner, last year’s pole winner, crashed in qualifying and was to be re-evaluated yesterday morning after doctors finally decided he had “small, marginal” fractures in his right ankle. American Nicky Hayden crashed and went flying into the air. Series officials said Hayden regained consciousness and was taken to a hospital for a CT scan. After Stoner’s motorcycle wobbled, he tried to regain control, but flew over the handlebars and across the grass. He tried to walk back to his bike, but called a medical team over and was taken away on a stretcher. Originally, doctors thought Stoner had broken his right ankle — an injury that probably would have ended his chance of becoming the race’s first two-time winner. The 26-year-old Stoner, who is racing for the final time in the US this weekend, could have been cleared to ride yesterday.
ATHLETICS
Bolt too expensive to run
Newly crowned Olympic sprint king Usain Bolt was deliberately not invited to the Stockholm Diamond League meet because the Jamaican commands too great an appearance fee, organizers said. Meet organiser Jan Kowalski told the Expressen tabloid: “We’d get to saturation point if he were to run every year. We had talks with him, but we thought: ‘Is it worth paying the price for him to come?’” Kowalski refused to make any statement on the reported remarks when questioned by reporters, but added that the athletes were invited, or not, following an “overall assessment” and according to a “limited budget.” The absence of the world’s fastest man, who appeared at the Stockholm meet three times between 2009 and last year, was marked by many more empty seats in the stadium than usual, Expressen said.
RUGBY UNION
David Pocock in doubt
Australia captain David Pocock is a doubt for next week’s Rugby Championship clash against New Zealand after injuring his knee in a 27-19 loss to the same opponents on Saturday. The openside flanker was to go for a scan yesterday to assess the damage and Wallabies coach Robbie Deans was coy about his prized poacher’s availability for the match in Auckland, New Zealand. “That’s a possibility,” Deans told reporters when asked if Pocock could miss the Test at Eden Park where Australia have not won since 1986. Scrumhalf Will Genia will lead the side against the World Cup winners if Pocock fails to recover in time, Deans said.
RUGBY UNION
Du Plessis out for season
South Africa hooker Bismarck du Plessis needs surgery on his right knee and has been ruled out for the rest of the season after being injured in the opening minutes of Saturday’s win over Argentina in the Rugby Championship. The South African Rugby Union says Du Plessis was diagnosed with knee ligament damage following the game in Cape Town and has been withdrawn from the squad to travel to Argentina yesterday. The Springboks beat Argentina 27-6 in the Pumas’ southern hemisphere debut. South Africa has called up Du Plessis’ Sharks teammate, Craig Burden, as cover. Adriaan Strauss and Tiaan Liebenberg are the other hookers in the squad, while prop Dean Greyling, lock Juandre Kruger and scrumhalf Jano Vermaak have also been added.
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