SOCCER
Twente go two points clear
Twente scored three first-half goals in a 3-1 win at NEC Nijmegen to move back on top of the Dutch league on Sunday. Steve McClaren’s Twente have now taken nine points from their first three matches, leaving them two clear of a group of four teams that includes Ajax and Feyenoord. Dusan Tadic put Twente on track when he set up Luc Castaignos after 14 minutes for his first and then linked with Dmitri Bulykin, who doubled the lead with a fine header. Leroy Fer converted a penalty just before halftime to settle the match, while NEC midfielder Evander Sno scored a consolation goal 13 minutes from time. Feyenoord made sure they kept in touch following a 2-1 win away at Heracles Almelo. Fullback Daryl Janmaat opened the scoring after four minutes and on the stroke of halftime Lex Immers extended the lead. Striker Sekou Cisse missed a penalty, but Feyenoord held on despite Lerin Duarte’s 52nd-minute goal. PSV Eindhoven cruised past Groningen with a 3-1 victory that moved them to sixth with six points. Canadian Atiba Hutchinson opened proceedings on 38 minutes with a classy chip courtesy of a defense-splitting pass from Dries Mertens. Mertens and Memphis Depay added two more in the second half, before Mitchell Schet pulled one back for Groningen a minute before time.
SOCCER
Kuwait coach Tufegdzic shot
Police say Kuwait national soccer team coach Goran Tufegdzic has been shot in his native Serbia and is in critical condition. Police in the central town of Pozarevac said on Sunday that Tufegdzic was shot on Friday in the chest by his neighbor after an argument over a plot of land. He was taken to a Belgrade hospital in serious condition. Tufegdzic, who has worked in the Middle East for a decade, was appointed Kuwait coach in 2009. He took the team to last year’s Asian Cup and helped them win the Gulf Cup in 2010. Kuwait Football Association chairman Sheik Talal al-Sabah said he had spoken to the coach’s wife and hopes “his health improves and that his family endures this crisis.”
ATHLETICS
Official speared by javelin
A 75-year-old official was in a critical condition on Sunday after being speared through the throat by a javelin at an athletics meeting in Duesseldorf, Germany. The elderly official at the city’s Wilhelm Unger Games for young athletes is reported to have gone to measure a javelin throw, but was hit by the object as it landed, according to local media reports. Paramedics revived the victim at the scene and an emergency doctor escorted him as he was rushed to the city’s University Hospital, where he was operated on after losing a lot of blood from his main artery. A group of seven spectators in the 800-strong crowd who witnessed the accident were given counseling at the scene as police evacuated the stadium. After the accident, the meeting was immediately canceled.
FOOTBALL
Seahawks cut Terrell Owens
The Seattle Seahawks cut wide receiver Terrell Owens on Sunday, ending his comeback to the NFL before it officially began. The 38-year-old Owens had earned a one-year contract with the Seahawks after working out with the team earlier this month, setting up a return to the league for the first time since 2010, but he failed to impress during pre-season action. Owens made just two catches in two pre-season games.
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