SOCCER
Carroll out for England
Striker Andy Carroll withdrew from England’s squad for this month’s World Cup qualifiers against Moldova and Ukraine after injuring his hamstring on his West Ham United debut on Saturday. Carroll fell awkwardly after colliding with Fulham center-back Brede Hangeland midway through the second half of West Ham’s 3-0 Premier League win at Upton Park. The pony-tailed frontman, who joined the London club on a season-long loan from Liverpool on Thursday, immediately clutched his right hamstring and was substituted. The Football Association said on its Web site that any decision to replace Carroll would “not be made until after the three league fixtures on Sunday [yesterday] have been completed.” England, already without injured striker Wayne Rooney, open their Group H campaign in Moldova on Friday and hosts Ukraine four days later.
BOXING
Golovkin defends belts
Kazakhstan’s Gennady Golovkin defended his WBA and IBO middleweight belts with his 11th consecutive victory on Saturday, stopping Poland’s Grzegorz Proksa in the fifth round of an impressive US debut. Golovkin (24-0, 21 KOs) battered his Polish opponent in every round, dropping Proksa (28-2) in the first and fourth rounds before the referee halted the bout. Golovkin is a Kazakh-born fighter who lives in Germany and trains in California. He had never fought in the US before this bout at a casino in upstate New York, but he is determined to become a stateside star. Golovkin is ranked among the world’s top middleweights, although his talent could make him unattractive to the winner of the showdown between the division’s best: Sergio Martinez vs Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. on Sept. 15.
BOXING
Singwancha keeps WBA title
Thailand’s Tepparith Singwancha defended his WBA super flyweight title on Saturday on points against former champion Nobuo Nashiro of Japan. Two judges scored the bout 115-113, 115-114 in favor of Tepparith, 23, while one judge had it even at 114-114 in the Japanese city of Osaka. “Nashiro is a strong fighter so I did the best preparation this time. If he wants to fight against me again, I’m going to accept,” said Tepparith, who improved his record to 19 wins, including 11 KOs, against two defeats. Tepparith became the interim champion in May last year and was promoted to full champion in November with Japanese title-holder Tomonobu Shimizu unable to defend the belt because of an eye injury. It was Tepparith’s third defense of the title. The 30-year-old Nashiro, ranked 14th in the WBA, said before the fight that he would quit if he lost. “I couldn’t beat him. He was really tough. I thought I won, but it’s all right. I did everything that I wanted to do. I’m not changing my mind [to retire]. I experienced the best career as a boxer,” he said. The defeat saw Nashiro’s record reduced to 18 wins, including 12 KOs, against five defeats and a draw.
SOCCER
Pezzoni leaves Cologne
Cologne manager Holger Stanislawski says violent and threatening fans have driven defender Kevin Pezzoni away from the club. The 23-year-old Pezzoni was released from his contract with Cologne on Friday after being accosted and threatened outside his home by the club’s fans during the week. In February, Pezzoni was attacked by an unknown assailant who broke the player’s nose during Cologne’s carnival celebrations. Pezzoni played 90 league games for Cologne since his arrival from Blackburn Rovers in January 2008.
OLYMPICS
Gold medalists get cows
South Africa’s six gold medalists in the London 2012 Olympics have each received a traditionally revered gift back home — a cow — from the country’s braai champ, Beeld newspaper reported on Saturday. The gifts, each valued at 7,000 rand (US$833), were handed over by businessman Jan Scannell, better known as Jan Braai, for his aim of using the most cross-cultural social custom, the barbeque or braai, to unite South Africans. One of the six Olympians, swimmer Cameron van der Burgh, chose to have his cow processed into 140kg of boerewors, a popular thick aromatic beef sausage, which he donated to an orphanage in Alexandra township in Johannesburg. Rowers John Smith and James Thompson opted for biltong, or dried beef strips. Another rower, Sizwe Ndlovu, preferred the live animal, likening the gift to a bride price or lobola. Cows are traditionally used to pay for brides in most southern African cultures. “From a national cultural perspective I did not expect to get lobola because I won a gold medal,” Ndlovu said. Jan Braai, who in 2010 broke the Guinness World Record for the longest barbeque at 28 hours, 26 minutes, now promotes Sept. 24 each year, South Africa’s national heritage day, as national braai day.
SOCCER
Vegalta Sendai back in lead
Ryang Yong Gi scored in the second half on Saturday as Vegalta Sendai rallied to beat Kawasaki Frontale 2-1 and regain the lead in the J-League. Kyohei Noborizato put Kawasaki ahead with a header from 7m in the 31st minute, but Naoya Tamura equalized 10 minutes after the break with his first goal of the season. Ryang scored the winner with a curling free kick from 16m in the 62nd as Sendai improved to 45 points — one ahead of Sanfrecce Hiroshima, held to a 1-1 draw at Jubilo Iwata. Also, Urawa Reds stayed in third place on 42 points after a 1-1 draw with cross-town rival Omiya Ardija, while FC Tokyo beat Yokohama F Marinos 3-1.
BOXING
Geale takes Sturm’s title
Australia’s Daniel Geale added Felix Sturm’s WBA middleweight Super title to his IBF crown with a shock split decision win in the German’s backyard in Oberhausen on Saturday. British official Dave Parris and South African Stanley Christodoulou both scored the fight 116-112 in Geale’s favor, while US judge Eugene Grant had Sturm ahead 116-112. Geale began to take control of the fight in the middle rounds, hurting Sturm with some stinging body blows, but the German hit back late, making it hard for the judges. “I’m feeling a little bit tired but pretty good,” said the 31-year-old Geale, who became the first Australian-born boxer to unify two globally recognized titles in the same division, after a successful third defense of his IBF title improved his record to 28-1, with 15 knockouts.
FOOTBALL
Penn State lose to Bobcats
Penn State suffered a 24-14 upset loss to Ohio University on Saturday in the Nittany Lions’ first gridiron game since the child sex abuse conviction of ex-assistant coach Jerry Sandusky. It was the first game for the storied collegiate US football program since former NFL New England Patriots assistant coach Bill O’Brien took over as coach, replacing iconic Joe Paterno, who died at age 85 in January. A jury convicted Sandusky in June on 45 counts in a case that shocked the US and rocked the university.
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