GOLF
Els out of Grand Slam
South Africa’s Ernie Els withdrew from the PGA Grand Slam of Golf on Saturday because of a left-ankle sprain and is to be replaced in next week’s four-man event by Ireland’s Padraig Harrington. Els became the second major champion to pull out of the 36-hole Bermuda event designed to feature a select foursome of the year’s four major championship winners. Northern Ireland’s Rory McIlroy withdrew because he is playing a European Tour event next week in China. He had been replaced in the lineup by American Keegan Bradley, last year’s winner who also captured last year’s PGA Championship. Harrington and the US trio of Bradley, Masters champion Bubba Watson and US Open winner Webb Simpson are to play tomorrow and on Wednesday at Port Royal Golf Club for a US$600,000 top prize.
CRICKET
Pakistan beat World XI
Fast bowler Tabish Khan achieved a hat-trick, while Umar Akmal and Shahzaib Hasan hit rapid half-centuries as the Pakistan All Stars defeated an International World XI by 84 runs in a Twenty20 match in Karachi on Saturday. The exhibition match before a capacity crowd of 35,000 at the National Stadium marked the return of international cricket of a sort in Pakistan after three-and-a-half years. All major Test teams have avoided Pakistan since the deadly attack on the Sri Lanka team convoy at Lahore in March 2009. Pakistan posted a mammoth 222-7, with Akmal unbeaten on 67 off 37 balls and opening batsman Hasan escaping three dropped catches to score 54 off 21 balls, with six boundaries and four sixes. Khan then clean bowled Ricardo Powell (5), Jermaine Lawson (0) and Thandi Tshabalala (0) off successive deliveries to restrict an International World XI made up of Sri Lanka, South Africa, West Indies and Afghanistan players to 138-8.
CRICKET
Tony Greig has lung cancer
Former England cricket captain Tony Greig, who made his name as a TV commentator after a controversial playing career, has revealed he is suffering from lung cancer. Greig, initially diagnosed with bronchitis in May, told Australia’s Sunday Telegraph newspaper he would undergo surgery in Sydney this week to assess the extent of the disease. Now a commentator for Australian TV, Greig said he first became aware of a serious problem during Australia’s matches against Pakistan in the Middle East in August and last month. Tests revealed a lesion at the base of his right lung. “I have had a few scrapes in my life and this is another one,” South African-born Greig, 66, told the Sunday Telegraph.
TRIATHLON
Brownlee wins world crown
Britain’s Jonathan Brownlee capped a remarkable year for his family when he claimed the world men’s triathlon crown after finishing second to Spain’s Javier Gomez in the world series grand final yesterday. Brownlee’s overall victory comes after his brother Alistair’s gold-medal-winning performance at the London Olympics, to give the Brownlee family the two major titles in the sport. Alistair Brownlee, the defending world champion, was forced to miss races earlier this year through injury and an appendix operation meant he missed the season finale. Jonathan Brownlee, who was third at the London Olympics, and Gomez, the silver medalist, were shoulder-to-shoulder throughout the 10km run before the Spaniard narrowly inched ahead in a sprint finish.
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