BASEBALL
Taiwan pitch perfect game
Taiwan pitched a perfect game at the Asian Baseball Championship on Saturday, beating Pakistan 15-0 to face South Korea yesterday. Taiwan’s starter, Lin Yu-ching, and relief pitchers Lai Hung-cheng and Kuan Ta-yuan did not allow any hits and none of the Pakistani batters got on base. In addition, Taiwan made no errors. The game ended early in the seventh inning, shortened from the regular nine-inning game. Taiwan, which lost to Japan in the opening game and defeated the Philippines on Nov. 29, was standing at 2-1, behind Japan and South Korea, both of which have clinched three victories. Team manager Hsieh Chang-heng said it had not been decided who the starting pitcher would be in the game against South Korea. If Taiwan want to remain in competition for the championship, they need to win their next two games against South Korea and China.
ATHLETICS
Gitau wins in Fukuoka
Kenyan runner Joseph Gitau outpaced Polish Olympian Henryk Szost to take the lead for the last 8km and secure a surprise win in the Fukuoka international marathon yesterday. The Japan-based 24-year-old, who belongs to the JFE Steel athletics club in Hiroshima, clipped nearly 15 minutes off his personal best of 2 hours, 21 minutes and 54 seconds to cross the finishing line in 2:06:58. Japan’s Hiroyuki Horibata failed to clear the bottom line to qualify for the world championships next year, finishing second in 2:08:24, while Szost, ninth in the London Olympics, came third in 2:08:42. Ethiopian running legend Haile Gebrselassie, the Fukuoka champion in 2006, abandoned the race shortly after passing the 32km point. Gitau and Szost then took the lead ahead of Horibata, Martin Mathathi of Kenya and Arata Fujiwara of Japan after passing the 33km mark, before Gitau took the sole lead from 34km.
HOCKEY
England beat Germany
Adam Dixon and Harry Martin scored early first-half goals four minutes apart as England beat London Olympic gold medal winners Germany 4-1 at the Champions Trophy men’s field hockey tournament yesterday. England led 3-1 at halftime of the Pool A match after own goals by each team, then added the only goal of the second half after Germany’s Niklas Grell was sent off after receiving his second yellow card. Earlier in Pool B, Pakistan’s Abdul Haseem Khan scored in the 56th minute and Shafqat Rasool added a goal into an empty goal in the final minute to secure a 2-0 win over Belgium.
CYCLING
Beef man now president
The Spanish cycling federation (RFEC) has elected Jose Luis Lopez Cerron, the man who delivered the beef to Alberto Contador that the rider said led to him testing positive for clenbuterol in 2010, as its new president. Lopez Cerron, a former professional cyclist and organizer of Spain’s Tour of Castilla and Leon, was voted in at an assembly in Madrid on Saturday, the RFEC said on its Web site. The 56-year-old bought the allegedly contaminated meat in Irun, a town on Spain’s border, before taking it to Astana’s team hotel in Pau, France, where it was eaten by Contador on the 2010 Tour de France’s second rest day. The rider, who has since switched to Team Saxo-Tinkoff, went on to win the race, but his subsequent positive test for clenbuterol, a banned substance, led to him being stripped of the title, his third victory after triumphs in 2007 and 2009. He was banned for two years and returned in August to win the Tour of Spain.
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