Scott Jamieson of Scotland won his first European Tour title at the inaugural Nelson Mandela Championship at the Royal Durban Golf Club on Sunday as the world peace icon underwent medical tests.
The 29-year-old beat England’s Steve Webster and Spaniard Eduardo de la Riva on the second hole of a playoff. They were tied for the lead at seven-under 123 after the tournament was reduced to 36-holes with heavy rain washing out the first two days.
“To get your name on any European trophy is a fantastic achievement,” the 29-year-old said, “but it’s a little more special when it’s for someone like Nelson [Mandela],” he added while holding an unusual trophy sporting colorful miniatures of Mandela seated with an open book and surrounded by small children.
The proceeds of the tournament will go to the Nelson Mandela Children’s Fund.
Meanwhile, in the capital Pretoria, the 94-year-old Nobel Peace laureate, after whom the tournament was named, spent the night in hospital for medical tests. South African President Jacob Zuma found him “comfortable, and in good care” during a hospital visit.
Jamieson, having finished the first round outside the top 40 with one-over-par 66, fought back on Sunday to card eight-under-par 57 on the way to his maiden European Tour title.
Play was much swifter in the reduced tournament co-sanctioned by the European Tour and South Africa’s Sunshine Tour — the first time in 10 years that two days were cut. Waterlogged conditions also delayed play on the Thursday and Friday in the 2002 Portugal Open.
“I knew I had to get off to a fast start after a really mediocre round yesterday,” the Glaswegian said. “I really had to get up and down to save par at ten and then I chipped in on eleven, which really got me going.”
“I built up some momentum from there, made three birdies in a row on the par threes, which does not happen often,” he 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