GOLF
Lipsky sets early pace
Asian Tour rookie David Lipsky set the pace at the US$2 million Iskandar Johor Open yesterday, holding the opening-round lead at eight-under through 16 holes before a thunderstorm stopped play. Australia’s Unho Park posted a flawless 65 for second place, while Kevin Na of the US scored 66 to take third at the Horizon Hills Golf and Country Club. Play was suspended in the early afternoon and 84 players are set to resume their round at 7:15am today. South Africa’s Peter Karmis scored 67 to take a share of fourth place with India’s S.S.P. Chowrasia, Angelo Que of the Philippines and Australia’s Darren Beck, who is at five-under through 17 holes. Asian Tour Order of Merit contenders Thaworn Wiratchant of Thailand and Australia’s Marcus Fraser are at one-under after 17 holes. Taiwan’s Chan Yih-shin was on one-under through 16 holes, while compatriot Lin Wen-tang was one-over through the fourth hole.
GOLF
Emotional Popovic leads
An emotional Daniel Popovic fired a sizzling eight-under 64 to grab a two-shot opening round lead at the Australian PGA Championship yesterday after Greg Norman withdrew due to a bout of food poisoning. Popovic flirted with the course record of 62 at the Palmer Coolum Resort in southern Queensland, before settling two shots ahead of compatriot Scott Strange. Former US Open champion Geoff Ogilvy, China’s Zhang Xinjun and Singapore’s Choo Tze-huang were one shot further behind tied for third place. Defending champion Greg Chalmers began with an even-par 72, while Northern Irishman Darren Clarke carded a 70. The 57-year-old Norman bogeyed the first two holes before deciding he could not continue.
SWIMMING
Lochte bags two golds
US star Ryan Lochte bagged two golds on the opening day of the world shortcourse championships in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday to add to the five medals he won at the London Olympics. The American led from start to finish to win the men’s 200m freestyle, before he teamed up with Anthony Ervin, James Feigen and Matthew Grevers to win the 4x100m freestyle relay. The US women added a third gold by winning the final race of the day, the 4x200m freestyle relay. The quartet of Megan Romano, Chelsea Chenault, Shannon Vreeland and Allison Schmitt were pushed all the way by Russia. Elsewhere, it was a good day for eastern European women. Hungary’s Katinka Hosszu set a competition record of 2 minutes, 2.20 seconds when she won gold in the 200m butterfly. Hosszu then returned to the pool 30 minutes later to overhaul compatriot Zsuzsanna Jakabos in the final stages of the women’s 400m individual medley and win bronze behind Britain’s Hannah Miley and Ye Shiwen of China.
VOLLEYBALL
Crowd trouble ends match
The CEV Challenge Cup match between Bulgaria’s Levski Sofia and Greece’s Olympiakos was abandoned on Wednesday after fans threw flares and other objects onto the court. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” Olympiakos spiker Boyan Yordanov told reporters. “They threw beer cans and even a bottle of vodka at us.” The match was suspended in the third set with twice winners Olympiakos leading 9-8 and the set score at 1-1. Russian referee Maxim Berdnikov took the players off the court and the match was abandoned. “Levski should expect a European competitions’ ban,” Bulgarian volleyball federation president Dancho Lazarov said.
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