GOLF
OneAsia to hold US qualifiers
The OneAsia golf circuit is to hold a qualifying school in California next month to cater for the growing number of Asian golfers based on the US west coast, the tour said yesterday. The final stage of the US Q-school would take place at the Industry Hills Golf Club at Pacific Palms from Jan. 29 to Feb. 1, the tour said in a statement. There is also to be a final-stage school in Malaysia the following week. “As we enter our fifth season, there has been phenomenal interest in OneAsia from around the world and we feel that holding one of our Q-School tournaments in the United States will satisfy that demand,” OneAsia’s chairman and commissioner Sang Y Chun said in a statement. “With our tournaments all offering a minimum purse of around US$1 million, it is hardly surprising that interest in OneAsia has spread outside the region. In just four years we have become a major golf brand with international recognition,” he said. Chun said holding a qualifying tournament in California made sense as more Asia-Pacific players are going to college on the US western seaboard. It also offers facilities generally unavailable in Korea and northern China during the winter.
SOCCER
Benzema wins French award
Real Madrid striker Karim Benzema has been voted the best French soccer player this year, winning the award for the second consecutive year, the Spanish club said on Tuesday. Former France international Zinedine Zidane presented the 24-year-old with the trophy at Real’s Santiago Bernabeu stadium. Benzema won the award, organized by France Football, ahead of Bayern Munich winger Franck Ribery and Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Hugo Lloris in voting carried out by a panel of former winners, including Zidane. The former Olympique Lyonnaise striker scored 21 goals in La Liga last season, helping Real win the title, as well as seven in the Champions League where they lost to Bayern Munich in the semi-finals.
SOCCER
Suso gets fine over tweet
Liverpool midfielder Suso has been fined £10,000 (US$16,285) for posting a tweet about teammate Jose Enrique. The Spaniard last month posted a photo of Enrique having his teeth whitened and wrote on Twitter: “This guy is gay ... he does everything except play football.” He deleted the tweet, then re-posted the picture with a new comment: “I dunno what to say.” The English Football Association says Suso admitted at a hearing to a charge of acting “in a way which was improper and/or brought the game into disrepute in that the comment was posted on his Twitter account and included a reference to a person’s sexual orientation and/or disability.”
FORMULA ONE
Chilton to race for Marussia
Max Chilton has been named as a race driver for Formula One team Marussia for next year, becoming one of four Britons on the grid next season. The England-based team, which did not win a point in this year’s campaign, has promoted Chilton from his position as reserve driver to partner with Timo Glock. The 21-year-old Chilton said on Tuesday: “Instead of a standing start, I am already up to speed and at ease with the people, the culture, the systems and of course, the 2012 package.” Chilton has come through Marussia’s young driver program, with the team saying: “His development has been rapid in all aspects.” Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button and Paul Di Resta are the other British drivers in F1.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later