SOCCER
Hookers cram for World Cup
Sex workers in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte, which will host World Cup 2014 semi-finals, are being offered free English lessons to help them welcome the tourist onslaught, officials say. “They will be learning everyday expressions as well as technical sex vocabulary,” said Cida Vieira, who runs the Sex Workers’ Association in Minas Gerais state, of which Belo Horizonte is the capital. “They should be able to speak with their clients about fantasies,” Vieira said. About 300 prostitutes have already signed up for the classes, she said. Next on their agenda: expanding the program to include Spanish and French. “There are 80,000 prostitutes in Belo Horizonte alone. And demand just keeps going up,” she said. Pollyana Temponi, 27, and a three-year veteran of the trade, said: “English will be helpful for negotiating prices ... And nowadays, you need English for every job, really.”
SOCCER
Juventus down Milan
An extra-time strike by Mirko Vucinic gave Juventus a 2-1 victory over AC Milan on Wednesday and a place in the Italian Cup semi-finals. Milan had taken a sixth-minute lead when Stephan El Shaarawy found the target after being set-up by fine approach work from Giampaolo Pazzini and Kevin-Prince Boateng. However, Juve were level six minutes later when Sebastian Giovinco curled a free-kick over the wall and into the top corner. Juventus snatched an extra-time winner when second-half substitute Vucinic allowed an Emmanuele Giaccherini pass to reach Paolo De Ceglie whose return pass gave the Montenegro international time to slot home the vital goal. Juve coach Antonio Conte said that the win was the perfect response to the weekend’s shock 2-1 loss to Sampdoria in Serie A. “The lads knew what happened on Sunday should never happen again, not so much the defeat itself but for the manner in which it came,” Conte said. “Today I had a great response from everyone, in particular from those who have had fewer opportunities to show what they can do.”
SOCCER
N Korean heads south
North Korean striker Jong Tae-se finalized his move to South Korea’s K-League yesterday, vowing to score at least 15 goals for his new team the Suwon Samsung Bluewings before the end of the season. Jong, 28, was bought by Suwon from German side FC Koln for a reported transfer fee of 300,000 euros (US$395,850). “I will use my experience in Germany to help Suwon win the league this season,” Jong told reporters after finalizing a three-year-contract that makes him the fourth North Korean to play in the K-League. Jong, born in Japan to a South Korean father and a North Korean mother, has a North Korean passport and has said in previous interviews that he considered himself North Korean. After passing his medical on Tuesday, he expressed his desire to serve as “an ambassador” for inter-Korean sporting exchanges.
DAKAR RALLY
Peterhansel extends lead
Stephane Peterhansel boosted his lead in the Dakar Rally to 10 minutes after teammate Nani Roma won the fifth stage on Wednesday. Peterhansel’s Mini finished second to Roma’s on the relatively short 172km stage on the Peru side of the border with Chile. After enduring sand dunes since the race started on Saturday, drivers sprinted through rocky sections, riverbeds and canyons. The motorbikes navigated a different 136km route from Arequipa toward the Pacific coast, and Frenchman Olivier Pain became the first rider to hold on to the overall lead.
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