SOCCER
Newcastle sign Yanga-Mbiwa
English Premier League strugglers Newcastle United have agreed a fee with reigning French champions Montpellier Herault to sign France international defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, the French club announced on Tuesday. Newcastle have also agreed a deal with AS Nancy-Lorraine for 20-year-old defender Massadio Haidara, the French top-flight outfit said on their Web site earlier on Tuesday. Nancy said agreement had been reached on a 4 million euro (US$5.32 million) deal for a player who has made 46 appearances for Nancy since a December 2010 debut against Sochaux-Montbeliard.
SOCCER
Cole’s contract extended
England leftback Ashley Cole has ended speculation about his immediate future by signing a one-year contract extension with Chelsea, the Premier League club announced on Tuesday. His previous deal was due to expire at the end of the season and the 32-year-old had been linked with moves to either Real Madrid or Paris Saint-Germain in recent weeks. However, Cole, who joined Chelsa from Arsenal in 2006, says he never had any intention of leaving Stamford Bridge.
BOXING
Igarashi to head title event
World Boxing Council (WBC) flyweight champion Toshiyuki Igarashi will stake his title against his compatriot Akira Yaegashi in Tokyo in April, his gym said yesterday. The card will be part of a triple world-title event on April 8 at the Ryogoku sumo arena, with WBC bantamweight champion Shinsuke Yamanaka of Japan also fighting top-ranked Malcolm Tunacao of the Philippines and Mexico’s WBC super featherweight champion Gamaliel Diaz taking on Japan’s Takashi Miura. It will be Igarashi’s second defense of the title he wrested from Sonny Boy Jaro of the Philippines in July last year. He has 17 wins, with 10 KOs, against one defeat and one draw.
SOCCER
NZ skipper Nelsen to retire
New Zealand captain Ryan Nelsen said yesterday he would take up the coaching reins at Toronto next month, ending his playing career with both the All Whites and England’s Queens Park Rangers. Nelsen signed on as manager of Major League Soccer side Toronto earlier this month, but it was unclear when he would begin his new duties, because his QPR contract did not end until June 30. QPR manager Harry Redknapp was keen for him to stay and help the Premier League side fight relegation, but the 35-year-old said in a statement that he would join Toronto full-time on Feb. 1. Nelsen also called time on his international career with the All Whites, saying that age was catching up with him.
RUGBY UNION
Fava settles injury action
Australian media reports say former Wallabies forward Scott Fava has reached an out-of-court settlement after taking legal action against a New South Wales team physiotherapist over the premature end to his playing career. The 37-year-old Fava retired from rugby with a chronic back problem in 2009 after playing five Tests for Australia. News Limited newspapers cite documents filed in the Australian Supreme Court by Fava as claiming his career was ended due to the actions of Waratahs physiotherapist Michael Moran. Fava said he was permanently injured after Moran carried out what is known as a shift correction, or a list correction, on his back in February 2009, when Moran knew or should have known that Fava had steroid injections to ease pain the day before.
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