CYCLING
Porte retains lead
France’s Sylvain Chavanel, of the Omega Pharma team, won the sixth and penultimate stage of the Paris-Nice race on Saturday, while Australia’s Richie Porte, of Team Sky, held on to the overall lead. Chavanel pipped Belgium’s Philippe Gilbert and Jose Joaquin Rojas of Spain in a sprint finish on Nice’s famous Promenade des Anglais. Porte retains a 32 second lead from the US’ Andrew Talansky in the overall standings, with Chavanel third at 42 seconds, level with Lieuwe Westra of the Netherlands.
CYCLING
Froome wins uphill stage
Tour de France runner-up Chris Froome made an early season statement with a victory in the difficult uphill finish of stage four of the weeklong Tirreno-Adriatico race on Saturday. After his Sky teammates led him up most of the climb, Froome attacked in the final kilometer and finished six seconds ahead of Mauro Santambrogio of Italy, with defending champion Vincenzo Nibali of Italy crossing third, 11 seconds back. Polish rider Mikhal Kwiatkowski finished fourth, 13 seconds back, and took the overall lead from Omega Pharma-Quick Step teammate Mark Cavendish, a sprinter who finished far back. In the overall, Kwiatkowski has a four-second lead on Froome, with Nibali third, 16 seconds behind. Alberto Contador, who finished sixth in the stage, is fourth overall, 30 seconds back.
SOCCER
PSG stretch Ligue 1 lead
Zlatan Ibrahimovic returned to action with a flourish by scoring his sixth league double this season to give below-par Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) a 2-1 home win over AS Nancy-Lorraine and a five-point lead atop Ligue 1 on Saturday. LOSC Lille Metropole also recovered from a goal down to record a fifth consecutive league win, 3-1 at neighbors Valenciennes, and climbed to fifth on 46 points. Elsewhere, 17-year-old Adrien Rabiot, on loan at Toulouse from PSG, producing an outstanding strike from outside the box to earn the mid-table side a 1-0 win at lowly Stade Brestois 29. ES Troyes AC moved off the bottom of the table as they leapfrogged Nancy, jumping two points above them to 23 by beating fellow strugglers Stade de Reims 4-2, helped by the first two league goals scored by Corentin Jean, who is 17. AC Ajaccio beat Lorient 1-0, while Evian Thonon Gaillard beat Sochaux-Montbeliard 5-1.
SOCCER
Roma salvage a draw
AS Roma’s three-match Serie A-winning streak ended with a 1-1 draw at 10-man Udinese on Saturday. Erik Lamela put Roma ahead 20 minutes in at Stadio Friuli. Luis Muriel equalized for Udinese in the 62nd minute. Udinese finished a man down after defender Thomas Heurtaux was shown a questionable direct red for tripping Florenzi in the 73rd. Roma moved within a point of sixth-place ACF Fiorentina. Udinese are three points behind Roma in ninth.
SOCCER
Bayern go 20 points clear
Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich powered 20 points clear after a late goal earned a 3-2 victory over Fortuna Duesseldorf on Saturday, while Schalke 04 completed the double over Borussia Dortmund by winning the Ruhr derby 2-1. VfL Wolfsburg came from behind to win 5-2 at SC Freiburg. FSV Mainz 05 beat third-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen 1-0, while Borussia Moenchengladbach drew 1-1 at home to Werder Bremen and TSG 1899 Hoffenheim beat SpVgg Greuther Furth 3-0.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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