BOXING
Singh refuses drug test
Indian Olympic bronze-medalist boxer Vijender Singh has been questioned over his alleged links to a US$24 million heroin haul and has refused to give blood or hair samples, police said yesterday. Singh, who won a bronze at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, was interviewed near Chandigarh, India, on Monday evening after an alleged drug dealer arrested with the heroin named him and fellow boxer Ram Singh as “clients.” Vijender Singh, 27, who became a household name in India after winning the Olympic medal, has strongly denied any link to the drug dealer and slammed as “ridiculous” the allegations against him. Police seized 26kg of heroin worth 1.3 billion rupees (US$24 million) last week in the northern state of Punjab. The alleged dealer was arrested along with five others. Vijender Singh, himself a police officer in the neighboring state of Haryana, was questioned for close to four hours on Monday evening, according to a police statement reported by the Press Trust of India. Ram Singh, who confessed to reporters that both he and Vijender Singh had “experimented with drugs thinking they were food supplements,” has already been thrown out of a training camp for boxers in Patiala.
OLYMPICS
Phelps rules out Rio return
US swimming legend Michael Phelps said on Monday there was no chance of him coming out of retirement to compete in the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics. “I’m done, I’m done,” Phelps said after meeting children from Rio’s Rocinha favela on the sidelines of the Laureus Sports Awards. Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 medals, retired from swimming after bagging four golds and two silvers at last year’s London Olympics. However, the 27-year-old “Baltimore Bullet” ruled out any chance of a comeback in Rio. “It was a great race ... I look back at all I’ve got and I can truly say I’ve done everything I’ve wanted,” said Phelps, who accumulated an astonishing 18 Olympic golds in his career.
BOXING
Ricky Burns faces lawsuit
WBO lightweight champion Ricky Burns is facing a possible civil lawsuit after switching promoters to force the cancellation of the unification bout against IBF holder Miguel Vazquez next month. Burns was presented on Monday as the newest fighter for promoter Matchroom, causing promoter Frank Warren to claim a breach of contract and announce his intention to sue the 29-year-old Scot for “substantial damages.” “Burns is under binding promotional and management contracts,” Warren said. Burns (35-2, 10 knockouts) has not fought since retaining his belt against Kevin Mitchell in September last year, but had been due to fight Vazquez at Wembley Arena on April 20 in a postponed contest. “I just felt over the last year or so things hadn’t been working out” as “there were a few issues that needed working out,” Burns said.
CYCLING
Jalabert seriously injured
Former cyclist Laurent Jalabert, 44, was seriously injured in a road accident on Monday morning, French police said. Jalabert, who won the Tour of Spain in 1995 and was world time trial champion in 1997, was on his bike when he was hit by a car traveling in the opposite direction near Montauban, France. “He is not in danger,” a spokesman said. The vehicle suddenly turned left, cutting across Jalabert, who had the right of way, the police said. He suffered several fractures and was briefly unconscious when the emergency services to take him to hospital for surgery.
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