BASKETBALL
Kevin Ware breaks leg
Louisville guard Kevin Ware broke his leg in a horrific injury that left college basketball in a state of shock during the March Madness regional finals on Sunday. Ware landed awkwardly while trying to block a shot in the first half and his right leg bent at a gruesome angle, leaving the crowd at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis in a stunned silence. “When he landed, I heard it,” Louisville guard Russ Smith told reporters. “And then I [saw the bone] come out and I immediately just, just like, fell.” Ware was carted off the court on a stretcher, leaving Louisville players and coach Rick Pitino in tears. Louisville were able to recover for an 85-63 victory over Duke that advanced them to the Final Four, but their thoughts remained with their teammate. Ware was taken to a hospital and underwent surgery, but there was no timetable placed on his recovery. “I don’t think any of us, with what we had to witness, could [have] overcome it if it wasn’t for Kevin Ware 12 times saying to the guys: ‘I’ll be fine. Win the game,’” Pitino said.
ICE HOCKEY
Crosby healing after puck hit
Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby will be sidelined indefinitely after surgery to repair a broken jaw and damaged teeth, the NHL team said on Sunday. Crosby left Saturday’s 2-0 victory over the New York Islanders after taking a puck to the face and was immediately hospitalized for treatment. Penguins general manager Ray Shero visited Crosby on Sunday. The Canadian star’s jaw did not have to be wired shut, but he lost several teeth. The Penguins said he has not shown signs of concussion. “I was surprised. He looked really good for what I was expecting,” Shero said. “The whole injury could have been a lot worse.” Crosby leads the NHL in scoring with 15 goals and 41 assists in 36 games this season, helping the Penguins build a 15-game winning streak that has matched the Islanders’ run from 1982 as the second-longest in league history.
ATHLETICS
Bolt wins Brazil beach race
Jamaica’s champion sprinter Usain Bolt cruised to victory in a 150m race on Rio de Janeiro’s Copacabana Beach on Sunday, timing 14.42 seconds. The 26-year-old Bolt fell short of improving on his own world record for the 150m — 14.35 seconds set in Manchester, England, in 2009. Antiguan sprinter Daniel Bailey came in second on Sunday at 14.88 seconds, followed by Brazilian Bruno Lins at 14.91 and Ecuadoran Alex Quinonez at 15.90. Bolt said he was happy with the result, calling it a “good start” and saying he looked forward to returning to Brazil for the 2016 Summer Olympics. After crossing the finish line, Bolt took off his shoes and hurled one of them into the stands. He regretted the move when he felt how hot the track was and asked for a replacement.
ROWING
Oxford get sweet revenge
Oxford buried memories of a painful defeat a year ago as they surged past Cambridge to win the 159th University Boat Race by almost two lengths on London’s chilly River Thames on Sunday. Last year, Oxford felt they had were robbed of the win after Cambridge won a bizarre and chaotic race which featured an intruder in the river, a restart, a broken oar and an ailing oarsman. Sunday’s edition was more straightforward, as Oxford took advantage of their heavier crew to win the 6.8km race. British Royal Marines were stationed on the course to prevent a repeat of last year. Oxford completed their victory in 17 minutes, 27 seconds, their ninth win since 2000, to cut Cambridge’s overall lead to 81-77.
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