CYCLING
Aussie Porte wins stage
Richie Porte of Australia won the fifth and penultimate stage of the Tour of the Basque Country on Friday, moving into second place behind Sky teammate Sergio Henao. Porte finished the 166km mountain leg featuring 10 summits between Eibar and Beasain in 4 hours, 40 minutes, 43 seconds. Last year’s winner, Samuel Sanchez, came in second at the head of a group, four seconds off the pace. Porte and Nairo Quintana are both six seconds behind Henao in the overall standings, with Alberto Contador another four seconds behind the Colombian leader.
CRICKET
Sehwag gets the chop
India’s selectors yesterday left out dashing batsman Virender Sehwag from a 30-man preliminary squad for the Champions Trophy in England in June. Seasoned off-spinner Harbhajan Singh and veteran seamer Zaheer Khan were also missing from the list, which has to be shortened to 15 players a month before the one-day tournament opens on June 5. Sehwag’s 219 against the West Indies in 2011 is the highest individual score in one-day internationals. However, he was dropped due to recent poor form. Off-spinner Parvez Rasool was included in the squad, making him the first cricketer from Jammu and Kashmir to join the senior ranks.
SOCCER
Kewell joins Qatari club
Former Leeds and Liverpool winger Harry Kewell has signed a short-term deal with Qatar’s Al-Gharafa, ending a year-long spell without a club. Kewell left Melbourne Victory at the end of last year’s A-League season for family reasons. Al-Gharafa, which announced the deal on its Web site, said Kewell had been recruited only until the end of the current Qatar Stars League season which ends next month. Kewell had hoped to find a club in England over the past year to stay close to his family home in Cheshire.
RUGBY UNION
Biarritz squad quarantined
Biarritz have put their entire first team squad in quarantine after an outbreak of the mumps, the French Rugby League (LNR) said on Friday. Flyhalf Julien Peyrelongue has caught the mumps while backrow Benoit Guyot is suspected of also being infected. The squad has been placed in quarantine until Thursday while their Top 14 clash with Perpignan has been pushed back from April 13 to April 14. “Following Biarritz’s statement that they have two cases of the mumps, the league’s medical commission has, as a precautionary measure, banned the club’s players and coaches from meeting up from April 5 to April 11, inclusive,” the LNR said in a statement. Mumps, a common viral disease in childhood, causes swelling of the glands and can be rather more serious when contracted in adulthood, with occasional complications.
SOCCER
Hoffenheim beat Fortuna
With a new coach in charge, TSG 1899 Hoffenheim seized a lifeline in their fight for Bundesliga survival with a 3-0 win over fellow-relegation candidates Fortuna Duesseldorf on Friday. The home side got off to a great start in Markus Gisdol’s first game when Roberto Firmino crashed his shot in off the underside of the crossbar in the 11th minute. The visitors were dealt a blow when Duesseldorf’s Andreas Lambertz headed Sejad Salihovic’s corner into his own net with 15 minutes remaining. Kevin Volland rounded off the scoring on a counterattack in injury time.
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