CYCLING
Quintana wins Basque Tour
Colombian Nairo Quintana has won the Tour of the Basque Country after finishing second to Tony Martin in the 24km time trial that rounded off the six-stage event on Saturday. Quintana (Movistar) started the day six seconds behind compatriot Sergio Henao (Sky), who eventually finished 40 seconds behind Quintana, just holding on to take third place ahead of Simon Spilak (Katusha) by one second. Henao’s Australian teammate Richie Porte finished fourth on the day to ensure he took second overall. Martin of the Omega Pharma-Quick-Step team won the stage convincingly in a time of 35 minutes, five seconds.
BASKETBALL
Wolverines make final
Mitch McGary finished with 10 points, 12 rebounds and six assists as the Michigan Wolverines advanced to the championship game of the Final Four tournament with a 61-56 win over Syracuse on Saturday. Michigan (31-7) will be seeking their first US college basketball championship since 1989 when they take on Louisville tonight. Michigan started slowly on Saturday, but once they solved Syracuse’s puzzling 2-3 zone defense they were able to open up a lead in the second half. Tim Hardaway had a team-high 13 points while Caris LeVert and Spike Albrecht came off the bench to score eight and six points respectively for Michigan.
GOLF
Jarrod Lyle plays again
Australian professional Jarrod Lyle has played 18 holes for the first time in 14 months as he continues to recover from a second battle with leukemia. The 31-year-old Lyle tweeted late on Saturday that he was “absolutely knackered now after 75 hits at The Sands Torquay ... hit a couple goodies.” The Sands is a private ocean-side course a few hours’ drive from his hometown of Shepparton, Victoria. Lyle, who was first diagnosed with leukemia at age 17, learned it had returned in March last year, shortly after the birth of his first child. He underwent chemotherapy and received a transplant of donor blood from umbilical cords. He has said he hopes to return to the PGA Tour next year.
CRICKET
Sri Lanka bring in new faces
Sri Lanka have named five uncapped players in their provisional 30-man squad for the ICC Champions trophy in England and Wales in June. The squad includes batsmen Kithuruwan Vithanage, Angelo Perera and Shehan Jayasuriya, fast bowler Ishara Jayaratne and spinner Milinda Siriwardana. Veteran batsman Mahela Jayawardene, who missed the home series against Bangladesh due to a finger injury, was also selected.
RUGBY UNION
Cheetahs down Stormers
A penalty from the touchline three minutes after the hooter from flyhalf Burton Francis sealed the Cheetahs a dramatic 26-24 victory over South African rivals the Stormers in a Super Rugby clash at Free State Stadium on Saturday. The victory is a franchise record fifth in a row for the Cheetahs in Super Rugby, and a first against the Stormers since 2007, with the success credited to the steady boot of Francis. The 26-year-old, who has been a journeyman in the competition having also turned out for the Stormers, Bulls and Lions, kept his nerve in the 84th minute to land a three-pointer from the touchline. “It could have gone either way, but we kept calm and in the second half were better in the set-pieces that gave us some ball to play with,” Cheetahs skipper Andries Strauss told a local TV station.
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