ENGLAND
Pompey drop to fourth tier
Portsmouth, the 2008 FA Cup winners who were in the Premier League in 2010, were relegated to League Two, the fourth and lowest division in the English Football League, on Tuesday. Portsmouth, who have been in administration for more than a year, were relegated after Oldham Athletic beat Yeovil Town 1-0 in their League One game and condemned Pompey and Hartlepool to the drop. The two managers — Lee Johnson at Oldham and Gary Johnson at Yeovil — were the first father and son to lead opposing teams in a Football League match since March 1971, but that statistic was overshadowed by the implications of the result for Portsmouth and Hartlepool.
ENGLAND
Aguero apologizes to Luiz
Manchester City’s Argentine striker Sergio Aguero has apologized to Chelsea’s David Luiz for the challenge he made on the Brazilian defender in Sunday’s FA Cup semi-final at Wembley. Chelsea, who lost the match 2-1, were awarded a free-kick after the two-footed tackle nine minutes from time, but Aguero was not shown a card by referee Chris Foy. After the game Luiz said Aguero should apologize, which the Argentine did on Tuesday via the micro-blogging social media Web site Twitter. “I’ve contacted David Luiz and apologized for what happened during the match,” Aguero tweeted. “It was an impulse reaction that shouldn’t have happened.” Luiz tweeted in response: “Thank you ... for a demonstration of character. We get to know great men and athletes this way.” The FA had said on Monday that Aguero would not be charged retrospectively for the tackle because Foy had seen at least part of the incident and acted on it during the game.
UNITED STATES
Anti-gay slur costs Gordon
San Jose Earthquakes forward Alan Gordon was suspended three games and fined an undisclosed amount by Major League Soccer (MLS) on Tuesday for a homophobic comment he directed at an opponent. Television cameras caught Gordon, who has since apologized for his comments, making an anti-gay slur to Portland Timbers midfielder Will Johnson during Sunday’s game. MLS Commissioner Don Garber said Gordon used “unacceptable and offensive language” and that he should attend diversity and sensitivity training. “Major League Soccer stands against discrimination and prejudice of any kind and will not tolerate this type of behavior,” Garber said in a statement. “All of our players, staff and fans must remain committed to respect and dignity at all times.”
SOUTH AFRICA
Lowly Leopards bear claws
A Rodney Ramagalela stoppage-time goal earned Black Leopards a crucial 2-1 home win over Ajax Cape Town on Tuesday in a South African Premiership relegation battle. Ajax failed to clear a corner at the Peter Mokaba stadium in the northern city of Polokwane and Ramagalela poked the ball past former Liverpool goalkeeper Sander Westerveld. The Cape Town club took the lead on 19 minutes with a wonderful goal as Abia Nale squeezed the ball past goalkeeper Postnett Omony from the tightest of angles. However, constant second-half pressure by Leopards paid off on 74 minutes when Michael Nkambule used his weaker left foot to score with his first touch a minute after coming off the bench. Ajax and Leopards have 23 points each with five rounds left in the battle to avoid finishing second last and going into the play-offs with two second-tier sides for a Premiership place next season.
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