GOLF
Rain postpones start
Steady rain punctuated by heavy downpours at Locust Hill in Rochester, New York, forced the postponement of the first round of the LPGA Championship on Thursday. The LPGA’s second major of the year was to begin yesterday morning, the second round would be staged today and the players would attempt to complete 36 holes tomorrow, the LPGA said. Two weeks ago, at the Bahamas LPGA Classic, the course was closed for two days because of severe flooding and when the tournament finally got under way it was shortened to 12 holes.
BASEBALL
Astros select Mark Appel
The Houston Astros have selected Stanford University pitcher Mark Appel with the No. 1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Appel was considered a possible top pick last year, but Houston passed on the hometown prospect and instead chose 17-year-old shortstop Carlos Correa from Puerto Rico. Appel was chosen by Pittsburgh at No. 8, but turned down a US$3.8 million offer and returned to Stanford for his senior season. The move paid off for Appel, a hard-throwing right-hander. He went 10-4 with a 2.12 ERA and 130 strikeouts in 106-1/3 innings this season for the Cardinals. The draft, which is held over three days and 40 rounds, started on Thursday night with the first two rounds at MLB Network Studios in New Jersey.
RUGBY UNION
Healy cleared of biting
Irish loosehead prop Cian Healy was cleared of misconduct at a disciplinary hearing yesterday after being accused of biting an opponent during the British and Irish Lions’ match against the Western Force in Australia. Healy, who suffered suspected ankle ligament damage during the game and was taken off the field by stretcher, was cited after Force scrumhalf Brett Sheehan complained to the referee that he had been bitten in the first half of the Lions’ 69-17 victory in Perth on Wednesday. Judicial officer Nigel Hampton found insufficient evidence to support the allegations, the Australian Rugby Union said in a statement yesterday. “There is no conclusive video evidence of the incident and post-match it was not possible to distinguish any discernible bite marks outside of the ‘regular’ marks usually found following a rugby match,” Hampton said in his findings. The Lions face the Wallabies in the first Test on June 22.
RUGBY UNION
Cooper gets last chance
Mercurial flyhalf Quade Cooper is to captain the Queensland Reds when they take on the British and Irish Lions in Brisbane today in his last chance to persuade Australia coach Robbie Deans to give him a spot in the Wallabies squad. Cooper was controversially omitted from the Wallabies’ preliminary squad to take on the touring Lions in the three-Test series, with Deans concerned about a perceived defensive frailty, but he could win one of the final six additional berths to be named on Tuesday. The New Zealand-born playmaker is to lead a team shorn of seven other capped Wallabies at Lang Park in an honor that Reds coach Ewen McKenzie said was well deserved. “Quade is a proven winner and real facilitator of success here at the Reds, and the reality is that we win more games with him in the side,” McKenzie said in a statement. “But, what most people don’t know or see is the responsibility and ownership he takes on with regards to our game plan.”
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