BOXING
Moreno beats Urina
Anselmo Moreno scored a unanimous decision over William Urina on Saturday in Panama City to defend his WBA bantamweight title for the 11th time. The three judges scored the match 116-112, 118-110 and 118-110 for the Panamanian fighter. “This is the result of hard work in the gym and the hard work of my trainers,” Moreno said. “Urina is a heavy-hitting opponent, but tonight in the ring my physical condition was better.” Moreno received a cut on the right cheek that caused him to bleed after the seventh round, but the 28-year-old landed better shots and avoided most of Urina’s punches. “It’s hard to fight Moreno, even more so at home,” Urina said. Moreno improved 34-2-1. Urina fell to 24-3. Urina launched one of his few successful attacks in the ninth round, connecting with a left hook to the face, but the 27-year-old Colombian could not follow up with significant additional punches.
ATHLETICS
Discus thrower injured
Discus thrower Natalia Semenova of Ukraine was injured in qualifying on Saturday at the world championships in Moscow in a freak accident. Semenova was sitting on the bench in the infield when Zaneta Glanc of Poland spread her arms and imitated a throwing motion while holding the disc in her hand and hit Semenova on the nose. Semenova’s coach said the athlete’s nose may have been broken, but there was no immediate word from the Ukrainian team on the severity of the injury. She made one throw of 55.79m, but failed to reach yesterday’s final.
RUGBY UNION
Chiefs offer Williams deal
The New Zealand Rugby Union says it has made an offer to code-swapping star Sonny Bill Williams to return to the Super 15 champion Waikato Chiefs next year. New Zealand media reports that the union has offered Williams a three-year deal that would see him return to rugby union next season and extend his 19-test All Blacks career. Chief executive Steve Tew confirmed the union had made the offer, saying: “The dialogue has been positive, but we don’t have any ink on paper.” Williams switched from rugby league to rugby union in 2008 and became an All Black in 2010. He returned to rugby league earlier this year, playing for the Sydney Roosters.
RUGBY UNION
Crotty in All Blacks
Canterbury Crusaders center Ryan Crotty was rushed into the All Blacks squad yesterday as injury cover less than a week from their opening Rugby Championship game against Australia in Sydney. The uncapped Crotty will cover for Francis Saili, who suffered an ankle strain during an All Blacks’ practice match in Wellington on Friday and is out of action for at least a week, the New Zealand Rugby Union said in a statement. The 22-year-old Saili was one of three players selected to train with the All Blacks, but were outside the Rugby Championship traveling squad. Crotty will fill the same role in training this week. However, the statement was unclear whether he would also travel to Sydney given other injuries within the squad, particularly to Ma’a Nonu, who is also nursing an ankle problem. Crotty was called into the squad ahead of Rene Ranger, who made himself unavailable for the All Blacks ahead of his departure for France, but said he could play in an emergency.
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