GOLF
Fleetwood takes joint lead
Young Briton Tommy Fleetwood overcame the occasional attack of the jitters to join Argentine Ricardo Gonzalez at the top of the leaderboard after the Johnnie Walker Championship third round in Scotland on Saturday. Fleetwood, 22, chasing his first European Tour win, carded a five-under 67 to join Gonzalez (70) on 16-under-par 200 at Gleneagles, the venue for next year’s Ryder Cup. Swede Fredrik Andersson Hed (66) was in third spot on 201, two strokes ahead of Briton Stephen Gallacher (64) and Austrian Bernd Wiesberger (72). “This is what you spend hours and hours practicing for,” Fleetwood told reporters. “Getting up there in golf tournaments ... is what you dream about when you’re a little kid.”
SOCCER
Millwall made to don rival kit
Second-tier English club Millwall looked far from their usual selves on Saturday after they forgot to bring the team kit for an away game and had to borrow their opponents’. Millwall, who normally play in white on the road, were forced to line up in Sheffield Wednesday’s yellow away kit from last year when the Lions somehow left their own at home in south London. Millwall managed to get their orange third kit to Hillsborough in time for the second half and changed at halftime. The visitors earned a 2-2 draw after Andy Keogh equalized with a late penalty. Millwall manager Steve Lomas said the kit mishap was “just an honest mistake, I think. These things happen. It just added to the madness of the game.” It was Millwall’s first point in four games.
CYCLING
‘Times,’ Armstrong settle
Britain’s Sunday Times yesterday said it had settled with disgraced cyclist Lance Armstrong after it was forced to pay damages over a report which suggested he had used banned substances. The paper sued Armstrong for £1 million (US$1.55 million) in October last year when the US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced it had “overwhelming” evidence of his drug use. He later confessed to Oprah Winfrey that he had taken performance-enhancing substances. The seven-time Tour de France winner was awarded £300,000 in 2006 after he sued the paper and journalists Alan English and David Walsh, the latter of whom almost single-handedly uncovered Armstrong’s cheating. Following the USADA announcement, the paper demanded the return of the money plus £720,000 costs. The paper yesterday said that it, Walsh and English had “reached a mutually acceptable final resolution to all claims against Lance Armstrong related to the 2012 High Court proceedings and are entirely happy with the agreed settlement, the terms of which remain confidential.”
SOCCER
Wasp stings Klopp at game
Borussia Dortmund coach Jurgen Klopp admitted he got more than he bargained for when he gave some last-minute instructions to midfielder Sven Bender and was promptly stung by a wasp. Although the insect’s yellow and black coloring is the same as that of Dortmund’s kit, it was clearly not a fan as its sting left Klopp in some discomfort just before the final whistle in Friday’s 1-0 Bundesliga home win over Werder Bremen. Dortmund team doctor Markus Braun was called to disinfect Klopp’s arm when it began to swell. “I got stung by a wasp, I don’t know if I have an allergy, it didn’t hurt, it just got quite fat fast,” Klopp said. Ironically, Dortmund’s mascot is Emma the Bee, who was also on the sidelines.
BASKETBALL
Lin lauds Dwight Howard
The Houston Rockets’ Jeremy Lin says he is looking forward to matching his game with that of newly acquired star Dwight Howard. Lin told reporters on a visit to Beijing that he saw a natural affinity in the pair’s affection for the pick-and-roll game. The point guard also said it was too early to talk about his future in Houston after his first season in which he started all 82 regular-season games and averaged more than 13 points and six assists. Lin is in China to oversee a basketball camp.
BOXING
Tyson ‘on the verge of dying’
Mike Tyson has claimed he is on the verge of dying from drug and alcohol problems. “I wanna live my sober life. I don’t wanna die. I’m on the verge of dying, because I’m a vicious alcoholic.” Tyson said on ESPN’s Friday Night Fights. Tyson told a news conference, “I’m a bad guy sometimes. I did a lot of bad things, and I want to be forgiven. So in order for me to be forgiven, I hope they can forgive me. I wanna change my life, I wanna live a different life now,” he said. Tyson admitted to being a substance abuser, but was hopeful he was becoming clean. “I haven’t drank or took drugs in six days, and for me that’s a miracle,” he said. “I’ve been lying to everybody else that think I was sober, but I’m not. This is my sixth day. I’m never gonna use again.”
RUGBY UNION
Canada reach World Cup
Canada booked their 2015 Rugby World Cup berth on Saturday with a 13-11 victory over the US. The Canadians won the first leg in the two-game aggregate series 27-9 last weekend at Charleston, South Carolina, and came into their home contest in Toronto poised for a victory. Canada advance with a 40-20 aggregate in the series. “It was ugly, but it was a win,” said Canadian head coach Kieren Crowley. “We gutsed it out, and it was a Test win, so you know, we’re in the World Cup now.” They join Ireland, France, Italy and another European qualifier in Pool D of the 2015 global championship in England. The US must face Uruguay in a home-and-away series for a berth in Pool B with South Africa, Samoa, Scotland and an Asian qualifier. Jason Marshall and James Pritchard each scored tries, and Pritchard’s boot was good for a penalty to seal the victory. Canadian captain Aaron Carpenter said the victory showed Canada that they can still win even if they are not at their best. “It’s always a big battle against them, we know what they’re going to bring and they certainly brought it today,” Carpenter said. “We got done what we needed to accomplish, but if you can win on a bad day it’s good to see.”
SOCCER
CSKA win, go top in Russia
Reigning champions CSKA Moscow battled back from a goal down to win 2-1 at struggling Tom Tomsk on Saturday and go clear at the top of the Russian Premier League. CSKA sit one point clear of second-placed Rostov, who face Lokomotiv Moscow today. Spartak Moscow, who take on Amkar Perm also on today, share third place with Zenit St Petersburg, who drew 1-1 with Dynamo Moscow. CSKA fell behind when Tomsk striker Igor Portnyagin converted a rebound from close range just before the half-hour mark after the visitor’s goalkeeper Igor Akinfeyev had stopped Kirill Panchenko’s initial effort. CSKA drew level in the 52nd minute when Seydou Doumbia headed home a cross from the left from Georgy Shchennikov. Ahmed Musa scored the winner seven minutes later putting the ball into an empty net after Tomsk goalkeeper Petr Vasek had parried Zoran Tosic’s shot from just inside the area.
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