BASKETBALL
France claim Euro title
France won their first major basketball title by beating Lithuania 80-66 in the European Championship final on Sunday, despite Tony Parker having an uncharacteristically quiet game. Lithuania shut down Parker, but could not handle his teammates, who provided the big shots when France needed them. France broke open a close game by finishing the third quarter with a 14-0 run that kept Lithuania scoreless for four minutes. France’s lead grew to 22 points with three minutes remaining in the third and Lithuania never came close to a comeback. Nicolas Batum had 17 points and Boris Diaw added 15, while Linas Kleiza led Lithuania with 20. Parker finished with 12 points, but his scoring and leadership during the run to the final earned him the tournament’s MVP award. Earlier on Sunday, Spain beat Croatia 92-66 to get the bronze medal.
BASEBALL
Bees kill buzz at AL game
A swarm of bees interrupted Sunday’s American League game between the Los Angeles Angels and the Seattle Mariners before being blasted by a fire extinguisher and dispersed. The game, which the Mariners won 3-2, was halted twice because of the bees, including a 23-minute delay in the third inning. The bees mostly hovered in the outfield, but also affected the pitchers. Action was again stopped briefly in the fourth when outfielders had to swat them away. “I’ve never seen bees like that,” Mariners manager Eric Wedge said.
SOCCER
Riot ends Istanbul derby
The high-profile Istanbul derby between bitter rivals Galatasaray and Besiktas was abandoned on Sunday when fans invaded the pitch, throwing seats at tear gas-firing police. There were just two minutes left when supporters of Besiktas, who were losing 2-1 at the time, clashed with police, NTV television reported. Fighting began after Galatasaray midfielder Felipe Melo was red-carded in the second minute of injury-time. Fans chanted: “Everywhere is Taksim, everywhere is resistance,” referring to a well-known slogan of the protests over Taksim Gezi Park that rocked Turkey in June.
SAILING
Oracle make Cup comeback
A formidable Oracle Team USA are making an America’s Cup comeback against Emirates Team New Zealand that last week looked all but impossible. The team won Sunday’s two scheduled races on San Francisco Bay, refusing to give up the one final victory the Kiwis need to take the Cup. Oracle now need to win another four races against New Zealand, which have lost four in a row since their last victory on Wednesday last week. “We are going to get more out of the old girl,” Oracle skipper Jimmy Spithill said. “We worked very, very hard last night and found some extra wheels.” New Zealand’s advantage over Oracle has fallen to 8-5 in the best-of-17 series. Last week, Oracle had just one point. Racing will continue until there is a winner.
GOLF
Quesne wins Italian Open
France’s Julien Quesne clinched his second European Tour title on Sunday when he won the Italian Open by one shot despite starting the final round four shots off the pace. The 33-year-old went through the back nine in 31, picking up birdies at the 10th, 11th and 15th holes. He then chipped in from short of the 17th green and putted from six feet for another birdie on the last to complete a closing 67. That gave him a 12-under-par total and a one-shot win over Ireland’s David Higgins and England’s
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