KAYAKING
Olympic medalist drug bust
Australian dual Olympic silver-medal-winning kayaker Nathan Baggaley has been arrested following a drug bust, media reported yesterday. Australian Federal Police, investigating amphetamine trafficking, arrested the 37-year-old Baggaley and another person on Friday in northern New South Wales. Baggaley, who won two silver medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, faces seven charges, including manufacturing and producing a prohibited drug, the Australian Associated Press news agency reported. He has been remanded in custody and is expected to appear in a Lismore court today.
SOCCER
AC Ajaccio sack Ravanelli
Fabrizio Ravanelli’s first taste of management ended on Saturday when Ligue 1 strugglers AC Ajaccio fired the Italian after a 3-1 home defeat by Valenciennes. The former Juventus and Italy striker took charge of the French side in the close season. Ajaccio’s fifth consecutive defeat in all competitions left the Corsica team second-bottom on seven points from 12 games. Ravanelli said his dismissal “hurt.” “We had a lot of problems, I never had the whole squad available,” he told broadcaster Canal Plus. Meanwhile, Olympique de Marseille’s losing five-match run came to an end at Stade Rennais in a 1-1 draw. Striker Nelson Oliveira put the hosts in front on nine minutes, only for his effort to be canceled out by Jordan Ayew six minutes later. Olympique Lyon ended their five-match winless run with a 2-0 home victory over En Avant de Guingamp, Stade de Reims ran out 4-2 winners over SC Bastia, Evian Thonon Gaillard saw off Toulouse 2-1 and Sochaux and Saint-Etienne drew 0-0.
BOXING
Golovkin defends title
Undefeated World Boxing Association middleweight champion Gennady Golovkin defended his title on Saturday by stopping US challenger Curtis Stevens in a fight halted after eight rounds. Referee Harvey Dock stopped the bout after Kazakhstan’s Golovkin unleashed a furious flurry on the challenger that left Stevens dazed and bloody as he went to his corner after the bell. Golovkin improved to 28-0 with his 25th early-stoppage triumph. It was the 15th fight in a row since 2008 in which Golovkin, 31, has won without needing to go the distance. Stevens, who was knocked down by Golovkin with a hard right hook in the second round, fell to 28-4. It was the eighth successful title defense for Golovkin.
SOCCER
Amkar halt Zenit win streak
Russian Premier League leaders Zenit St Petersburg’s attempt to chalk up a ninth consecutive win was thwarted on Saturday when they were held to a 1-1 draw by Amkar Perm. However, Zenit remain top with 36 points from 15 matches, six points ahead of Spartak and Lokomotiv who were due to face each other yesterday. Thomas Phibel put Amkar ahead in the 27th minute before Zenit leveled 12 minutes later when midfielder Miguel Danny fired the ball in from close range from Igor Smolnikov’s cross. Reigning champions CSKA Moscow battled back from a goal down to beat Volga 2-1 in Nizhny Novgorod. Luton Shelton gave the hosts the lead in the 29th minute, but Seydou Doumbia leveled just five minutes later. Zoran Tosic grabbed the winner after Volga goalkeeper Sergei Pareiko parried Keisuke Honda’s initial shot with 18 minutes to go. Dynamo Moscow clinched a 1-0 win over Tomsk courtesy of an own-goal by defender Maxim Bordachev.
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