SOCCER
Honda to join AC Milan
Japan midfielder Keisuke Honda is set to join AC Milan early next year, the Italian club’s vice-president Adriano Galliani has said. Galliani broke the news about Honda after the player’s club, CSKA Moscow, were eliminated from the Champions League on Tuesday. “Now we can talk. From the third of January 2014 Keisuke Honda will be a Milan player,” Galliani said on the club’s official Web site. Honda joined CSKA Moscow in 2010, moving to Russia after two years with Dutch side VVV Venlo. The 27-year-old has been capped 52 times for Japan and scored 20 goals, two of which came at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
SOCCER
Ronaldo tops Messi, Ribery
Cristiano Ronaldo has been named World Soccer magazine’s Player of the Year for the second time on Thursday, ahead of Barcelona’s Lionel Messi and Franck Ribery of Bayern Munich. The award, decided by a panel of journalists and pundits from around the world, recognized his stunning form for Real Madrid, as well as his role in leading Portugal to the World Cup finals in Brazil next year. He last won it in 2008. Jupp Heynckes and Bayern Munich, who completed the treble of German League, German Cup and Champions League last season, won the Manager and Team of the Year prizes.
BASKETBALL
Jordan shoes fetch fortune
Shoes worn by National Basketball Association (NBA) great Michael Jordan in the fabled “flu game” of the 1997 NBA finals fetched US$104,765 at auction on Thursday. The black-and-red shoes, signed by Jordan and bearing his Chicago Bulls jersey number 23 on the heels, were part of a sports memorabilia auction conducted by Grey Flannel Auctions. The “flu game,” game five of the 1997 championship series between Chicago and Utah, has become part of Jordan’s legend. He scored 38 points, despite nearly missing the game with a debilitating illness diagnosed as flu that had struck in the early hours of the morning. The Bulls, who had lost two straight games to the Jazz, won 90-88 and went on to win the series four games to two. Preston Truman, who was a teenaged Jazz ball boy when Jordan gave him the shoes on the night of the game, consigned them for sale. The identity of the buyer was not immediately revealed.
RACING
F1 gets new trophy
Formula One is to award a pole position trophy next year to the driver who qualifies fastest the most times during the season, the governing International Automobile Federation (FIA) announced on Thursday. Next year’s sporting regulations, posted on the FIA Web site, said that in the event of a tie the holder of the most second places would win, with a further countback until a winner emerges. “If this procedure fails to produce a result, the FIA will nominate the winner according to such criteria as it thinks fit,” the regulations said. The FIA also wrote a penalty points system into the regulations, which will see drivers handed a race ban if they accumulate 12 points in a year. “Penalty points will remain on a driver’s Super Licence for a period of 12 months, after which they will be respectively removed on the 12-month anniversary of their imposition,” the FIA said. Driver numbers, to be chosen by the competitors and kept for the duration of their Formula One careers, will have to be clearly visible on helmets and the front of cars.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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