BASKETBALL
Cavaliers snap up Luol Deng
The Cleveland Cavaliers have acquired All Star forward Luol Deng in a trade with the Chicago Bulls, the team announced on Monday. Cleveland will receive Deng in exchange for center Andrew Bynum and three future draft picks sent to the Bulls. Chicago will also have the right to swap 2015 first-round picks with the Cavaliers. “We are very excited for Luol to join the Cavaliers organization,” Cavaliers general manager Chris Grant said in a statement. “He’s a tremendous defensive player that can impact the game on both ends of the court with a team first mentality and is a high character leader.” The Bulls are expected to release Bynum in a move that will give them financial flexibility and help them build for the future once franchise player Derrick Rose returns from his lengthy injury absence. Cleveland will add the 28-year-old Deng to a young roster that is currently outside of the Eastern Conference playoff race. The Briton, who has missed time recently with a sore Achilles, has averaged 19 points and 6.9 rebounds for the Bulls this season.
ALPINE SKIING
Neureuther wins slalom
Germany’s Felix Neureuther used a blistering second run to edge first-leg leader Marcel Hirscher and win a World Cup night slalom on Monday. Trailing by just 0.01 after the opening run, Neureuther attacked from start to finish in his second trip down the Stelvio course for a two-leg combined time of 1 minute, 59.75 seconds. Hirscher, the two-time defending overall World Cup winner from Austria, finished second, 0.36 seconds behind, and Manfred Moelgg of Italy moved up from sixth after the opening run to place third, 0.65 back. Naoki Yuasa of Japan had the fastest second run and jumped from 21st to fourth.
FOOTBALL
Compensation plans unveiled
Lawyers representing former NFL players in the proposed US$765 million settlement of concussion-related claims have detailed how the money would be distributed. The awards could reach US$5 million for athletes with Lou Gehrig’s disease, US$4 million for suicides, and US$3 million for dementia cases. Senior US District Judge Anita Brody of Philadelphia must still approve the plan. Under the formula, men under 45 would get the most money because of their lifetime needs. The money decreases with age and the severity of the cognitive problem. A 60-year-old with Alzheimer’s disease would get US$950,000; an 80-year-old with early dementia US$25,000. The former players include Kevin Turner of the Philadelphia Eagles, who is battling Lou Gehrig’s disease.
ICE HOCKEY
Jagr to lead at Sochi
New Jersey Devils veteran star Jaromir Jagr will lead the Czech Republic ice-hockey team at the Sochi Winter Olympics, head coach Alois Hadamczik told reporters on Monday. Nominated for his fifth Olympics, the 41-year-old Jagr is the only player on the 25-man roster who won the surprise Olympic gold at Nagano 1998. “I am convinced we have tried to pick the best team which will stick together and be determined to achieve the best result possible,” Hadamczik said. “Our goal at Sochi is a medal. Looking at the tradition, ambitions and reputation of our hockey, it can’t be otherwise,” Czech Ice Hockey Association head Tomas Kral added. The Czechs begin the Olympic tournament against Sweden on Feb. 12.
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