RUGBY UNION
Ulster beat Montpellier
Ulster beat Montpellier 27-16 on Friday, but failed to grab a crucial fourth try which would have guaranteed them a European Cup quarter-final place. The Irish province racked up a fifth win in five Pool 5 matches to give them a seven-point lead over Leicester. However, the English giants could close the gap with a win at group whipping boys Treviso yesterday, before a potential pool decider at Welford Road against Ulster next weekend. In the night’s other match, Scarlets beat Racing Metro 19-13 in Pool 4, but neither side can make the last eight.
FORMULA ONE
Button gets two little ducks
McLaren’s Jenson Button has chosen to roll back the years and race this season with the number 22 that he used in his 2009 title-winning campaign. “Two little ducks,” the 33-year-old Briton told his 1.6 million Twitter followers. “Quack quack.” In British bingo halls numbers are called out using nicknames, with 22 sometimes referred to as “two little ducks” or “quack quack.” McLaren confirmed Button would have that number. Under new regulations for this year, drivers will have permanent numbers to be used throughout their careers and can choose any between two and 99. The number one is reserved for the champion, should he want to use it, who will also have another number of choice allocated for future use. With three slots on the grid still to be filled, the governing FIA has yet to publish an official list. Now-retired 1992 champion Nigel Mansell remains “Red Five” to many, while the late Gilles Villeneuve, one of Ferrari’s greatest heroes, remains closely identified with 27, which was also used at times by the late Brazilian triple-champion Ayrton Senna. Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso said last month he had requested 14, which has been his lucky number since 1996, when at the age of 14 he won a karting title with 14 on his car on July 14. The Spaniard is also a fan of Real Madrid soccer club, whose Spain international Xabi Alonso plays with the number 14 shirt. Alonso’s new Finnish teammate, 2007 world champion Kimi Raikkonen, has opted for seven.
SOCCER
Monaco draw away
Title challengers Monaco missed the chance to close the gap on Ligue 1 leaders Paris Saint-Germain after drawing 1-1 away to draw specialists Montpellier on Friday. Teen striker M’Baye Niang, who is on loan from AC Milan, earned a point for Montpellier with a goal in the 68th minute, shortly after left-back Layvin Kurzawa had given Monaco the lead with his second goal in four games. Monaco are two points behind defending champion Paris Saint-Germain, who have a game in hand and were to play away to Corsican side Ajaccio yesterday, while Montpellier’s 12th draw from 20 games leaves them hovering one place above the relegation zone in 17th. Lille can overtake Monaco and move into outright second place if they beat Reims at home today.
SOCCER
Recio brace boosts Granada
Recio scored two goals to help lift Granada to an easy 4-0 La Liga win over Valladolid on Friday. Recio, whose full name is Jose Luis Garcia, followed up Jeison Murillo’s acrobatic 11th-minute opener by scoring from a corner in the 23rd for the hosts to seize control of the game. Recio took advantage of a defensive mishap in the 54th to make it 3-0, before Youssef El Arabi finished off Granada’s victory with the final goal in the 77th. Granada improved to ninth at the halfway point of the season, while Valladolid remain in the relegation zone.
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