BASKETBALL
Cavaliers sack Chris Grant
Not much has gone right for the Cleveland Cavaliers since their favorite son, LeBron James, left in 2010 to join the Miami Heat and on Thursday general manager Chris Grant was fired following the team’s poor start to the season. The Cavaliers have stumbled to a 16-33 record, after six straight losses and there have been rumblings of dissent among the players. Cleveland’s most recent defeat was their most embarrassing, going down 119-108 on Wednesday at home to the injury-hit Los Angeles Lakers, who had arrived in Cleveland on a seven-game losing streak and had only enough players to finish the game when Robert Sacre was permitted to play under a little-used NBA rule after fouling out. David Griffin, Cleveland’s vice president of basketball operations, has been appointed acting general manager.
ICE HOCKEY
Sedin to miss Olympics
NHL star Henrik Sedin pulled out of the Sochi Olympics on Thursday, saying he is physically unable to play for Sweden. “I’m disappointed not to be physically able to represent my country at the Winter Olympic Games,” Sedin said in a statement. “This is a difficult decision, but ultimately the best decision for me personally, Team Sweden and the Vancouver Canucks. I wish my teammates the best and look forward to returning to play.” Earlier, Canucks coach John Tortorella said he was shutting down Sedin for Vancouver’s final two games before the Olympic break. Sedin has played two games after missing six because of bruised ribs. He has nine goals and 40 points in 52 NHL games this season.
ICE HOCKEY
Canada call up St Louis
Canada have picked a healthy Tampa Bay Lightning forward to replace an injured one. Hockey Canada announced on Thursday that Martin St Louis is on the roster for the Sochi Games to replace Steven Stamkos. Doctors ruled out Stamkos on Wednesday because he has not recovered sufficiently from a broken right leg suffered in a Nov. 11 NHL game. Stamkos has been practicing and hoped to play for the Lightning today against Detroit in their final game before the Olympic break. He had 14 goals and nine assists in 17 games this season.
RUGBY UNION
Scotland drop their skipper
Scotland have dropped captain Kelly Brown for today’s Six Nations match against England, replacing the Saracens flanker with debutant Chris Fusaro. Brown had a disappointing performance in Scotland’s hefty 28-6 loss in Ireland in their tournament opener last weekend. Vice captain Greig Laidlaw is to lead Scotland out at Murrayfield, while Fusaro wins his first cap. Brown’s omission is one of three changes to the starting lineup. Edinburgh center Matt Scott replaces Duncan Taylor and Glasgow winger Tommy Seymour comes in for Sean Maitland.
SOCCER
Donachie quits Magpies
Newcastle United reserve team manager Willie Donachie resigned on Thursday after the Premier League club launched an investigation into an allegation that he hit one of his players. The accusation surrounds an incident involving former Scotland international Donachie and 19-year-old defender Remie Streete after Monday’s 2-0 under-21s defeat at Sunderland. Just hours after news of the alleged incident, Newcastle confirmed the 62-year-old had stepped down.
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