BASEBALL
Yankees star Jeter to retire
Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter says he will retire after this season, ending one of the greatest careers in the history of baseball’s most storied franchise. The 39-year-old captain posted a long letter on his Facebook page on Wednesday saying that this will be his final year. A 13-time All-Star who has led the Yankees to five World Series championships, Jeter was limited to 17 games last season while trying to recover from a broken left ankle sustained in the 2012 playoffs. “I know it in my heart. The 2014 season will be my last year playing professional baseball,” he wrote. Jeter was the last link to the powerful Yankees teams that won three straight World Series crowns from 1998 to 2000. Longtime teammates Mariano Rivera and Andy Pettitte retired after last year. “Last year was a tough one for me. As I suffered through a bunch of injuries, I realized that some of the things that always came easily to me and were always fun had started to become a struggle,” Jeter wrote. “The one thing I always said to myself was that when baseball started to feel more like a job, it would be time to move forward. So really it was months ago when I realized that this season would likely be my last. As I came to this conclusion and shared it with my friends and family, they all told me to hold off saying anything until I was absolutely 100 percent sure,” he wrote. “And the thing is, I could not be more sure.”
SOCCER
No Terry return: Hodgson
England manager Roy Hodgson on Wednesday ruled out former captain John Terry coming out of retirement to play for his country at this year’s World Cup. Terry, 33, retired from international soccer in September 2012 after the Football Association charged him with racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand during a Premier League game for Chelsea. He had previously been cleared of racially abusing Ferdinand at a criminal trial and said that the FA’s decision to pursue charges against him made his position “untenable.” He was later banned for four games by the FA over the incident and fined £220,000 (US$365,000). England qualified for the World Cup without Terry, conceding only four goals in the process, but his commanding performances for Chelsea this season have prompted calls in the media for Hodgson to reinstate him. Terry has formed a strong partnership in central defence with current England international Gary Cahill, but Hodgson does not intend to ask him to make the trip to Brazil for the World Cup. “John has retired and as far as I am concerned, that is the situation,” Hodgson told journalists during a briefing at Wembley Stadium. “We have got along without him for the whole of the qualification and quite a few friendly matches as well, so we will have to get along without him in the future.”
RUGBY UNION
Rees cleared after operation
Former Wales captain Matthew Rees has been cleared to resume training after being treated for testicular cancer. The 33-year-old Rees underwent surgery in October last year. His Cardiff Blues club said in a statement on Wednesday that he was cleared by specialists, and does not need more medical treatment. “It is a massive weight off my shoulders, and while there has always been light at the end of the tunnel for me during difficult times, this is the news I always wanted to hear,” Rees said. He hoped to play for Cardiff before the end of the season. The hooker has 58 caps for Wales since 2005.
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