SOCCER
Mario Coluna dies
Mario Coluna, who captained SL Benfica to two European Cup wins and Portugal to third place in the 1966 World Cup, has died aged 78 in the Mozambique capital, Maputo, his former club announced on Tuesday. Coluna, who like his legendary teammate Eusebio was born in Mozambique, then a Portuguese colony, had been hospitalized since Sunday because of a “serious lung infection,” Benfica said. Coluna, who captained a fine Portugal side that included Eusebio and Jose Torres, and eventually went out in the semi-finals to hosts England in 1966, scored a goal in both the European Cup finals Benfica won, in 1961 and 1962. Aside from those wins, in his 16 seasons with Benfica, he also won 10 domestic league crowns and the Portuguese Cup on seven occasions.
BASKETBALL
NBA mulls bigger courts
The NBA is exploring the possibility of expanding the dimensions of the basketball court to accommodate the growing size and increased athleticism of players, ESPN reported on Tuesday. NBA president of basketball operations Rod Thorn and vice president Kiki Vandeweghe also acknowledged in an interview with ESPN.com that the league office had informally weighed the possibility of introducing a four-point shot.
CRICKET
No ball tampering: S Africa
South Africa have dismissed ball-tampering allegations surrounding their second Test victory over Australia after opposing opener David Warner said the Proteas worked on the ball at Port Elizabeth to generate reverse swing. Proteas manager Mohammed Moosagee dismissed Warner’s complaint as “sour grapes” and said few took the outspoken Australian’s words seriously.
SOCCER
Birmingham owner faces jail
Hong Kong businessman and Birmingham City owner Carson Yeung faces up to 14 years in jail if found guilty at the close of his multimillion-dollar money-laundering trial tomorrow. For more than two years the case has been in the courts, with the 53-year-old denying five charges totaling US$93 million and repeatedly trying to have the proceedings halted, claiming irregularities. Yeung was arrested and charged with ill-gotten gains in the Chinese territory in June 2011, throwing the legitimacy of his rags-to-riches rise from hairdresser to top-flight English soccer club proprietor into doubt.
BOXING
Khan jabs at Mayweather
Amir Khan unleashed a flurry of verbal jabs on Tuesday at Floyd Mayweather Jr after the unbeaten American passed him over for a lucrative May 3 bout and chose Argentina’s Marcos Maidana. The 27-year-old Englishman Khan — who defeated Maidana in 2010 — made his fury clear in a statement released by his promotions company and linked to a post on his Twitter feed, intimating that Mayweather was running scared. “Despite having signed my part of the agreement to fight Floyd in early December, I’ve been preparing myself for some time that the matchup with him wasn’t going to happen,” Khan said. “Therefore this announcement did not come as a surprise. I am, however, very disappointed with Floyd and his team for not providing any explanation as to why he delayed the announcement for so long and ultimately avoided the fight with me. Clarification, if he was not fighting me, would have allowed me to look over my options and pursue another path, rather than the ultimate delay to my career this has caused.”
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