CRICKET
Rain washes out T20 match
Torrential rain forced the abandonment of the first Twenty20 match between South Africa and Australia without a ball being bowled at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on Sunday. Persistent rain throughout the day turned into a deluge in the afternoon, forcing the umpires to abandon the game at 3:37pm, 67 minutes after the scheduled start. The teams now move on to Durban for the second match in the three-game series tomorrow, before concluding with a fixture at Centurion on Friday. Both teams are using the series as a warm-up to the World Twenty20 to be staged in Bangladesh from Sunday. South Africa play their Group 1 opener against Sri Lanka on March 22, with Australia in action in Group 2 against Pakistan the following day.
SOCCER
Dortmund edge Freiburg
A lackluster Borussia Dortmund side edged past SC Freiburg 1-0 on Sunday courtesy of captain Sebastian Kehl’s first goal in almost two years to go four points clear in second place in the Bundesliga. In a balanced game in which Freiburg refused to concede space without a fight, Dortmund struggled to create chances and had just three shots on goal in the first half. With Robert Lewandowski and Marco Reus on their growing injury list, Dortmund, who take on Zenit St Petersburg in the second leg of their Champions League round-of-16 tie later this month, needed almost an hour to break the deadlock. The goal came from former Germany international Kehl, who unhesitatingly floated an audacious long-range shot over goalkeeper Oliver Baumann in the 58th minute for his first goal since April 2012. The result moved Dortmund to 48 points, four ahead of third-placed Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Schalke 04. In the other game on Sunday, Hertha BSC and FSV Mainz 05 drew 1-1, losing ground in the battle for the European spots.
ATHLETICS
Fraser-Pryce sets pace
Double Olympic champion Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce may not like running indoors, but the Jamaican on Sunday again proved why she is the world’s dominant female sprinter. A blistering start propelled the reigning Olympic and world 100m gold medalist to the fastest women’s 60m in four years — 6.98 seconds — as she made a triumphant debut at the IAAF World Indoor Championships in Sopot, Poland. Only six women have ever run faster. Americans dominated the three-day meeting, capping the event with a world indoor record in the men’s 4x400m as Kyle Clemons, David Verburg, Kind Butler III and Calvin Smith Jr triumphed in 3 minutes, 2.13 seconds. The time was 0.70 seconds faster than the 15-year-old record set by a US team at the 1999 World Indoor Championships. Fraser-Pryce had never run in the indoor meeting before this week. “It is an amazing feeling,” she said after becoming only the second woman ever to hold world titles at 60, 100 and 200m.
MOTOGP
Espargaros top testing
Spanish brothers Aleix and Pol Espargaro topped pre-season MotoGP testing on Sunday, but the latter’s day ended in a broken collar bone and a trip to hospital for surgery. Aleix Espargaro, riding for the Yamaha-FTR team, clocked a best time of 1 minute, 54.874 seconds on the Losail track in Qatar, just 0.160 seconds off the pole position time Jorge Lorenzo set on the factory Yamaha M1 last year. His younger brother, the world champion in the Moto2 division last year before joining the elite class for this year, was second-fastest 0.33 seconds behind on the Yamaha Tech3.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB