BASKETBALL
Spurs coach gets top honor
San Antonio Spurs coach Gregg Popovich was named NBA coach of the year on Tuesday, making him just the third coach in league history to win the Red Auerbach trophy three times in his career. Popovich has received the league’s top coaching honor in two of the past three seasons, joining Don Nelson and Pat Riley as the only coaches to win the award three times. In a career full of masterful coaching performances, Popovich may have delivered his best in season No. 18. The Spurs entered the season still thinking about the devastating loss to the Miami Heat in last summer’s classic NBA Finals. Once again thought to be too old to challenge LeBron James and the mighty Heat, the Spurs took the defending champions to seven games, but could not quite close it out for the franchise’s fifth NBA title. Popovich led the Spurs to a league-best 62-20 record, which gives them home-court advantage throughout the playoffs. And he did it while deftly navigating a season filled with nagging injuries to several key players. Tim Duncan was the only starter to play in at least 70 games. No Spur averaged 30 minutes per game and Tony Parker led the team with a modest 16.7 points per game.
SOCCER
Leicester win title
Leicester City celebrated winning the English Championship title on Tuesday with a 1-0 victory at Bolton Wanderers that opened an unassailable seven-point lead at the top of the second tier with two matches remaining. Leicester, who secured a return to the Premier League for the first time since 2004 earlier this month, took the lead in the 62nd minute through Lloyd Dyer’s shot into the top corner and held on to celebrate in front of 2,000 traveling fans. They have 96 points from 44 games, ahead of Burnley, who clinched an automatic promotion spot on Monday with a 2-0 victory over Wigan Athletic. Reading moved back into the playoff places with a 2-0 home win over Middlesbrough.
SOCCER
Zagreb set league record
Dinamo Zagreb won a record-extending ninth successive Croatian league title and their 16th overall with four games to spare after a 5-0 home win over bottom team NK Hrvatski Dragovoljac on Tuesday. The result left Dinamo top of the 10-team first division with 77 points from 32 games, 14 ahead of closest rivals Rijeka, who lost 2-0 at eighth-placed Osijek on Saturday. Dinamo celebrated their success after Alen Halilovic, 17, who is to join Barcelona next season, capped a fine performance with the game’s outstanding goal. Domagoj Pavicic, Duje Cop, El Hilal Soudani and Said Husejinovic also netted.
CYCLING
Armstrong coach banned
Lance Armstrong’s longtime coach, Johan Bruyneel, was banned for 10 years on Tuesday for helping to organize massive doping on teams led by the disgraced cyclist. The US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) announced the verdicts of an American Arbitration Association panel against Bruyneel and two medical staff, completing its lengthy investigation which saw Armstrong banished from cycling in 2012. Bruyneel “was at the apex of a conspiracy to commit widespread doping on the [US Postal Service] and Discovery Channel teams spanning many years and many riders,” USADA said in a statement. Team doctor Pedro Celaya and trainer Jose “Pepe” Marti are to serve eight-year bans.”
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