BOXING
Mayweather faces probe
Boxer-promoter Floyd Mayweather Jr has been ordered to appear before Nevada boxing officials who want to question him about events in his gym that were aired recently on the Showtime sports network. The Nevada Athletic Commission says it wants to ask Mayweather about how sparring sessions are conducted in his gym and another scene that included women apparently smoking marijuana inside the facility, the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on Friday. Mayweather did not participate, but was shown telling someone else to get some rolling papers for the women. The scene aired on Showtime prior to his world title fight against Marcos Maidana last week. Another scene showed marathon sparring sessions, including one that went on for more than 30 minutes. In the clip, Hasim Rahman and Donovan Cameron are shown in a lengthy battle, while Mayweather’s team appears to bet on the outcome, the newspaper said. “The doghouse; the rules are you fight till whoever quits. Guys fight to the death. It is not right, but it is doghouse rules,” Mayweather said on the Showtime episode. Mayweather was given his Nevada promoter’s license in July. “My main concern is the health and safety of the fighters,” commission chairman Francisco Aguilar told the newspaper. “It is not just about fight night, but about training and sparring.” When you hold a promoter’s license in Nevada, you are expected to conduct yourself properly and I think some of the commissioners have some concerns over what they saw.”
ATHLETICS
Federation seeks guidance
South Africa’s troubled athletics federation said on Friday it would seek guidance from the International Association of Athletics Federations (IAAF) after being ordered by a court to pay nearly US$1 million to an athlete in compensation for injuries he sustained at a meet. Athletics South Africa (ASA) said pole-vaulter Jan Blignaut’s case should not have gone to a civil court under IAAF regulations and should have been dealt with through arbitration instead. The track federation’s attorney, Monty Hacker, said it would also ask the court for a “stay of execution” against the compensation award. ASA — already in severe financial trouble — was ordered to pay Blignaut 10.4 million South African rand (US$940,000) by a court on Tuesday for head injuries he suffered in a fall at an ASA event in Pretoria in March 2009. Blignaut blamed ASA and its meet officials for negligence and brought a case against the track federation in 2011. He increased his initial claim of about $240,000 to $900,000, ASA said. ASA said it could be forced into liquidation by the court order.
SCUBA DIVING
Egyptian sets depth record
An Egyptian diver has broken the world record for the deepest scuba dive, Guinness World Records officials said on Friday. Judge Talal Omar confirmed the record by Ahmed Gabr at a depth of 332.35m in the diving resort of Dahab, on Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula. Omar said the record attempt started on Thursday morning, and that Gabr emerged from the water just after midnight on Friday. The previous record, achieved in June 2005 by South African Nuno Gomes, was 318.25m. Gabr is a member of Egypt’s special forces. He started his diving career at the age of 18 and was granted a scholarship to the US Army combat diver course. The 38-year-old diver started training for the world record in 2010.
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