MOTOR RACING
CEO Agag admires Vettel
While Sebastian Vettel has turned his nose up at Formula E, describing the electric car racing series as “cheese,” its chief executive hopes the four-time Formula One champion would one day get behind the wheel of a battery-powered race car. “We’re big admirers of Vettel,” Alejandro Agag said on Thursday. “He just doesn’t like Formula E. Maybe one day we can convince him to come to Formula E.” A pack of high-pitch humming electric vehicles are to career through the streets of Buenos Aires today at speeds of up to 220kph in the fourth race of Formula E’s debut season. Agag hopes the series will help electric vehicles shrug off an image problem and fine-tune their technologies. Vettel’s comments, made before the inaugural race, would not have helped. “People don’t think of them as quick, as cool” Agag said. “We respect what Vettel thinks, but I also respect what Alain Prost thinks,” he said, referring to the former Formula One great who heads up the e.dams-Renault team.
HORSE RACING
Prize money increased
Dubai’s government-owned developer Meydan Group has boosted the prize money for today’s Endurance Cup to almost US$2.6 million and announced a series of European races to promote endurance riding, it said on Thursday. “We feel that endurance has been left out, so the prize money was enhanced to benchmark with other sports,” said Saeed Humaid al-Tayer, chairman of the group that runs Dubai’s opulent racecourse. Each foreign rider, except Gulf Arab nationals, who completes the challenging 160km Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid al-Maktoum Endurance Cup will receive 100,000 dirhams (US$27,226). About 190 riders are expected to participate. The new series of endurance races are to be held in Britain, France, Italy and Spain this year, and culminate in Dubai next year.
CRICKET
Bond to quit after World Cup
New Zealand bowling coach Shane Bond is to step down after the World Cup, the nation’s cricket board said yesterday. Former Test bowler Bond would not be renewing his contract against the wishes of the board, New Zealand Cricket (NZC) said, without elaborating on why the 39-year-old is withdrawing his services. “Make no bones about this... we’re very disappointed to be losing Shane,” NZC head of cricket Lindsay Crocker said in a statement. “He’s given great value to the Black Caps program and we were hopeful of having the benefit of his input over the next few seasons. However, we respect his decision and his reasons for making that decision, and wish him well in his endeavors post-World Cup.” New Zealand co-host the World Cup which begins next month with Australia
RUGBY UNION
Beale inks one-year deal
Controversial back Kurtley Beale has signed a one-year contract extension with the Australian Rugby Union which will take him through until after this year’s World Cup. The 26-year-old, who has played 49 Tests, was fined US$40,000 for sending an offensive photograph to team business manager Di Patston in June last year and escaped having his contract terminated because there was not enough evidence he sent a second, more lewd message. The scandal blew up on a flight from South Africa to Argentina during the Rugby Championship, when Beale and Patston argued. Beale was suspended and Patston returned to Australia and quit. The fallout included coach Ewen McKenzie, who quit in October last year.
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