Defending champion Nani Roma scored a consolation victory in the Dakar Rally ninth stage on Tuesday as Qatari Nasser al-Attiyah increased his overall lead after “a terrible mistake” by main rival Giniel de Villiers.
Spain’s Roma — whose hopes of a second straight overall win evaporated on the first stage due to electrical failure — completed the 538km drive from the Chilean Pacific coastal city of Iquique to Calama in the Andes 6 minutes, 30 seconds clear of al-Attiyah.
The 2011 Dakar winner’s bold showing bolstered his bid for a second title.
Mini thought they had sealed a 1-2-3 in the stage, but their hopes were dashed late on in the day as Frenchman Guerlain Chicherit, who started the stage in a lowly 70th spot, recorded a superb time to snatch third in a Buggy. Al-Attiyah has a near 24-minute cushion over Toyota’s South African driver De Villiers, who was kicking himself after losing his way and taking fourth.
De Villiers blamed “a terrible, terrible navigation mistake” on his unwanted driveabout in the Chilean countryside.
“That’s cost us the race,” he said. “You know, sometimes it goes like this in the Dakar and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
With four days to come before Saturday’s finish in Buenos Aires al-Attiyah can now start to realistically contemplate his second title.
“It was not easy, but, OK, I think we made a good job of it and I hope it will be enough to win the Dakar,” said the driver, who has represented Qatar in shooting at the Olympics. “I think we did a good job and to finish here in front of Giniel is the key.”
In third in the drivers’ standings comes Saudi Arabia’s Yazeed al-Rajhi in another Toyota, 40 minutes behind al-Attiyah.
Mini’s domination of Tuesday’s podium was completed by Russian Vladimir Vasilyev.
In the bikes section, Portugal’s Helder Rodrigues claimed his second stage win of the year as Marc Coma of Spain had his overall lead cut by three minutes.
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