SOCCER
Lazio reach quarter-finals
SS Lazio beat 10-man Torino 3-1 on Wednesday to reach the quarter-finals of the Coppa Italia and extend their unbeaten run to eight games. Keita Balde put Lazio ahead after 13 minutes and Miroslav Klose doubled the lead in the 29th. Josef Martinez pulled one back for Torino in the 49th, but Torino goalkeeper Daniele Padelli was sent off for a foul on Klose in the 55th and Cristian Ledesma converted the ensuing penalty. Lazio have gone six games unbeaten in Serie A and two in Cup play. Lazio face AC Milan, who beat US Sassuolo 2-1 on Tuesday. Elsewhere, Parma beat Cagliari 2-1. Gabriel Paletta and Andrea Rispoli scored goals for Parma, while Cagliari’s Marco Sau got one.
SOCCER
South Africa win warm-up
South Africa extended their unbeaten run to 12 matches with a 3-0 rout of fancied Mali in an Africa Cup of Nations warm-up match in Gabon on Wednesday. Goals from Thulani Hlatshwayo, Sibusiso Vilakazi and Dean Furman set up the morale-boosting victory for Bafana Bafana ahead of tomorrow’s start of the continental championship. Both sides fielded strong lineups in their last game before traveling to Equatorial Guinea, but it was South Africa who created the better openings. Mali are in Group D at the finals with Ivory Coast, Cameroon and Guinea, while South Africa have a tougher challenge in Group C, which includes top-ranked Algeria, as well as Ghana and Senegal.
FOOTBALL
Colts player charged
Indianapolis Colts linebacker Josh McNary has been charged with rape after a 29-year-old woman was allegedly held against her will in an apartment following a night of downtown bar hopping. US prosecutors have charged the 26-year-old McNary, of Houston, Texas, with one count of rape, one count of criminal confinement and one count of battery resulting in bodily injury, court documents show. The alleged incident took place on Dec. 1 last year. The woman said she finished work at 11:30pm then met up with some friends. They visited a few different bars before she ended up at an “unknown apartment” in the early morning hours with a man she had just met, court documents say. According to court documents, the two ended up in the bedroom where he tried to kiss her. The woman said the man got upset when she told him to stop and prevented her from leaving. “He scared me — intimidated me and scared me,” she told police. The woman said she grabbed a cellphone as she left the apartment and police say they later traced it to McNary. The Colts said they are trying to gather more information about what happened. “We are aware that there has been a report about Josh McNary, but unfortunately that’s the limit of our knowledge,” the team said.
BOXING
Pacquiao waits on signature
Manny Pacquiao was on his way to Los Angeles on Wednesday, preparing for a meeting with contestants of the Miss Universe pageant. Whether he has an even bigger date on May 2 seems entirely up to Floyd Mayweather Jr. Promoter Bob Arum says Pacquiao has agreed to all terms for what would be boxing’s richest-ever fight, a bout with Mayweather that fans have been demanding for five years. The question is whether the long-reluctant Mayweather will finally sign on the dotted line for what could be an astonishing US$120 million payday for the fighter who flaunts his money better than anyone. Arum says the fight would be held at the MGM in Las Vegas, where Mayweather has fought exclusively for years.
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