SOCCER
Danilo joins Real Madrid
Real Madrid have reached an agreement with Porto to buy their Brazilian fullback Danilo, who is to join the La Liga club next season, the European champions said on Twitter on Tuesday. The Spanish giants added that the 23-year-old Brazil international, who plays mainly at rightback, has a six-year contract until June 30, 2021, at the Bernabeu. The fee for Danilo is 31.5 million euros (US$33.82 million), Porto said in a statement to the Portuguese stock exchange. Danilo started his career at Brazilian club America before joining Santos and then moving to Porto in January 2012, where he has won two Portuguese league titles. Danilo has become a regular for Brazil since Dunga took over as manager after last year’s World Cup. He will compete for a starting place in Madrid with Daniel Carvajal and former Liverpool defender Alvaro Arbeloa.
CRICKET
Shorter Tests touted
The incoming head of English cricket wants to shorten Test matches to four days to invigorate the format and save money for host stadiums and broadcasters. Colin Graves says a new structure for Test cricket could see play starting earlier and having 105 overs a day instead of 90. Matches would be played Thursday to Sunday. Graves says the reduction “would save a hell of a lot of money from the ground’s point of view and the broadcasters,” according to the Web site of Marylebone Cricket Club, the custodian of the laws of the game. As a next step, Graves will put his views to the MCC World Cricket committee, where he has been invited to speak in July. His tenure as England and Wales Cricket Board chairman begins next month.
RUGBY UNION
Three-week ban for Hughes
Wasps forward Nathan Hughes is to miss the Champions Cup quarter-final at holders Toulon on Sunday after receiving a three-week ban for striking an opponent, the RFU said on Tuesday. Hughes was sent off after colliding with Northampton’s George North in an English Premiership match on Friday last week. Wales winger North, 22, was knocked unconscious and received lengthy treatment before being taken off on a stretcher. Hughes, 23, was found guilty of “striking with the knee and/or shin, contrary to Law 10.4(a),” the RFU disciplinary panel said in a statement. The player and his club had denied the charge. Hughes will not be free to play again until April 28, which would mean the No. 8 also missing the semi-final if Wasps prevail against the defending champions in France.
SOCCER
New Spurs stadium secured
Tottenham Hotspur have removed the final obstacle blocking the building of a new £400 million (US$593 million) 56,000-seater stadium by agreeing to buy the last parcel of land preventing the start of construction work. The Premier League club has started laying foundations for the new ground, next to their existing stadium, but said on Tuesday they had agreed a deal to buy land occupied by Archway Sheet Metal Works that had held up the development. Tottenham have planning permission for the stadium, which is to replace White Hart Lane, their home since 1899 where the capacity is 36,000. In November last year, a fire destroyed much of the Archway premises, which is located meters from the Park Lane (North) stand at White Hart Lane. The firm took the club to court in February challenging a compulsory purchase order for the land, but the appeal was dismissed and Archway decided this month to accept the decision.
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