SOCCER
Galatasaray win league
Galatasaray SK on Monday were crowned champions of Turkey’s top flight for a record 20th time after perennial Istanbul rivals Fenerbahce SK had four men sent off in a 2-2 draw at Basaksehir FK. With one round of games remaining, Fenerbahce needed nothing less than a win against Basaksehir, a fast-growing Istanbul side, to keep any title hopes alive. However, two goals from Mehmet Batdal within ten minutes in the second half were hammer blows to Fenerbahce’s lingering hopes. Diego of Brazil struck back for Fenerbahce after 80 minutes and Pierre Webo of Cameroon added another on 88 minutes, leading to frantic closing minutes as Fenerbahce looked for a winner. With tempers fraying, four Fenerbahce players were sent off in the last 10 minutes — Mehmet Topuz, Bruno Alves of Portugal, Caner Erkin and Webo — leaving the visitors with just seven players on the field. The result leaves Galatasaray with an unassailable five-point lead at the top of the table and also Turkey’s automatic UEFA Champions League spot for next season. Fenerbahce are set to finish second and the third-biggest team in Istanbul, Besiktas JK, will finish in third place irrespective of the results in Sunday’s matches. Galatasaray’s victory means the team has now won a record 20 titles, one more than Fenerbahce on 19. Under Turkish tradition, Galatasaray will now be the first in Turkish football history to wear four stars on their shirts. A Turkish team is awarded a star for every five championship victories.
SOCCER
Peru call up veterans
Old faithfuls Claudio Pizarro, Jefferson Farfan and Juan Vargas, all in their 30s and with little playing time at their European clubs this term, made the cut as Peru yesterday named a 23-man squad for the Copa America. Pizarro, 36, has made only 13 Bundesliga appearances for Bayern Munich this season, most of them as a second-half substitute, and failed to score. Farfan, 30, has missed most of Schalke 04’s campaign with injury and Vargas, 31, has been a secondary player at ACF Fiorentina in Serie A. However, coach Ricardo Gareca clearly felt he needed their experience after Peru slumped to a 1-0 home defeat against Venezuela in his first game in charge last month. The squad also includes striker Paolo Guerrero, 31, who was top scorer at the last Copa America in 2011 when the team surpassed expectations by reaching the semi-finals. Twice former winners, Peru face Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela in Group C of the 12-team tournament in Chile.
CRICKET
Raza banned for two years
Pakistan spin bowler Raza Hasan has been banned for two years after failing a doping test, the nation’s cricket board said. The 22-year-old left-armer returned an “adverse analytical finding” from a urine sample taken during a domestic tournament in January, the Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) said in a statement. The board declined to name the substance. Raza, who has played one one-day international (ODI) and 10 Twenty20 matches for Pakistan, was notified on March 24 and subsequently failed to send a written request for a hearing within 14 days, the PCB said. “Therefore, in accordance with anti-doping rules and with the approval of the competent authority, Mr Raza Hasan is being imposed with a ban that will make him ineligible to participate in the sport of cricket for a period of two years,” the board said. Raza made his ODI debut against Australia in Dubai in October last year and played his last international match in a T20 against New Zealand in the Gulf city in December 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