BASKETBALL
Bulls fire head coach
The Chicago Bulls fired Tom Thibodeau as head coach on Thursday, ending a five-year tenure marked by a deteriorating relationship with the front office. The defensive-minded Thibodeau, who had US$9 million remaining on his contract, compiled a strong .647 winning percentage, but his Bulls went 23-28 in five trips to the playoffs. Chicago went 52-32 this past season, finishing second in the Central Division to the Cleveland Cavaliers, who eliminated them from the playoffs in the Eastern Conference semi-finals. Iowa State head coach Fred Hoiberg is believed to be a leading candidate for the job. Friction between Thibodeau, team president John Paxson and general manager Gar Forman had escalated over the past two seasons. Chicago Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said there had been a breakdown in the team’s “organizational culture.”
BASKETBALL
Thompson recovering: dad
Golden State guard Klay Thompson was recovering well from a blow to the head that caused headaches and vomiting and should be ready for the NBA Finals against the Cleveland Cavaliers, his father has said. Thompson suffered concussion-like symptoms after he received a knee in the head during Golden State’s Western Conference-clinching victory over the Houston Rockets on Wednesday. He had bleeding from a cut to his ear and later vomited, forcing his father Mychal — a former NBA player — to drive him home, though the elder Thompson said his son was recovering well, even if he still needs to pass neurological tests before resuming practice. “He’s looking like his old self, he has a healthy appetite again and that’s always a good sign,” Mychal told the San Jose Mercury News.
ICE HOCKEY
New coach for Sharks
The San Jose Sharks, who failed to make the playoffs this season for the first time since 2003, appointed Peter DeBoer as the franchise’s eighth head coach on Thursday. DeBoer, 46, replaces Todd McLellan, whose departure from the team last month after seven seasons behind the Sharks bench was described as a mutual agreement. “Peter is a well-respected leader who possesses all of the characteristics we were looking for in our next head coach,” Sharks general manager Doug Wilson said in a statement. DeBoer was fired by the New Jersey Devils after 36 games last season, his fourth as head coach with the team. In 2012, he guided the Devils to the Stanley Cup Final. The Sharks, who have won six division championships, but have yet to claim a conference title, finished this season 12th in the 14-team Western Conference with a 40-33-9 record.
ICE HOCKEY
Sabres hire Bylsma as coach
Former Pittsburgh Penguins head coach Dan Bylsma was appointed head coach of the struggling Buffalo Sabres, the team said on Thursday. Bylsma, 44, joins the Sabres after spending six seasons in Pittsburgh where he led the Penguins to the 2009 Stanley Cup and an impressive regular season record of 252-117-32. His career record gives him the best points percentage (.668) of any head coach in the NHL who has worked in that role for at least three full seasons. Pittsburgh qualified for the playoffs in all six seasons under Bylsma’s leadership, winning two division titles and posting the best record in the Eastern Conference in 2012-2013. He was fired as Penguins coach after the 2013-2014 season. Bylsma faces a big challenge with the Sabres who ended this season stone-last in the 30-team National Hockey League with a dismal 23-51-8 record.
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