SOCCER
Argentina exit under-20
Six-time champions Argentina have suffered an ignominious early exit from the under-20 World Cup in New Zealand after they drew their final Group B game 0-0 in Wellington yesterday. The pre-tournament favorites have finished with just two points following a draw with Panama and a loss to Ghana, who won the group with seven points after they beat the Central Americans 1-0 in Auckland. Austria finished second in the group on five points, with Argentina third. They have no chance of qualifying as one of the four best-placed third teams who also advance to the round of 16 along with each of the group winners and runners-up.
BASEBALL
A-Rod’s ‘mule’ gets jail time
A cousin of New York Yankees star Alex Rodriguez was sentenced to seven months in jail on Thursday for conspiring to distribute performance-enhancing drugs after prosecutors said he played a key role in tying the man known as A-Rod to a doping scandal. US District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga sentenced Yuri Sucart, 53, in Miami after he pleaded guilty in a deal with prosecutors in March to one count of conspiring to distribute human growth hormone. The charge is normally punishable by up to five years behind bars, but under the deal prosecutors agreed to seek a reduced sentence of no more than eight months in jail. Rodriguez, 39, one of baseball’s highest-paid players, gave Sucart nearly US$1 million in 2013, according to court records, after Sucart threatened to expose himself as the player’s “steroid mule.”
SOCCER
Santiago boosts smog rules
Authorities in Santiago yesterday ordered a day of extraordinary anti-smog measures, with a week to go before the Chilean capital hosts the opening match of the South American soccer championships. Under the so-called “pre-emergency” declared by the Santiago mayor’s office, more than 300,000 vehicles must stay off the roads and nearly 800 factories must remain closed. The measures aim to combat the air pollution blanketing the capital and prevent it from clouding the Copa America, which begins on Thursday at Santiago’s National Stadium with a match between the hosts and Ecuador. The measure also bans burning wood or biomass fuels, suspends physical education classes at schools and recommends citizens forego outdoors athletic activities for a day. It was adopted “due to poor wind conditions, with the objective of protecting the health of the population,” the mayor’s office said in a statement.
CRICKET
Pakistan nominates Abbas
The International Cricket Council (ICC) has received Pakistan’s nomination of former batsman Zaheer Abbas for the post of president, which was left vacant by the resignation of Bangladesh’s Mustafa Kamal in April, the governing body said on Thursday. Kamal resigned, claiming he was snubbed at the presentation ceremony of the World Cup final in Melbourne when he was not allowed to present the trophy to winners Australia as the head of the ICC. The nomination is to be forwarded to the ICC nominations committee and then to the ICC board for approval before being ratified at next year’s annual conference from June 21-26 in Barbados, the ICC said. Former Pakistan captain Abbas, 67, played 78 tests and 62 one-day internationals for his country and was also an ICC match referee.
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