BASEBALL
Tokyo beat Taipei
Kengo Tomita hit two home runs and Tokyo beat Taipei 7-5 on Friday night in the Little League World Series opener for both teams in South Williamsport, Pennsylvania. Shingo Tomita led off the game with a home run to right-center for Japan, and Kengo Tomita made it 2-0 with his first homer. Kengo Tomita’s second home run, a solo shot in fifth, gave Japan a four-run lead. Kengo Tomita also singled in Japan’s four-run second inning.Yen Cheng-yu hit a two-run home run for Taiwan in the sixth. Japan are to play Mexico in a winners’ bracket game today. Taiwan were to face Canada yesterday.
BASKETBALL
Jordan awarded US$8.9m
NBA legend Michael Jordan was awarded US$8.9 million by a Chicago jury on Friday in a case against a supermarket chain which included his name in a promotion without his permission. “I’m pleased with today’s verdict,” Jordan said in a statement. “No one — whether or not they’re a public figure — should have to worry about their identity being used without their permission.” Dominick’s in 2009 used Jordan’s name in a commemorative ad in Sports Illustrated when the former Chicago Bulls superstar was inducted into the Hall of Fame. Lawyers for the now-closed grocery store chain — which was taken over by Safeway — had said Jordan should receive US$126,900 for the unauthorized use of his name. Jordan argued that he would not have accepted such a deal based on his endorsement history and his legal team determined with the help of a sports economist that using his name in the ad was worth US$10 million.
FOOTBALL
Griffin out with concussion
Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III faces a spell on the sidelines after being concussed in a pre-season victory over the Detroit Lions, it was confirmed on Friday. Griffin left the game in the second quarter of the Redskins’ 21-17 win on Thursday after suffering a torrid time at the hands of Detroit’s defense. Redskins head coach Jay Gruden said it was unclear how long Griffin would be out of action, or whether he would recover in time for next Saturday’s pre-season game against the Baltimore Ravens. “We’ll have to see,” Gruden said. “I would imagine, depending on how long he is out, he is still going to be our starter. We have to wait and go through the whole process and see how he recovers; see how fast he recovers. I have no idea as far as the third pre-season game, fourth one, right now.” A Redskins executive official told ESPN on Friday Griffin was “fine” and could be fit to face the Ravens next week. “But [we] still need to make sure he is right,” the official added.
OLYMPICS
Los Angeles grants powers
The president of the Los Angeles City Council has introduced a motion to give Mayor Eric Garcetti broad authority to negotiate a deal to host the 2024 Olympics. The Los Angeles Times reported that the motion would give Garcetti and council president Herb Wesson the authority to sign a legally binding agreement with the US Olympic Committee. The agreement would allow the city to enter into a contract with the International Olympic Committee in two years. The newspaper reports that the council could vote on the motion as soon as next week. If Los Angeles becomes the US candidate for the 2024 Olympics after Boston’s recent drop from contention, a mayor’s adviser says the organizers’ proposed budget for the Summer Games would be US$4.1 billion.
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