BASKETBALL
S Koreans in fixing probe
South Korean police are investigating 11 professional basketball players on suspicion of illegal gambling and match fixing in the top-tier Korean Basketball League. Park Min-soon, head of the cybercrimes division at Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency, yesterday said it is believed at least one of the players missed shots intentionally during a game that he placed a bet on his team losing. Park said that the player attempted several shots that did not touch the rim during a February game when he bet 1 million won (US$830) on his team losing. The 11 basketball players were among 26 people being questioned for illegal gambling activities between 2009 and this year, the police official said. Most of them allegedly placed bets on basketball, soccer and baseball games using illegal gambling sites, he said. Park confirmed that Kim Sun-hyung, a Seoul SK Knights player who recently represented South Korea in the William Jones Cup basketball tournament in Taiwan, was among those being investigated for placing bets on illegal Web sites.
SOCCER
Congo edge Sudan 2-1
Kader Bidimbou bagged a brace as hosts Republic of the Congo made a successful start to the All-Africa Games soccer tournament by edging Sudan 2-1 on Monday in Brazzaville. The other opening-round Group A match was equally close, with Burkina Faso scoring midway through the second half for a 1-0 victory over Zimbabwe. After a tournament-opening 0-0 Group B stalemate between title-holders Ghana and Senegal on Sunday, Bidimbou scored the first goal of the quadrennial multi-sport African festival within the first minute. Walaa Mohamed leveled for All-Africa Games soccer debutants, Sudan only for Bidimbou to snatch the match-winner three minutes before halftime. Congo Brazzaville staged and won the first All-Africa Games soccer tournament 50 years ago, winning the final against Mali 7-1 on corners after a goalless draw. Sydney Mohamed Sylla was the Burkina Faso match-winner, claiming the only goal after 63 minutes. Action resumes today with a Group B fixture between archrivals Ghana and Nigeria.
SOCCER
India to bid for U20 Cup
India will bid to hold a future under-20 World Cup to build on the success of its new Super League and staging the under-17 World Cup in two years’ time, a top official said. All India Football Federation general secretary Kushal Das also said that there had to be efforts to merge the Super League and the older Indian League. The eight-team Super League starts its second season next month. It draws huge crowds and is already claiming to have the world’s fourth-biggest attendances after the English, German and Spanish leagues. Das told the Soccerex convention in Manchester the Super League’s growth and holding the under-17 World Cup in 2017 would spur soccer’s popularity even more, boost India’s stadium and training infrastructure and help to “awake the sleeping giant.”
RUGBY UNION
Halfpenny out of Cup
Wales fullback Leigh Halfpenny has been ruled out of the Rugby World Cup because of a knee injury, depriving the tournament co-host of one of its best players and arguably the best goal kicker in the sport. The Welsh Rugby Union said in a statement on Monday that Halfpenny “suffered an ACL injury” in a warmup game against Italy on Saturday. Wales scrumhalf Rhys Webb also was carried off on a stretcher in the game and is in doubt for the World Cup.
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