CYCLING
Nibali wins Il Lombardia
Italy’s Vincenzo Nibali ended a disappointing season by winning Il Lombardia in style on Sunday to claim his first Monument victory. Nibali, who is one of the strongest riders on descents, pulled away at the top of the penultimate climb and finished the 245km race from Bergamo to Como, Italy, 21 seconds ahead of Daniel Moreno of Spain and 32 seconds ahead of Thibaut Pinot of France. Moreno seemed close to catching Nibali on the final climb, but the Italian’s superior descending skills again proved decisive. Nibali was thrown out of this year’s Vuelta a Espana for holding on to a team car and finished more than eight minutes behind winner Chris Froome in his attempt to defend his Tour de France title.
SOCCER
Honduras beat Costa Rica
Antony Lozano and Alberth Elis scored to help Honduras beat Costa Rica 2-0 on Sunday and claim a spot in the semi-finals of CONCACAF qualifying for next year’s Rio Olympics after Mexico beat Haiti. Lozano scored in the 41st minute, and Elis added a late goal after Costa Rica’s Luis Sequeira was sent off in the 75th minute for his second yellow card in a minute. Honduras and Mexico, 1-0 winners in the second game of the doubleheader, have both won two games in Group B, while Costa Rica and Haiti have both lost two. Seeking their third straight berth in the Olympics and fourth overall, Honduras are to finish the round robin tomorrow against Mexico in Commerce City, Colorado, with the winners finishing top of the group.
ICE HOCKEY
Bruins sign Gustavsson
The Boston Bruins signed backup goalkeeper Jonas Gustavsson on a one-year, US$700,000 deal on Sunday. The former Detroit Red Wings and Toronto Maple Leafs player is expected to be backup for Tuukka Rask. Gustavsson, 30, has appeared in 148 NHL games, posting a 60-55-21 record with a 2.89 goals against average and .901 save percentage. He represented Sweden in last year’s Winter Olympics and won a silver medal. Rask played 70 games last season, and the Bruins have said they are hoping to develop a dependable backup to cut the starter’s workload.
CYCLING
Man killed in charity ride
An amateur cyclist was killed after losing control on a winding California mountain road during Levi’s GranFondo charity ride, an event founded by former national champion Levi Leipheimer, authorities said. Edward Lund was traveling at about 56kph downhill when he misjudged a curve, flew off the road and landed in a dry creek bed on Saturday in Sonoma County, the California Highway Patrol said. The 54-year-old Fresno resident, who was wearing a helmet, died of a head injury, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat reported. A visibly shaken Leipheimer, a two-time US champion and Olympic medalist, announced the death at the post-ride festival in Santa Rosa, California, where riders returned from courses ranging from 52km to 187km. “I am incredibly sad to announce that there was an accident on the road,” Leipheimer said, adding that the cycling community had “lost one of our own.” It was the first fatal accident in the event’s seven-year history, the newspaper said. Led by cycling luminaries, such as Leipheimer and German cycling legend Jan Ullrich, more than 6,000 riders from all over the world took part. The event was expected to raise more than US$200,000 for various charities.
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