CYCLING
Tinkoff-Saxo lose sponsor
Two-time Tour de France winner Alberto Contador’s elite cycling team Tinkoff-Saxo have lost their sponsor Saxo Bank, as the Danish online traders announced they would sever ties on Thursday. The team also features crowd-pleasing superstar Peter Sagan, who is the world road race champion, but with the firing of Danish team manager Bjarne Riis in March, fears Saxo Bank would end its sponsorship developed into reality. “It has been a privilege working with the team over the past eight seasons and we are extremely proud of the numerous successes we have achieved together during this time,” co-chief executives Lars Seier Christensen and Kim Fournais said in a statement.
FOOTBALL
Derrick Coleman arrested
Seattle Seahawks running back Derrick Coleman, who helped the team’s Super Bowl title run last year, was on Thursday arrested for vehicular assault and hit-and-run, and suspended by the NFL club. The 24-year-old fullback, the first legally deaf player in the NFL who uses hearing aids and reads lips to compete, was being held at King County Jail after being booked at 1:20am by police in suburban Bellevue. “The Seattle Seahawks have suspended Derrick Coleman indefinitely pending further information,” the team said in a statement. Coleman has played 22 games for the Seahawks since arriving in 2013, with two of his six starts coming this season after missing the final 11 games of last season with a broken foot. Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said Coleman embodies his “no excuses” approach to NFL coaching by not letting his hearing impairment keep him from playing in the league.
OLYMPICS
Kofi Annan honored
Former UN secretary-general Kofi Annan has received the International Olympic Committee’s (IOC) highest award. Annan was presented with the Olympic Order in Gold on Thursday by IOC president Thomas Bach. Annan was announced as a recipient of the order in 2007, but was unable to attend an award ceremony until now. He said during the presentation that “the Olympic spirit is something that has been with me for a long time.” Annan, who served as UN secretary-general from 1997 to 2006, attended several Olympics during that time. Bach thanked Annan for his “many years of service to sport and for championing the unifying power of sport through the Kofi Annan Foundation.” The IOC has enjoyed UN observer status since 2009. The UN traditionally passes a resolution calling for the observance of an “Olympic Truce” before each Games.
SOCCER
Mouriho hits out at FA
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has criticized the Football Association (FA) after he was fined over comments made toward match officials. Mourinho used his book launch on Thursday to respond to the FA’s decision on Wednesday to fine him £50,000 (US$77,400) fine and a suspended one-match stadium ban. He said that officials were “afraid” to award his side a penalty following a 3-1 home defeat to Southampton in the Premier League at the start of the month. “50,000 is a disgrace. The possibility of getting a stadium ban is astonishing,” Mourinho said at his book signing. The Blues boss was aggrieved after referee Robert Madley refused to point to the spot following a challenge by Saints goalkeeper Martin Stekelenburg on striker Radamel Falcao in the penalty area.
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