MIXED MARTIAL ART
McGregor one-shots Aldo
Conor McGregor on Saturday night stopped Jose Aldo with one spectacular punch just 13 seconds into the first round, backing up his bravado and claiming the undisputed featherweight title at UFC 194. McGregor (19-2) finished the fight with an electrifying exchange shortly after the opening bell, slipping Aldo’s lead right and cracking Aldo on the jaw with a huge left hand. Aldo (25-2) actually finished his punch and hit McGregor with a left, but the champ fell senseless to the ground and McGregor pounced, only to be pulled off in victory. Aldo had won 18 consecutive fights over the past 10 years, but nothing seems to slow McGregor. The loquacious Irish brawler goaded Aldo throughout the promotion of their delayed bout, only to back up every word he said.
GOLF
Langer takes PGA award
Bernhard Langer on Saturday won the Jack Nicklaus Award as the PGA Tour Champions player of the year for the record fifth time. Langer also won the award in 2008, 2009, 2010 and last year. The 58-year-old German star successfully defended his Senior Players title in June in Massachusetts for his fifth senior major title and won in San Antonio in October for his 25th victory on the 50-and-over tour. “I’m thrilled to be voted by my peers as the player of the year,” Langer said. “The Jack Nicklaus Award is a very meaningful achievement in my career, and to have now won it five times is certainly pretty special.” Langer won the Charles Schwab Cup season points title for the second straight year and record third time. He also took the money title for the record fourth straight year and record seventh time in eight years, finishing with US$2.34 million.
FOOTBALL
Giants sign Maponga
Zimbabwe-born defensive end Stansly Maponga was signed by the New York Giants on Saturday ahead of their NFL contest at Miami today. Maponga grew up playing rugby until arriving in the US at age nine, where he was a standout in high school and college. Maponga was selected by the Atlanta Falcons in the fifth round of the 2013 NFL Draft and signed by the Giants off Atlanta’s practice squad. The Giants had a roster vacancy after releasing Damontre Moore after a series of altercations with teammates, the latest over headphones. Maponga has eight tackles, including a quarterback sack, and two fumble recoveries over 24 games with the Falcons over the past two seasons. At 5-7, the Giants are level with Washington and Philadelphia for the NFC East division lead and a playoff spot. After Miami, the Giants finish the season with games against undefeated Carolina, Minnesota and Philadelphia.
SAILING
LMAX takes overall lead
LMAX Exchange won a 2,088-nautical mile (3,867km) Australian leg of the Clipper Round the World Race to regain the overall lead. The yacht finished the Albany, Western Australia, to Sydney fourth race in the series late on Saturday, with Great Britain and Garmin crossing the line early yesterday to finish second and third respectively. LMAX Exchange secured a maximum 17 points — 12 for the win, two ocean sprint points in the Southern Ocean and three scoring gate bonus points. The series features 12 identical 21m ocean racing yachts, all of which are to take part in the Sydney to Hobart, Australia, race beginning on Dec. 26. The 10th Clipper race began in London in August, and has completed 16,000 nautical miles of the 40,000-nautical-mile race.
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