Carolina quarterback Cam Newton was among a league-high 10 players selected from the undefeated Carolina Panthers to participate in next month’s NFL Pro Bowl All-Star game, the league announced on Tuesday.
Retired NFL stars Michael Irvin and Jerry Rice are to select their squads from the available talent pool four days before the Jan. 31 contest in Honolulu.
The unbeaten Panthers’ other members in the Pro Bowl are: running backs Jonathan Stewart and Mike Tolbert; tight end Greg Olsen; guard Trai Turner; center Ryan Kalil; defensive tackle Kawann Short; cornerback Josh Norman; and linebackers Luke Kuechly and Thomas Davis.
Photo: AFP
The Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks and defending Super Bowl champions the New England Patriots each had seven Pro Bowl picks, including their quarterbacks: Arizona’s Carson Palmer, Seattle’s Russell Wilson and New England’s Tom Brady, who was named to his 11th career Pro Bowl lineup.
Other Cardinals selected are: receiver Larry Fitzgerald; guard Mike Iupati; defensive end Calais Campbell; cornerback Patrick Peterson; free safety Tyrann Mathieu; and special teams player Justin Bethel.
The other Seattle players chosen are: defensive end Michael Bennett; linebacker Bobby Wagner; strong safety Kam Chancellor; free safety Earl Thomas; cornerback Richard Sherman; and rookie return specialist Tyler Lockett.
New England’s other players for the matchup are: tight end Rob Gronkowski; defensive end Chandler Jones; linebacker Jamie Collins; cornerback Malcolm Butler; special teams player Matthew Slater; and kicker Stephen Gostkowski.
In all, 86 players were chosen, including 25 first-time Pro Bowl players, three of them rookies — Lockett, St Louis Rams running back Todd Gurley and Kansas City Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters.
Oakland Raiders safety Charles Woodson, who announced on Tuesday that he would retire after the season, was selected for his ninth Pro Bowl.
Each player on the winning Pro Bowl team receives US$58,000, double what the losing team players are to be paid.
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