SOCCER
Figueredo admits to bribes
The former president of South America’s CONMEBOL soccer body, Eugenio Figueredo, has admitted he received bribes from TV firms in exchange for maintaining media rights, a lawyer involved in the case in Uruguay said on Saturday. Figueredo arrived back to his native Uruguay on Thursday last week after being extradited on corruption charges from Switzerland, where he was arrested in May. On Friday, the 83-year-old former vice president of world soccer federation FIFA was moved to hospital from prison due to chest pain. Pablo Barreiro, the lawyer representing Uruguay’s soccer players’ union, which laid corruption charges against Figueredo in 2013, said he had admitted that the heads of South America’s various soccer associations received important sums of money in exchange for the media rights to tournaments.
FOOTBALL
Hayne promoted to starter
Former Australian National Rugby League champion Jarryd Hayne was promoted to the San Francisco 49ers active roster from the practice squad, the NFL team announced on Saturday. The 49ers, 4-10 this season, have a banged up backfield. Running backs Shaun Draughn, Carlos Hyde, Reggie Bush and Mike Davis are out with injuries, leading to Hayne’s activation for San Francisco’s game against the Detroit Lions yesterday. Hayne, 27, had an impressive training camp and made San Francisco’s opening day roster. However, the running back was used sparingly in the first seven games, gaining only 25 yards on eight carries and had eight punt returns for 76 yards. He also fumbled three punt returns and was cut on Oct. 31. Once he was waived through the league, Hayne was assigned to the 49ers practice roster.
BASKETBALL
Griffin benched over injury
Los Angeles Clippers forward Blake Griffin is to be sidelined for at least two weeks with a partially torn left quadriceps tendon, the NBA team said on Saturday. Griffin was hurt during the Clippers’ 94-84 victory over the Los Angeles Lakers on Friday last week. A magnetic resonance imaging exam on Saturday revealed the extent of the injury and Griffin did not travel with the team for their game against the Utah Jazz. It was not immediately clear if Griffin would join the team before today’s game at Washington. Griffin finished Friday’s game with 13 points, 12 rebounds and seven assists in 36 minutes. In 30 games this season, he is averaging 23.2 points, 8.7 rebounds and 5 assists, and shooting 50 percent from the field.
ICE HOCKEY
US defeat Canada in U19
Louis Belpedio and Auston Matthews on Saturday scored in a 41-second span late in the third period to give the US a 4-2 victory over Canada 4-2 in their first round-robin game in the Ice Hockey World Junior Championships. Belpedio, a defenseman from Miami of Ohio, broke a tie with 3 minutes, 18 seconds left. Matthews completed the scoring with 2 minutes, 37 seconds to go. Boston College’s Colin White and Michigan’s Zach Werenski also scored. Alex Nedeljkovic made 25 saves. Matt Barzal and Dylan Strome scored for defending champions Canada, and Mason McDonald made 21 saves. In the other Group A game, Dmytro Timashov had two goals and an assist in Sweden’s 8-3 victory over Switzerland. In Group B, Russia edged the Czech Republic 2-1 in a shootout, and Finland routed Belarus 6-0. Maxim Lazarev had the lone shoot-out goal in Russia’s victory. Jesse Puljujarvi had two goals and an assist for Finland.
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