FOOTBALL
Eagles fire coach Kelly
The Philadelphia Eagles have fired coach Chip Kelly with one game left in his third season, dumping their coach after missing the playoffs in consecutive seasons. Kelly was released on Tuesday night just before the end of a disappointing season that began with Super Bowl expectations. The Eagles are 6-9 after going 10-6 in each of Kelly’s first two seasons. Eagles CEO Jeffrey Lurie on Tuesday said that he appreciates Kelly’s contributions and wishes him success going forward. The Eagles also fired Ed Marynowitz, who was vice president of player personnel. Kelly made several bold moves that backfired after assuming full control of personnel decisions last off-season. Kelly replaced Andy Reid and led the Eagles to an NFC East title in 2013 after they were 4-12 a year earlier. The Eagles missed the playoffs last year after starting 9-3. They were 7-12 in Kelly’s last 19 games.
OLYMPICS
Elzbieta Krzesinska dies
Former Olympic long jump champion Elzbieta Krzesinska, winner of gold at the 1956 Melbourne Games, has died at the age of 81 years, the Polish Athletics Federation announced on Tuesday. Born in Warsaw, Krzesinska set a world record in Budapest in 1956 with a jump of 6.35m. She took the Olympic gold in Melbourne that year with the same mark. Four years later at the Rome Olympics, she took silver behind Soviet athlete Vera Krepkina with a jump of 6.27 m. She also won two European Championships medals. A dentist by profession, Krzesinska lived in the US for two decades before returning to her native Poland in 2001.
ICE HOCKEY
Krejci on injured reserve
The Boston Bruins have placed Czech center David Krejci on injured reserve with an upper-body injury. The team announced the move on Tuesday. Krejci was hurt Sunday in Boston’s 3-1 loss at Ottawa in the opener of a home-and-home series. He must sit out for at least seven days from the time he was injured, meaning Krejci will miss the Winter Classic on New Year’s Day against Montreal.
SKI JUMPING
Freund wins at Four Hills
Germany’s Severin Freund won the first round of the Four Hills on front of his home crowd at Obertsdorf, Germany, on Tuesday to end the winning run of World Cup leader Peter Prevc. Freund, second behind Prevc in the overall World Cup standings, claimed his third victory of the season with a total of 307.2 points following two jumps to finish ahead of Austrian Michael Hayboeck (304.2). The 27-year-old German’s win ended a series of three consecutive victories by Slovenian Prevc, who took third (299.9) and his sixth podium finish of the season. Four-time Olympic champion Simon Ammann slumped to 12th, with Poland’s Kamil Stoch, a double Olympic champion in Sochi, faring even worse in 23rd position.
SKIING
Hansdotter wins Lienz slalom
Sweden’s Frida Hansdotter held her nerve to win Tuesday’s World Cup slalom in Lienz, Austria. Hansdotter led after the first run, meaning she was last of the 30 racers out of the hut for the second run. The 30-year-old Swede, who is the current world slalom silver medalist, could only look on as Switzerland’s Wendy Holdener and Slovakia’s Petra Vlhova laid down rapid runs. However, when her time came, Hansdotter produced a scintillating bottom half to claim victory in a combined time of 1 minute, 47.02 seconds, just 0.07 seconds ahead of Holdener, with Vlhova at 0.43 seconds.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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