SOCCER
West Brom sneak through
The Premier League’s West Bromwich Albion won a penalty shootout 4-3 to beat third-tier Peterborough United in a dramatic FA Cup fourth-round replay on Wednesday. The game finished 1-1 after extra-time, Peterborough taking the lead having dominated the first half when winger Jon Taylor found space to slot home after 55 minutes. Midfielder Darren Fletcher grabbed West Brom’s equalizer with a crisp half-volley from the edge of the penalty area. Lee Angol missed the decisive spot-kick in the shootout for Peterborough and West Brom will travel to Reading.
BOXING
Golovkin to defend in April
World middleweight champion Gennady “GGG” Golovkin will defend his world titles against undefeated challenger Dominic Wade in Los Angeles on April 23, it was confirmed on Wednesday. The unbeaten Golovkin, regarded as one of the best pound-for-pound fighters in the world, will be chasing his 35th career victory when he takes on Wade at the Los Angeles Forum. The 33-year-old Kazakh is one of the most explosive fighters in boxing, with 31 knockouts in his 34 fights to date. In his last bout, Golovkin destroyed Canada’s David Lemieux in eight rounds to add the IBF crown to his WBA, WBC and IBO belts. “Dominic Wade is a very hungry and skilled middleweight who is undefeated and will be another big test for me,” Golovkin said in a statement. Wade, 25, is unbeaten in 18 fights, with 12 knockouts. “I’ve worked hard my entire career to get to this point. I’m poised and ready to take on the challenge,” Wade said.
SOCCER
US rout Costa Rica 5-0
The US women’s opening set-piece finally paid off. Alex Morgan scored off it 12 seconds in and added another goal in the 62nd minute as the US opened CONCACAF qualifying for the Rio Olympics with a 5-0 victory over Costa Rica in Frisco, Texas, on Wednesday night. Morgan’s goal was the fastest in CONCACAF Olympic qualifying history, and the team said it is believed to be the fastest in US history. It came on a designed play that the team uses off most opening kickoffs. The match was the US’ first competitive game since winning the World Cup. They have won three straight Olympic titles and four of the five in women’s soccer. The US roster features only 13 of the 20 players who were on the World Cup team. Christie Rampone and Megan Rapinoe are injured, and Amy Rodriguez and Sydney Leroux are pregnant and will miss the Olympics. Carli Lloyd and Crystal Dunn also scored first-half goals, and substitute Christen Press scored in the 83rd minute. In Wednesday’s other Group A opener at Toyota Stadium, Maribel Dominguez scored a hat-trick as Mexico routed Puerto Rico 6-0.
SOCCER
Mexico beat Senegal 2-0
Jesus Duenas and Rodolfo Pizarro scored second-half goals to help Mexico beat Senegal 2-0 in an exhibition game on Wednesday night. Playing before a pro-Mexico crowd of 15,588 at Marlins Park, Mexico finally broke through in the 73rd minute on Duenas’ strike. Candido Ramirez, who entered the match a minute earlier, centered a pass from the left wing to Duenas, who headed from the edges of the six-yard box. Mexico secured the victory on Pizarro’s goal in the 87th minute. Pizarro retrieved Hirving Lozano’s cross from the right wing and one-timed a shot past goalkeeper Pape Ndiaye. Mexico have improved to 3-0 since Juan Carlos Osorio took over as coach in November last year.
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