GOLF
Spieth avoids cut
Jordan Spieth holed out three times from off the green to banish any thoughts of missing the cut in the second round at the Valspar Championship in Florida on Friday. The defending champion, in danger of an early exit after an opening 76, bounced back with a three-under-par 68 on the Copperhead Course at the Innisbrook Resort in Palm Harbor. Spieth ended the day in a share of 43rd, seven strokes behind halfway leaders Steve Stricker (66) and Will MacKenzie (67). “Today was all about the cut,” a relieved Spieth told reporters. “I actually did pretty well to make six [at the first hole]. I thought it was really strong what we did after that.”
GOLF
Hend leads in Thailand
Scott Hend led the European Tour Thailand Classic in Hua Hin yesterday after a 70 left him on 14-under-par 202, two shots ahead of Peter Uihlein (69). Thomas Pieters was a further shot back in third after a 66. Leading the three Taiwanese remaining in the field was Lin Wen-tang, who was tied for 46th after a third-round 72. Hsieh Chi-hsien was in a share of 52nd after a 76 and Hung Chien-ya was last with a 77 for a total of 219.
CYCLING
Alexey Lutsenko wins stage
Kazakh rider Alexey Lutsenko won the mountainous fifth stage of the Paris-Nice race on Friday to move into second place overall behind overnight leader Michael Matthews of Australia. Lutsenko surged away 15km from the end of the hilly route and finished 21 seconds clear of Alexander Kristoff, who won the bunch sprint for second place ahead of Matthews, who placed third in the stage. The 198km route to Salon-de-Provence featured the famed Mont Ventoux, one of the most feared climbs on the Tour de France. Kristoff tried to stay on Lutsenko’s wheel, but dropped off as Lutsenko accelerated on the fifth and final climb up Col de Seze and rode away to victory.
CYCLING
olombian provides upset
Versatile Colombian Fernando Gaviria upset a host of stage hopefuls including world champion Peter Sagan on his way to his maiden win in the Tirreno-Adriatico race on Friday. In what was a memorable double for Etixx-Quickstep, Czech teammate Zdenek Stybar, a day after soloing to victory, maintained his overall lead with a 9 second advantage on a small group containing BMC pair American Tejay van Garderen and Greg Van Avermaet of Belgium. Gaviria is fresh from defending his world title from track cycling’s multi-discipline omnium event and the 22-year-old showed a flawless transition from the boards to the roads to hold off a quality sprint field and break his duck in the “Race of the Two Seas.”
BASKETBALL
Sterling divorce canceled
Former Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and his wife, Shelly Sterling, are to remain in their six-decade marriage. A Los Angeles County Superior Court filing this week said the Sterlings are opting out of the divorce that Donald Sterling filed for in August last year. The move is the latest twist in the saga of the Sterlings, who ended up selling the Clippers for US$2 billion to Microsoft magnate Steve Ballmer in the aftermath of comments Donald Sterling made on a recording to a friend that saw him banned from the NBA. Sterling cited irreconcilable differences in his divorce filings last year and said the couple had been separated since 2012. Attorneys for the two did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
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