BASEBALL
Chen to start in opener
Miami Marlins manager Don Mattingly on Sunday named Taiwanese left-hander Chen Wei-yin as their opening game starting pitcher for this year’s MLB season. Chen is to take the mound in a season opener for the first time in his North American career when the National League Marlins host the American League’s Detroit Tigers on April 5. The 30-year-old southpaw signed a five-year deal worth US$80 million with Miami in the off-season after spending his first four North American seasons with the American League’s Baltimore Orioles. Chen, the Orioles’ first player from Taiwan, went 11-8 with a 3.34 ERA last season and overall in Baltimore was 46-32 with a 3.72 ERA and 547 strikeouts. Chen played for Taiwan in the 2004 and 2008 Olympics and spent eight seasons with the Japan League’s Chunichi Dragons from 2004 through 2011.
BASEBALL
Ball strikes Liriano in face
Milwaukee Brewers outfielder Rymer Liriano was stretchered off and taken to a hospital after being struck a horrifying blow to the face while batting against Los Angeles Dodgers right-hander Matt West in a pre-season game on Sunday. West’s pitch in the eighth inning struck Liriano flush on the left side of his face, just below the brim of his batting helmet and he crumpled to the ground, his arms and legs flailing. Team trainers and medical staff tended him before he was immobilized then driven off the field to a waiting ambulance and taken to a hospital. “Rymer Liriano suffered multiple facial fractures during today’s game and will remain in the hospital for further testing and observation,” the Brewers wrote on Twitter late on Sunday. Earlier, Brewers manager Craig Counsell had said that Liriano was conscious, but added: “It’s serious. He got hit in the head. I can’t give you many details.”
ATHLETICS
Kotlyarova fails drug test
Russian 400m runner Nadezhda Kotlyarova said she has tested positive for the banned substance meldonium. Kotlyarova tells Russia’s Tass agency that she failed a drug test at last month’s Russian indoor championships and is protesting her innocence. She said the spate of positive tests for the endurance-boosting meldonium, which was added to the banned list from Jan. 1, is “injustice,” adding that she intends “to see this situation out to the end.” Kotlyarova, 26, raced at last year’s world championships in Beijing, reaching the semi-finals, and was also part of the Russian relay team that won silver in the 4x400m at the 2013 European indoor championships.
CRICKET
Bangladesh appeal ban
Bangladesh have appealed to cricket’s world governing body to lift the suspension on paceman Taskin Ahmed, who was ruled out of the ongoing World Twenty20 in India due to an illegal action. Taskin and left-arm spinner Arafat Sunny were on Saturday suspended from bowling in international cricket after being reported by match officials following Bangladesh’s qualifying match against the Netherlands in Dharamsala, India, on March 9. While Sunny’s elbow extension for the majority of his deliveries exceeded the 15o limit, not all of Taskin’s balls were found to be legal, the International Cricket Council said while announcing their suspensions. Bangladesh, who came through the qualifiers to reach the Super 10 stage, lost to Pakistan in their opening Group Two match on Wednesday last week.
Bayer 04 Leverkusen go into today’s match at TSG 1899 Hoffenheim stung from their first league defeat in 16 months. Leverkusen were beaten 3-2 at home by RB Leipzig before the international break, the first loss since May last year for the reigning league and cup champions. While any defeat, particularly against a likely title rival, would have disappointed coach Xabi Alonso, the way in which it happened would be most concerning. Just as they did in the Supercup against VfB Stuttgart and in the league opener to Borussia Moenchengladbach, Leverkusen scored first, but were pegged back. However, while Leverkusen rallied late to
If all goes well when the biggest marathon field ever gathered in Australia races 42km through the streets of Sydney on Sunday, World Marathon Majors (WMM) will soon add a seventh race to the elite series. The Sydney Marathon is to become the first race since Tokyo in 2013 to join long-established majors in New York, London, Boston, Berlin and Chicago if it passes the WMM assessment criteria for the second straight year. “We’re really excited for Sunday to arrive,” race director Wayne Larden told a news conference in Sydney yesterday. “We’re prepared, we’re ready. All of our plans look good on
The lights dimmed and the crowd hushed as Karoline Kristensen entered for her performance. However, this was no ordinary Dutch theater: The temperature was 80°C and the audience naked apart from a towel. Dressed in a swimsuit and to the tune of emotional music, the 21-year-old Kristensen started her routine, performed inside a large sauna, with a bed of hot rocks in the middle. For a week this month, a group of wellness practitioners, called “sauna masters,” are gathering at a picturesque health resort in the Netherlands to compete in this year’s Aufguss world sauna championships. The practice takes its name from a
When details from a scientific experiment that could have helped clear Russian figure skater Kamila Valieva landed at the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA), the leader of the organization’s reaction was unequivocal: “We have to stop that urgently,” he wrote. No mention of the test ever became public and Valieva’s defense at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) went on without it. What effect the information could have had on Valieva’s case is unclear, but without it, the skater, then 15 years old, was eventually disqualified from the 2022 Winter Olympics after testing positive for a banned heart medication that would later