BASKETBALL
Curry suffers knee injury
Golden State Warriors superstar Stephen Curry faces at least two weeks on the sidelines after suffering a sprained right knee, the NBA champions said on Monday. Curry limped off the court during Sunday’s victory against the Houston Rockets, plunging Golden State’s hopes of defending their NBA crown this season into uncertainty. The reigning league Most Valuable Player underwent a magnetic resonance imaging exam on Monday to determine the exact nature of the injury. The Warriors later confirmed Curry had suffered a grade-one medial collateral ligament sprain in his right knee. “He will be re-evaluated in two weeks,” a Warriors statement said. Curry sustained the injury after slipping on a wet spot as he guarded Trevor Ariza, banging his knee on the court. He attempted to test the knee just after halftime by moving laterally, but signaled discomfort and returned to the dressing room. Curry rallied against the gloom with a message to well-wishers on Twitter. “Thanks 4 all the prayers & messages. Can feel all the positive energy. God is Great! All things considered I’m Gonna be alright! #DubNation,” Curry tweeted.
TENNIS
Nadal announces lawsuit
Rafael Nadal on Monday said he had filed a lawsuit in Paris against former French minister of health and sport Roselyne Bachelot after she accused him of covering up a failed drugs test. “Through this case, I intend not only to defend my integrity and my image as an athlete, but also the values I have defended all my career,” he said in a statement announcing “a defamation lawsuit.” He added: “I also wish to prevent any public figure from making insulting or false allegations against an athlete using the media, without any evidence or foundation, and to go unpunished.” Bachelot, who served as French minister of health and sport between 2007 and 2010, made the comments last month on French television when asked about five-time Grand Slam champion Maria Sharapova’s admission that she failed a drug test at the Australian Open. Bachelot alleged that Nadal faked an injury in 2012 — when he missed the final six months of the season due to knee problems — in order to hide a positive drug test.
CYCLING
Rogers forced to retire
Former time-trial world champion Michael Rogers on Monday announced his retirement from professional cycling due to a heart condition. The 36-year-old Australian had not raced since pulling out of the Dubai Tour in February last year. “I’m grateful for my time as a professional cyclist. It’s time to announce my retirement. Thank you cycling!” Rogers wrote on Twitter. A worsening heart condition has forced the Tinkoff rider to call time on his 16-year professional career. “Recent cardiac examinations have identified occurrences of heart arrhythmia, which have never been detected beforehand,” Rogers said in an open letter. “This latest diagnosis, added to the congenital heart condition I was diagnosed with in 2001, means that my competitive career must end.” Rogers competed in four Olympic Games, winning bronze in the road time-trial in Athens in 2004. He won the world time-trial title three years in a row from 2003 to 2005. He competed in 12 editions of the Tour de France, winning a stage in 2014, the same year he won two individual stages at the Giro d’Italia. “Whilst I’m disappointed to miss my 13th Tour de France and a chance to compete at my fifth Olympic Games, I’m not prepared to put my health in jeopardy,” Rogers added.
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