GOLF
Dodt extends Mauritius lead
Andrew Dodt opened a three-shot lead at the Afrasia Bank Mauritius Open after putting together a solid two-under 70 in the second round on Friday. The Australian extended his overnight advantage at the Four Seasons Golf Club Mauritius at Anahita with five birdies to go eight-under overall. He had an adventurous back nine, with four of those birdies, a bogey and a double-bogey seven on his way back in. However, in blustery sea winds on the Indian Ocean island’s east coast, that round proved to be one of the best. South Korea’s Wang Jeung-hun, who won his maiden European Tour title last week in Morocco, is second on five-under after also carding a 70. Taiwan’s Hung Chien-yao — among the first to finish yesterday — was in 70th after a third-round 78 took him to 228 overall. Lu Wei-chih (151st overall) and Lee Chieh-po (156th) missed the cut.
RUGBY UNION
Beale signs deal with Wasps
Australia utility back Kurtley Beale has joined English Premiership club Wasps from the New South Wales Waratahs, because he wants to experience the passion for the game in Europe. The 27-year-old is to become the highest-paid player in England on a two-year deal worth £1.5 million pounds (US$2.15 million), according to British media reports. Wasps announced the deal on their Web site on Friday, with Beale’s future having been the subject of intense media speculation all season. Beale, known for his versatility in the back line, has 60 caps for his country and played a key role in Australia’s run to last year’s Rugby World Cup final. “The passion for the game in Europe is huge and I want to be a part of it... I want to win trophies with Wasps in the Premiership and Europe, and continue playing for the Wallabies,” Beale said.
BASKETBALL
Russia bans 24 players
The Russian Basketball Federation said it has banned 24 players from 11 clubs as part of an investigation into gambling. The punishments follow an anti-corruption campaign under federation president Andrei Kirilenko, who played 13 seasons in the NBA with teams including the Utah Jazz and Brooklyn Nets. The federation said in a statement that it analyzed bookmakers’ data as part of the probe, which found cases of players betting on games involving their own clubs. The players, who all play in the second-level Russian Superleague, were banned for periods ranging from six months to three years. The federation did not provide a breakdown of which player had been banned for which offense, but said some had received reduced sentences, because they gave “honest” confessions.
SOCCER
Leicester’s sales skyrocket
Leicester City’s march to the Premier League title has been accompanied by a boost in sales revenue, with global exports of club merchandise more than doubling this season. According to statistics released on Friday by DHL, the club’s official logistics partner, the US is now importing more Leicester shirts, mugs and general merchandise than any other country, four times more than the next biggest importer, Australia. Leicester merchandise has been exported to 66 countries in all — more than twice as many as at the start of the season — while the efforts of Leicester manager Claudio Ranieri and forward Shinji Okazaki have boosted sales in Italy and Japan respectively. “It was brilliant to see the team’s hard work and dedication pay off this season,” Leicester commercial director Ian Flanagan said
SWIMMING
Park seeks mediation
Former Olympic swimming champion Park Tae-hwan has asked the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS) to “mediate” with the [South] Korean Olympic Committee (KOC), the committee said yesterday, after he was left off the team due to a controversial doping ban. Park, who has already served an 18-month doping ban imposed by world governing body FINA, is fighting to overturn a committee regulation that has tacked on an additional three-year suspension, which would rule him out of the Rio de Janeiro Olympics. Critics of the regulation say it punishes an athlete twice for the same offense, but the committee says it is aimed at keeping South Korean sport free of doping. “Park asked CAS for mediation and CAS notified the KOC and the swimming federation that such a request came in,” a committee spokesman said. He added that while Park had requested an interview with the committee and a meeting had been scheduled for May 25, the committee had not shifted its position. “There is no change in the KOC stance that doping should be dealt with zero tolerance,” the spokesman said. Park’s management agency said he had filed his appeal with CAS on April 26, but asked the sporting tribunal to suspend it two days later until he had received a final decision from the committee. “We are still waiting,” said a Team GMP spokeswoman by telephone, adding that they would only proceed if the committee did not provide a “positive resolution.”
RUGBY UNION
Montpellier claim cup
Montpellier, fired by a brace of tries from Australian fullback Jesse Mogg, sealed a first-ever trophy when they beat Harlequins 26-19 in the European Challenge Cup final on Friday. Quins at first rode the heavyweight Montpellier pack, boasting five South Africans, ex-All Blacks flyhalf Nick Evans thriving off their ill-discipline to land three first-half penalties. However, a try in each half from former Brumbie Mogg, capped three times by the Wallabies, and the metronomic boot of South African flyhalf Demetri Catrakilis, who amassed 16 points from four penalties and two conversions, were just enough to see off the London side, despite Marland Yarde’s late converted try and a Ben Botica penalty. The result ensured there was no fairytale ending to Conor O’Shea’s reign at Quins, the Irishman now moving on to coach Italy. “Montpellier are obviously a very good team, they were very physical and made the breakdown a dogfight,” Quins skipper Danny Care said. “We gave them too many points and you can’t expect to win a cup final if you do that,” he said. “We didn’t have the full 80-minute performance today.”
FORMULA ONE
Hamilton takes pole
Triple world champion Lewis Hamilton yesterday beat teammate Nico Rosberg to pole position at the Spanish Grand Prix in a front-row sweep for dominant Mercedes. Red Bull filled the second row, with Australian Daniel Ricciardo third and Dutch teenager Max Verstappen a stunning fourth on his debut weekend with the team after moving up from Toro Rosso. Ferrari’s Kimi Raikkonen and Sebastian Vettel qualified a disappointing fifth and sixth respectively. Mercedes have now taken 11 poles in a row, with Rosberg aiming for his eighth successive victory today and hoping to become only the third driver to win the first five races of a season. The German is 43 points ahead of Hamilton.
Taiwanese world No. 1 women’s doubles star Hsieh Su-wei on Saturday overcame a first-set loss to win her opening match at the Madrid Open. Top seeds Hsieh and partner Elise Mertens of Belgium, with whom she last month won her fourth Indian Wells women’s doubles title, bounced back from a rocky first set to beat Asia Muhammad of the US and Aldila Sutjiadi of Indonesia 2-6, 6-4, 10-2. Hsieh and Mertens were next to face Heather Watson of the UK and Xu Yifan of China in the round of 16. Thirty-eight-year-old Hsieh last month reclaimed her world No. 1 spot after her Indian
EYES ON THE PRIZE: Armed with three solid men’s singles shuttlers and doubles Olympic champions, Taiwan aim to make their first Thomas Cup semi-final, Chou Tien-chen said Taiwanese badminton star Tai Tzu-ying yesterday quickly dispatched Malaysia’s Goh Jin Wei in straight sets, while her male counterpart Chou Tien-chen beat Germany’s Kai Schaefer, as Taiwan’s women’s and men’s teams won their Group B opening rounds of the TotalEnergies BWF Thomas and Uber Cup Finals in Chengdu, China. World No. 5 Tai beat Goh 21-19, 22-20 in a speedy 33 minutes, her fourth straight victory over the world No. 24 shuttler since they first faced each other in the quarter-finals of the 2018 Malaysia Open, where Tai went on to win the women’s singles title. Malaysia followed up Tai’s opening victory
Chen Yi-tung (陳奕通) secured a historic Olympic berth on Sunday by winning the senior men’s foil event at the 2024 Asia Oceania Zonal Olympic Fencing Qualifiers in United Arab Emirates. Chen defeated Samuel Elijah of Singapore 15-4 in the final in Dubai to secure the only wild card in the event, making him the first male Olympian fencer from Taiwan in 36 years and only the sixth Taiwanese fencer to ever qualify for the quadrennial event. The last appearance by a Taiwanese male fencer at the Olympics was in 1988, when Wang San-tsai (王三財) and Cheng Ming-hsiang (鄭明祥) competed in Seoul. The
A soccer jersey carrying a national map including disputed Western Sahara has become a hot commodity in Morocco after a diplomatic dispute with Algeria. Retailers said RS Berkane jerseys have been flying off the shelves after a Confederation of African Football (CAF) Cup match against Algerian club USM Alger was canceled last month over the jerseys. “We are overwhelmed by the influx of messages and requests,” said Brahim Rabii, representative of the official RS Berkane jersey distributor. Algeria broke off diplomatic relations with Morocco in 2021, partly over the issue of Western Sahara. The former Spanish colony is largely controlled by Morocco, but claimed