BASEBALL
Rangers to start Darvish
Texas right-hander Yu Darvish has been activated from the disabled list to make his first major league start in nearly 22 months. The Rangers reinstated Darvish before Saturday night’s game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. Third baseman/outfielder Joey Gallo was optioned to Triple-A Round Rock to make room on the active roster for Darvish, who last pitched in a major league game on Aug. 9, 2014, and had Tommy John surgery in March last year. Darvish made five rehab starts this month split between Triple-A Round Rock and Double-A Frisco. The Japanese pitcher struck out 21 in 20 innings, while allowing only two earned runs. In his first three seasons with the Rangers, Darvish was 39-25 with a 3.27 earned run average in 83 starts from 2012-2014.
BOXING
Burns defeats Di Rocco
Ricky Burns has become Scotland’s first three-weight world champion after beating Michele Di Rocco for the vacant WBA super lightweight title. In front of a parochial crowd on Saturday night at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro, Burns floored the 34-year-old Italian in the eighth round, leaving him in no state to continue, according to the referee. It was the first time 33-year-old Burns, a former WBO super featherweight and lightweight champion, had fought in the city since losing to Dejan Zlaticanin in June 2014. Burns had lost three of his past six bouts. After an absorbing contest, with both boxers swapping punches, Burns regained control in round eight, flooring his opponent with a right-hander, with Di Rocco unable to go on.
CYCLING
Kimmann wins at worlds
Niek Kimmann of the Netherlands on Saturday won the men’s time trial and Caroline Buchanan of Australia took the women’s race at the BMX World Championships. Kimmann covered the course in 36.858 seconds, edging Sam Willoughby of Australia by 0.037 seconds. Maris Strombergs of Latvia, the two-time Olympic gold medalist, finished third. Buchanan finished in 41.641 seconds, 0.301 seconds better than Laura Smulders of the Netherlands. Mariana Pajon of Colombia, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist, was third at the course named in her honor. The world championships were to conclude yesterday with the men’s and women’s elite races.
SWIMMING
Russia sweep Speedo 50m
Vladimir Morozov on Saturday night led a Russian sweep of the 50m freestyle at the Speedo Grand Challenge. Morozov, who trains in Los Angeles, touched first in 21.92 seconds. Alexander Sukhorukov was second in 22.29, and Nikita Lobintsev third in 22.40. Chelsea Chenault won the 200m freestyle in 1 minute, 59.92 seconds. Kirsten Vose, who won the 200m individual medley on Friday, was second. Haley Anderson, the 2012 Olympic silver medalist in the 10km open-water race, finished third in the tune-up meet for next month’s US Olympic swimming trials. National team member Kendyl Stewart won the 100m butterfly in 58.66 to go with the 50m free she won on Friday. Jordan Wilimovsky, who already qualified for the US team for Rio, won the 400m free in 3 minutes, 52.34 seconds. He was the first swimmer to qualify by virtue of his victory in the 10km open-water race at last year’s world championships in Kazan, Russia. Cristian Quintero of Venezuela, who won the 200m free on Friday, finished second. Two-time Danish Olympian Mads Glaesner was third.
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