BADMINTON
Taiwan Open loses No. 1
Malaysia’s badminton association (BAM) has pulled world No. 1 Lee Chong Wei out of this month’s Taiwan Open to let him recover from a leg injury and regain full fitness ahead of this summer’s Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. The 33-year-old sustained the injury on the way to claiming his sixth Indonesian Open title earlier this month and later pulled out of the Australian Open. “We pulled him out because we’re not completely sure if he’s ready to play after his injury in Australia,” BAM technical director Morten Frost said. “He’s getting on with the training program and that’s a good sign for us. We’re also having a nice relaxed atmosphere in our preparations for the Olympics. It certainly helps Chong Wei in his mental preparation.” Lee, who lost the past two Olympic singles finals to China’s Lin Dan, returned to action in May last year after a backdated eight-month doping ban for testing positive for dexamethasone, an anti-inflammatory drug, at the 2014 world championships.
SOCCER
Pique denies accusations
Barcelona defender Gerard Pique insisted he was merely crossing his fingers after being accused of raising his middle finger during the Spanish national anthem before his side’s Euro 2016 game against Croatia. Pique, an outspoken supporter of a referendum for Catalan independence, was representing Spain for the 78th time in their 2-1 defeat to Croatia on Tuesday. “I am crossing my fingers during the anthem,” Pique posted on his official Twitter account. “We should stop looking for controversy where there is none and try to win the Euros together.” Spanish sports daily Marca labeled those making the accusations as “lamentable.” Spain coach Vicente del Bosque was also visibly annoyed at being asked about the incident. “I am here to talk about football,” Del Bosque said.
RUGBY UNION
Wales re-sign staff
Wales have kept faith with coach Warren Gatland’s backroom staff for the 2019 World Cup, handing his assistants Rob Howley and Robin McBryde contract extensions, the Welsh Rugby Union said yesterday. The union conducted a review after Wales made the quarter-finals of last year’s World Cup and decided they wanted to maintain the coaching unit, chief executive Martyn Phillips said. “We concluded that this is a tight, ambitious coaching team and one we believe will make us more competitive in 2019,” Phillips said in a statement. Attack coach Howley has been part of the Wales setup since 2008 and forwards specialist McBryde joined in 2006. They follow the lead of defense coach Shaun Edwards, who signed a contract extension in December last year. Gatland, already Wales’s longest-serving coach, had committed himself to taking the team to the 2019 tournament in Japan three years ago.
ATHLETICS
Italy walker accused
The Italian track and field federation says it has been notified that 2008 Olympic race walking champion Alex Schwazer is facing another doping case. The Gazzetta dello Sport yesterday reported that Schwazer and the Italian federation, FIDAL, were informed a day earlier that a May 12 retest of a Jan. 1 doping control sample showed positive traces. The retest was conducted after Schwazer qualified for the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro. FIDAL confirmed to reporters that the Gazzetta report was accurate. Schwazer’s lawyer, Gerhard Brandstaetter, said the newspaper report was “false and unbelievable” and threatened legal action.
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