GOLF
Rain suspends play at BMW
Heavy rain on Saturday wreaked havoc on the BMW International Open, leaving the leading group of players facing 36 holes yesterday after only four hours of action were possible on the third day. Leading duo Henrik Stenson and Raphael Jacquelin were due to go out for the third round at 1:20pm, with the third man at 11-under, Thailand’s Kiradech Aphibarnrat, due out nine minutes earlier with Thorbjorn Olesen, who was a shot further back. However, rain led to a suspension of play at 11:59am at the Golf Club Gut Laerchenhof in Pulheim, Germany, and play was called off for the day at 4pm.
TENNIS
Johnson wins maiden title
The US’ Steve Johnson on Saturday sealed a first career ATP title by defeating Uruguay’s Pablo Cuevas 7-6 (7/5), 7-5 to win the Aegon Nottingham Open grass-court title. In only his second final, 38th-ranked Johnson edged a tight contest, dropping serve just once. “It feels really good, I’m not going to lie,” said Johnson, who reached the quarter-finals at Queen’s Club last week and is to move inside the world’s top 30 for the first time. “I had some ups and downs so far this year. To find my groove on the grass is fantastic. I had a good week at Queen’s Club and felt pretty comfortable on the grass. Once I got here and played my first couple of matches, I knew I was definitely a contender to win this.” Johnson joins Australia’s Nick Kyrgios and Argentina’s Diego Schwartzman as first-time winners this year.
OLYMPICS
Teddy Tamgho breaks leg
Former world triple jump champion Teddy Tamgho was on Saturday ruled out of the Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro after breaking his leg at the French national trials, the country’s athletics federation said. The 27-year-old suffered the injury to his upper left leg in Angers, where the French championships, which double as the Olympic qualifiers, were taking place. It will take up to six months for the injury to heal, meaning he has no chance of making the Games, which take place on Aug. 5-21. “Again, it was a jump which could have gone to 18m+. But God is great, it’s not over,” the Frenchman, who had to be stretchered off the track and into an ambulance, said on Twitter. Tamgho, who hit the sand heavily and screamed with pain, holding his knee, has been plagued by injury throughout his career. In 2011, he fractured his ankle, broke his left leg for a first time in 2013 and then suffered a ruptured Achilles tendon in Doha in May last year.
OLYMPICS
Bailey-Cole to run with Zika
Jamaican sprinter Kemar Bailey-Cole said he has been infected with the Zika virus, but would participate in his country’s Olympic trials next week. The Gleaner on Saturday reported that the 24-year-old track star said he has rashes and eye pain, but is not afflicted by the muscle pain often associated with the virus, which he caught in Jamaica. Bailey-Cole won a gold medal in the 100m relay at the London Olympics in 2012. His case comes amid rising concern among athletes over a surge in Zika infections in Brazil, where Rio de Janeiro is to host the Olympics in August. Northern Irish golfer Rory McIlroy, US cyclist Tejay van Garderen and British long jumper Greg Rutherford have dropped out of the Games citing Zika worries.
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