GOLF
Tour gains new sponsors
The USPGA Tour is to have two new title sponsors for next season as it reverts to traditional dates after changes for this year to accommodate golf’s return to the Olympic Games, the Tour said on Monday. The sport’s most lucrative circuit starts in mid-October and is to comprise 47 tournaments before it concludes with the Sept. 21 to Sept. 24 Tour Championship in Atlanta, Georgia, the last of the four FedExCup playoff events. Supermarket chain Safeway takes over as sponsor of the season-opening Safeway Open from Oct. 13 to Oct. 16 at Silverado Resort and Spa in Napa, California, while luxury car brand Genesis backs the long-established event at Riviera Country Club. The newly named Genesis Open is to be played at Riviera in Los Angeles from Feb. 16 to Feb. 19 next year. The elite World Golf Championship (WGC) events are to open with the HSBC Champions in Shanghai in October followed by the newly named Mexico Championship in Mexico City from March 2 to March 5 next year. The Open Championship is to return to Royal Birkdale in Lancashire, England, from July 20 to July 23 next year. The season’s final major, the PGA Championship, is to be staged at Quail Hollow in Charlotte, North Carolina, from Aug. 10 to Aug. 13 next year.
SOCCER
Podolski slams new format
Germany forward Lukas Podolski criticized the new 24-team format for the Euro 2016 tournament, labeling it “stupid,” adding that it created a great deal of confusion among players. European soccer’s governing body UEFA added eight places to the finals tournament since the previous event in 2012, when the top two sides from the four groups advanced straight into quarter-finals. The expansion means four of the best third-placed teams joined the top-two from each of the six groups in a round of 16 and Podolski said sides have been forced to wait too long to discover who their opponents were in the knockouts stages. “The group stage was a little bit strange, because UEFA did some stupid things with the system. It’s not about the smaller teams, it’s about the decisions. Some teams waited three days in the camp for a decision,” Podolski told reporters in France.
SOCCER
Sevilla appoint Sampaoli
Sevilla have appointed Jorge Sampaoli as their new manager after the Spanish side confirmed that the former Chile coach has agreed a two-year deal with the Europa League champions to replace Unai Emery. “Sevilla are counting on the best coach of America in 2015, who begins his first adventure in Europe,” Sevilla said in statement of the man who led his country to their first Copa America triumph last year. Emery, who steered the team to the last three Europa League crowns, was under contract with Sevilla until June 2017, but negotiated a release from his contract.
MIXED MARTIAL ARTS
Ryan Jimmo dies
UFC fighter Ryan Jimmo was fatally injured early on Sunday morning following an altercation in a parking lot in Edmonton, Alberta, police said. They believe Jimmo, 34, had approached the driver of a vehicle and was walking back to his own car when he was struck by a vehicle, which then fled the scene. Jimmo, a Canadian, was pronounced dead in hospital. Police were still looking for the suspect vehicle, described as a dark-colored, customized older-model pickup truck. Known as “The Big Deal” during his mixed martial arts career, Jimmo went 19-5 through his career with a 3-4 record in seven UFC fights.
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