FOOTBALL
Brady leads Pro Bowl picks
Quarterback Tom Brady, who did not play the first four games of the season due to a suspension, on Tuesday earned his eighth straight NFL Pro Bowl selection. Brady tied Hall of Fame guard John Hannah for the most all-star nods in New England Patriots history, as this season’s all-star selections were announced. Brady leads the league in passer rating (109.7) and completion percentage (.669). The Oakland Raiders had a league-high seven players picked to the AFC roster. Oakland’s football revival continues with quarterback Derek Carr, wide receiver Amari Cooper and defensive end Khalil Mack getting the Pro Bowl picks. The Atlanta Falcons paced the NFC with six players chosen, including quarterback Matt Ryan, wide receiver Julio Jones and running back Devonta Freeman. The Pro Bowl is scheduled for Jan. 29 at Camping World Stadium in Orlando, Florida, and is to feature a return to the traditional AFC versus NFC game format following three years using a revised “unconferenced” format.
FOOTBALL
League punishes Giants
The NFL on Tuesday handed the New York Giants a US$150,000 fine for illegal use of communications equipment during their 10-7 win over the Dallas Cowboys on Dec. 11. In addition, Giants head coach Ben McAdoo was fined US$50,000, while the team’s fourth-round draft pick is to be moved to the end of the round. The infractions resulted from McAdoo’s use of a walkie-talkie in the fourth quarter of the regular-season contest. US media reported that McAdoo turned to the walkie-talkies for a handful of fourth-quarter plays after the team’s official communications equipment malfunctioned and there were problems sending in plays to quarterback Eli Manning. “League policy prohibits a coach from using such devices in a game,” an NFL spokesman said.
RUGBY UNION
France to only select French
France will no longer select non-French players for its national team, French Rugby Federation president Bernard Laporte said on Tuesday. The news came following a meeting between the federation and World Rugby president Bill Beaumont in Paris. “I told Bill that we’ve taken the political decision to stop playing foreign players in the national team,” said Laporte, who was elected federation president on Dec. 3. The issue of foreign qualified players is contentious, particularly for the Pacific Islands — Fiji, Samoa and Tonga — who often lose talented players that opt to represent some of the bigger, richer nations. Current France players — including New Zealand-born prop Uini Atonio, South African-born fullback Scott Spedding and Fijian wings Noa Nakaitaci and Virimi Vakatawa — are to remain eligible to represent France, but other foreign-born players will not be allowed to follow suit. “Obviously, it’s not retroactive. Those playing can continue playing, but it’s a strong signal for French academies and our youngsters that we’ll play a maximum number of Frenchmen,” Laporte said. World Rugby rules stipulate a player can represent another country if he has lived there for three consecutive years and has not yet played for anyone else. World Rugby is looking at extending that criteria to five years.
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