BOXING
Berchelt dethrones Vargas
Miguel Berchelt dethroned previously unbeaten Francisco Vargas in Las Vegas on Saturday, stopping him in the 11th round to seize the World Boxing Council super featherweight title in a showdown of Mexican rivals. Referee Raul Caiz halted the bout 2 minutes, 19 seconds into the 11th round after a bloody cut over the left eye of Vargas left the champion unable to see or stop the triumphant challenger. “Francisco Vargas is a great champion. When he’s hurt he throws a lot more punches. He’s got a lot of heart, but I came here to win. I came here to show I have heart. I came here to be the champion,” Berchelt said. Berchelt, 25, improved to 31-1 with his 28th early stoppage and 10th consecutive victory, while Vargas, 32, fell to 23-1 with two drawn. Japan’s Takashi Miura, who lost the title to Vargas 14 months ago, knocked out Mexico’s Miguel Roman 53 seconds into the 12th round on the undercard in Indio, California, to become Berchelt’s mandatory title challenger. Miura improved to 31-3 with two drawn by taking his 24th career knockout, his first knockout beyond the ninth round, while Roman fell to 56-12 with his 18-fight winning streak snapped.
CYCLING
Arndt wins Ocean Race
Germany’s Nikias Arndt won the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race in Geelong, Australia, yesterday after a tight sprint to the finish line that saw him narrowly beat Australians Simon Gerrans and Cameron Meyer. Team Sunweb’s Arndt took the third edition of the 174km race in 4 hours, 19 minutes, 15 seconds. Local stars Gerrans of Orica-Scott and Meyer of the Australian national team finished second and third respectively on the same time. It was the first triumph for the 25-year-old since he won a stage of the Giro d’Italia in May last year. Meyer attacked with about 800m to go and Arndt said he was not sure if he could catch the 29-year-old. “I got in the slipstream and I felt I could go faster, but 250m to go I am not sure if I would catch him,” Arndt told Channel Seven after the race. “The last meters I got really close and could go over.”
GOLF
Lewis, Thompson share lead
Stacy Lewis eagled the final hole to seize a share of the lead alongside fellow American Lexi Thompson after Saturday’s third round of the LPGA Pure Silk Bahamas Classic. Lewis’ 10-under 63 at the Ocean Club course on Paradise Island included two eagles and seven birdies, and her 23-under total of 196 put her level at the top of the leaderboard with Thompson, who followed her record-setting second-round 61 with a bogey-free 66. The duo were one stroke in front of Gerina Piller of the US, who carded her second straight 65 for 197. Overnight leader Brittany Lincicome was a further stroke back after a 69. Hsu Wei-ling was tied for 17th on 12-under after a 70, while fellow Taiwanese Min Lee was another four shots back after a 69. Kaohsiung-born Candie Kung was on six-under after carding a 70.
GOLF
Wang leads by three shots
South Korea’s Wang Jeung-hun broke from the pack at the Qatar Masters on Saturday, shooting a faultless seven-under 65 to lead by three shots going into the final day. The 21-year-old hit three birdies on the opening nine and followed that up with four more after the turn to card the lowest score of the third round. He finished on 15-under, three ahead of playing partner Jaco van Zyl of South Africa and Spain’s Nacho Elvira, both with 68s. One shot further back was South Africa’s Thomas Aiken, who carded a 69.
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