GOLF
Storm stops play
A storm washed out the second round of the Honda LPGA in Thailand yesterday, with pools of water on the fairways preventing any significant play. The mid-morning downpour meant leaders Ariya Jutanugarn and Amy Yang — both on six-under-par after round one — were among the players unable to tee-off. Taiwan’s Yani Tseng and Candie Kung, both well down the field, also did not tee off. Round two was to resume today at 7am, with round three to follow immediately afterward.
CRICKET
O’Keefe routs India
Australia left-arm spinner Steve O’Keefe dispatched six India batsmen in just 24 deliveries after lunch as the visitors took a strong hold on the first Test in Pune yesterday. India were at 94-3 on day two before O’Keefe turned on the style against a stunned batting order, who offered no resistance as he raced to career-best figures of 6-35. India conceded a 155-run first-innings lead and Australia made the deficit 298, moving to 143-4 with Steven Smith (59) and Mitchell Marsh (21) the not-out batsmen at stumps.
FOOTBALL
Bernie Custis dies
Bernie Custis, the first black starting quarterback in professional football, died on Thursday aged 88, the Canadian Football League said. Custis made history in 1951 when he started a game for the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. “Trailblazers are rightly remembered for being the first,” league commissioner Jeffrey Orridge said in a statement. “Bernie Custis, the first black professional quarterback in the modern era starting with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats in 1951, should be revered as well for being one of our best... A true gentleman, he brought honor to our game and our league, and provided us with a role model to emulate.” Custis played for Syracuse University from 1948 to 1950 and was drafted in 1951 by the NFL’s Cleveland Browns, who used him as a defensive back. Determined to play quarterback, Custis signed with Hamilton as a quarterback-running back and helped the Tiger-Cats to a Grey Cup title in 1953.
ATHLETICS
Russian athletes cleared
Track and field authorities have cleared three more Russian athletes to compete at next month’s world indoor track championships. The International Association of Athletics Federations established new criteria requiring Russian athletes to show they had been subject to compliant anti-doping regimens while the Russian track federation is suspended. The three athletes cleared on Thursday are pole vaulter Anzhelika Sidorova, sprinter Kristina Sivkova and hammer thrower Aleksei Sokirskii.
SOCCER
Maracana power restored
Power was restored to the Maracana Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Thursday almost a month after it was cut off because the stadium’s administrators had not paid the bill, the city’s electricity company Light said. Power was restored after the stadium’s managers paid the 1.3 million reais (US$424,670) owed for November, December and January, the company said. The stadium, which hosted the 2014 FIFA World Cup final and the closing ceremonies of last year’s Olympics and Paralympics, has fallen into a state of disrepair as authorities battled over who should run the ground.
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