RUGBY
Two players test for cocaine
Wakefield prop Adam Walker has been suspended after testing positive for cocaine, his club said on Saturday — the second player to fail a drugs test in the same match. The 26-year-old Scotland international was tested following Wakefield Trinity’s 36-8 win at Widnes on July 14. A Scotland international since 2013, he was earlier this week named in Steve McCormack’s 40-man initial squad for the this year’s World Cup. On Thursday, Widnes announced that their New Zealand-born stand-off Rangi Chase has been suspended indefinitely after testing positive for cocaine in the same match.
GOLF
Curry short of Ellie Mae cut
Stephen Curry on Friday impressed the professionals and the large gallery following him as the NBA all-star fired his second consecutive 74 in the second round of the Web.com Tour’s Ellie Mae Classic. However, despite the gutsy performance in his professional debut, Curry came up well short of making the cut, with an eight-over 148 total. There were four other golfers who shot worse scores than Curry. The cut line fell at three under. “I hit some really good shots, but a lot more poor shots,” he said. Andrew Yun leads the tournament at 13-under 127 after a 62 in the second round. Brandon Harkins is one behind after a 65.
CRICKET
India trounces Sri Lanka
India has forced Sri Lanka to follow on in the second cricket Test, commanding a 439-run lead at lunch on the third day Saturday. Sri Lanka was dismissed to 183 in its first innings in reply to India’s 622 for nine declared. Meanwhile, a brilliant 99 from Jonny Bairstow led England to a good first innings total of 362 all out against South Africa on the second day of their fourth Test at Old Trafford.
SOCCER
Neymar jerseys selling fast
Neymar started repaying his mammoth transfer fee on the day he was introduced as Paris Saint-Germain’s marquee summer signing with the club selling more than 10,000 shirts bearing his name on Friday. If PSG can keep that up, they would have recouped the transfer fee by mid-March next year, within the first season of Neymar’s five-year deal — although in reality that revenue is shared with shirt manufacturer Nike, meaning it would actually take twice as long. Such is the demand for the shirt at one of two PSG stores, on the iconic Champs Elysees boulevard and the team’s outlet at their Parc des Princes home, that shoppers yesterday were to be limited to a single jersey each.
FOOTBALL
Brady gets goats for birthday
Five baby goats on Thursday were brought to training camp practice by the reigning Super Bowl champion New England Patriots as the team celebrated superstar quarterback Tom Brady’s 40th birthday. Brady, a five-time Super Bowl champion with the Patriots, has often been tagged with the term “GOAT” as an abbreviation for “Greatest Of All Time” and he celebrated this birthday as he has many others, with a workout at the Patriots’ training camp. Each baby goat wore a Patriots jersey bearing Brady’s number 12 with a huge “GOAT” sign displayed in his tribute.
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