CYCLING
Contador to wear No. 1 bib
Three-time winner Alberto Contador is to wear bib No. 1 in his farewell Vuelta a Espana later this month as the Spaniard prepares to bring his career to an end. Contador, who on Monday announced this year’s Vuelta would be his last professional race, will be bidding for a fourth title after his triumphs in 2008, 2012 and 2014. The No. 1 bib is usually reserved for the defending champion, but organizers have broken with tradition and handed it to the Trek-Segafredo rider. “That Alberto chooses Spain and La Vuelta to call it a career is a great honor for the whole organization,” Vuelta general manager Javier Guillen said in a statement. “We are wholeheartedly grateful to the generosity he always demonstrated as a rider and that he shows once again with this decision. Alberto is — and will forever be — part of the history of cycling in our country and elsewhere.” Contador is one of only six riders to have won all three Grand Tours, although two of his nine titles — the 2010 Tour de France and 2011 Giro d’Italia — were expunged from the record books because of a doping ban. This year’s three-week race features a strong lineup, including Tour de France champion Chris Froome and multiple Grand Tour winner Vincenzo Nibali. It begins in Nimes, France, on Aug. 19.
FOOTBALL
Wilfork begins new career
Star defensive tackle Vince Wilfork on Monday announced his retirement from the NFL with a tweet that also launched his new career as a product pitchman. “No more cleats, I’m moving on to smoke meats,” Wilfork says in a video posted on Twitter that showed him wearing denim overalls and brandishing a pair of tongs while standing in front of a barbecue. The post was a promotion for Kingsford Charcoal, in which the 35-year-old promised fans a farewell tailgate party before reigning Super Bowl champions the New England Patriots host the Kansas City Chiefs on Sept. 7 in their season opener. Wilfork played the past two seasons with the Houston Texans, but played his first 11 seasons with the Patriots. New England drafted him the first round of the 2004 NFL draft and he was part of two Super Bowl-winning Patriots squads. Wilfork registered 370 solo tackles and 16 sacks in 189 games — all but 10 of them starts. He added three sacks in 24 post-season games. Wilfork was named to four consecutive Pro Bowl teams from 2009-2012 and was named a first-team All-Pro selection in 2012.
ICE HOCKEY
NHL forbids play in Games
Players with NHL contracts, even those in the minors, will not be allowed to participate in the Winter Olympics in February next year. NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly on Monday confirmed that all players under contract would be treated the same. The league in April announced it would not be stopping its season to go to the Olympics for the first time since 1994, but questions had remained about players in the American Hockey League (AHL) and ECHL. This means players signed to two-way NHL contracts or who are loaned to minor-league affiliates by their clubs will not be available to the US, Canada or other national teams. The AHL earlier this summer said that general managers could decide to allow players on AHL contracts to play in South Korea.
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