RACING
Racetrack gunman kills 3
Three people were shot dead on Sunday at a drag racetrack in Wisconsin, authorities said, but it was unclear who was responsible and what the motive might have been. The shooting took place at the Great Lakes Dragaway in Union Grove, Wisconsin, Kenosha County Sheriff David Beth told reporters. Several thousand people were at the track at the time, which was evacuated. No suspects were in custody, authorities said, and no motive had been determined. “We’re not aware of any danger to the community,” Beth said. The victims, all men in their 20s or early 30s, were from Illinois. They were standing near a food vendor when a gunman approached and shot them at what appeared to have been point-blank range, Beth said.
FOOTBALL
Bennett to sit out anthems
Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett on Sunday said he is to sit during the national anthem this season to protest social injustice and segregation. Bennett sat on the visiting bench during the anthem before the Seahawks’ pre-season opener against the Los Angeles Rams, a decision he made prior to protests by white supremacists at the University of Virginia over the weekend. However, what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, solidified Bennett’s decision. “With everything that’s been going on the last couple of months and especially after the last couple of days, seeing everything in Virginia, seeing what’s going on out there earlier today in Seattle, I just wanted to be able to use my platform to be able to continue to speak over injustice,” Bennett said.
BASEBALL
Stanton hits franchise record
Giancarlo Stanton on Sunday homered for the fourth straight game, hitting his 42nd of the year to tie the Marlins’ season record, as Miami won 5-3 to complete its first series sweep of the Colorado Rockies since 2006. Stanton homered leading off the third inning to match Gary Sheffield’s team record set in 1996. It was the 250th homer of Stanton’s career and came in his 941st game. Only five players since 1913 have reached the 250 milestone faster.
SOCCER
Six red cards in SA opener
An extraordinary start to the South African season saw six players and coaches red-carded as Wits scraped into the semi-finals of a knockout competition with the Golden Arrows this weekend. The debut of Montenegrin Slavko Damjanovic for league champions Wits lasted just 22 minutes before being sent off for kicking an opponent so hard in the face he concussed him. A second yellow card for Zimbabwean Danny Phiri of the Arrows on the stroke of half-time reduced both teams to 10 men. Constant second-half swearing led to Wits coach Gavin Hunt and Arrows coach Clinton Larsen and his assistant, Mandla Ncikazi, being sent to the grandstand. The referee flashed his red card again during extra-time to expel Siyabonga Dube of Arrows for head-butting Malawian Frank “Gabadinho” Mhango. Amid the chaos, Wits won 4-3 on penalties after a 2-2 draw that seemed an unlikely result midway through the first half when the Arrows led 10-man Wits by two goals.
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