UNIVERSIADE
Ugandan team confirmed
Ugandan athletes are to take part in the Taipei Universiade as scheduled, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said yesterday. After receiving Ugandan government’s support, the team was to arrive before the opening ceremony tomorrow, ministry spokeswoman Eleanor Wang said at a news briefing in response to media reports earlier this week that the Ugandan government had ordered the team not to attend. In a tweet three days earlier, Norman Katende, director of media communications at the International Association of Athletics Federations World Cross Country Championships Kampala, indicated that the Ugandan team had been ordered not to attend because of the nation’s “one China” policy. Katende tweeted an image that he said was a photograph of a directive from the Ugandan Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Ugandan Ministry of Education advising the national team not to attend the Universiade and citing the policy. However, Wang said she was pleased to hear that the Ugandan team would be attending the Games.
SOCCER
Barca ‘close’ to signings
Barcelona sporting manager Pep Segura has said the club was “close” to signing Liverpool’s Philippe Coutinho and Ousmane Dembele from Borussia Dortmund. Speaking after Wednesday’s 2-0 defeat against Real Madrid in the second leg of the Supercopa gave their archrivals a 5-1 aggregate victory, Segura said Barcelona were discussing terms with the attacking duo. “We are close to Coutinho and Dembele, we are discussing their conditions, but we do not know when they will be sealed,” Segura told Spanish television station TV3. “We hope they will be Barcelona players this season.” Barcelona, who on Monday said they had agreed a deal to sign Brazilian midfielder Paulinho for 40 million euros (US$47.19 million), are looking to fill the void left by Neymar after his world record 222 million euro transfer to Paris Saint-Germain.
SOCCER
Celtic win first leg
Celtic have one foot in the Champions League group stages after a Scott Sinclair double helped his side to a 5-0 thrashing of Astana in their play-off round first leg in Glasgow on Wednesday. An own-goal from Evgeni Postnikov opened the scoring in the 32nd minute before Sinclair doubled Celtic’s advantage 10 minutes later. The English winger then grabbed his sixth goal of the season on the hour before James Forrest added another in the 79th minute. Leigh Griffiths helped round off the rout in the 79th minute with a deflection off Igor Shitov to help the Scottish champions secure a commanding advantage to take to Kazakhstan for the return leg next week.
BOXING
Glove weight announced
Mixed martial arts champion Conor McGregor is happy about the switch to lighter gloves for his Aug. 26 fight against undefeated boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr and says his opponent will now struggle to make it past the second round. The Nevada State Athletic Commission on Wednesday, just 10 days before the hotly anticipated Las Vegas fight, approved requests from Mayweather and McGregor to wear 8 ounce gloves rather than 10 ounce ones. “That was a good thing for me. I’m very happy with it,” McGregor told reporters on a conference call.
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
Rafael Nadal on Wednesday said the upcoming French Open would be the moment to “give everything and die” on the court after his comeback from injury in Barcelona was curtailed by Alex de Minaur. The 22-time Grand Slam title winner, back playing this week after three months on the sidelines, battled well, but eventually crumbled 7-5, 6-1 against the world No. 11 from Australia in the second round. Nadal, 37, who missed virtually all of last season, is hoping to compete at the French Open next month where he is the record 14-time champion. The Spaniard said the clash with De Minaur was
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