GOLF
Johnson switches, takes lead
Dustin Johnson yesterday switched putters at the last moment and then nailed four birdies in his last four holes to seize a one-shot lead at the halfway stage of the US$9.75 million WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai. The world No. 1’s spectacular nine-under-par 63 catapulted him over fellow American and overnight leader — and good friend — Brooks Koepka, who hung on for second on 132 overall. Also in the hunt was Briton Justin Rose and Thai Kiradech Aphibarnrat. They shared third on 135 at “Asia’s major.” Fifth was Patrick Reed of the US, five shots off the lead.
MOTORCYCLING
Dovizioso dominates in wet
Ducati rider Andrea Dovizioso yesterday set the pace during wet Malaysian MotoGP practice, as world title hopeful Marc Marquez twice went off the track. Italy’s Dovizioso, who faces an uphill battle to stop Marquez winning his second straight world championship, clocked two minutes, 00.671 seconds, while Marquez was 0.279 seconds slower in fifth on the overall standings. Honda rider Marquez leads Dovizioso by 33 points and he can clinch the world title with a race to spare by finishing first or second at the Sepang International Circuit, where his sole victory was in 2014. Yesterday’s best times were all set in the morning session, when the track was damp after a brief shower, while the afternoon run was soaking wet.
SWIMMING
Campbell rediscovers love
Australian swimmer Cate Campbell professed a new-found love for her sport after breaking the 100m freestyle short course world record upon her return from a long break. The 25-year-old clocked a time of 50.25 seconds at the Australian Short Course Swimming Championships in Adelaide to beat Swede Sarah Sjostrom’s record time by 0.33 seconds. It was Campbell’s first competition since last year’s Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, where she failed to medal in the 50m and 100m freestyle events. The former 100m freestyle world champion described her Rio campaign as “possibly the greatest choke in Olympic history” and took a prolonged hiatus, opting out of the world championships earlier this year. “I’ve come back refreshed and I’ve got a new love for the sport, a new perspective and I’m more motivated than ever for the Commonwealth Games,” Campbell said after her record-breaking performance on Thursday.
RUGBY UNION
Indo-Pacific league mulled
Mining magnate Andrew Forrest yesterday said his six-team Indo-Pacific Rugby Championship (IPRC) could be up and running by late next year following talks with the Australian Rugby Union (ARU). The billionaire Fortescue Metals chairman met with the ARU board this week and said the governing body was set to provide a preferred playing window, information on player eligibility and approve the IPRC in principle by Thursday next week. “Twiggy” Forrest, who is setting up the new league in the wake of the Western Force’s controversial axing from Super Rugby, said he had presented the ARU with two possible windows for the tournament — July to October next year or March to June 2019. Both timetables would compete directly with either the National Rugby Championship or Super Rugby.
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