Andrea Dovizioso won yesterday’s Malaysian MotoGP to keep alive his slim chance of winning his first world championship and ensuring this year’s title race will come down to the last round of the year.
The Italian won his sixth race this season to narrow the gap to championship leader Marc Marquez to 21 points with only the Valencia Grand Prix on Nov. 12 to come.
After crashing heavily in practice, Marquez took no risks on a wet Sepang circuit, crossing the line fourth to remain in a commanding position to clinch his fourth world title in five seasons.
Photo: EPA
The only way the 24-year-old Spaniard can lose the championship is if Dovizioso wins in Valencia and Marquez finishes outside the top 11 on his Honda.
Dovizioso’s Ducati teammate Dani Pedrosa finished second after starting from pole position and leading until the last four laps, while France’s Johann Zarco was third for just his second podium finish of the season.
Italy’s Franco Morbidelli wrapped up his first Moto2 title when his lone remaining challenger for the championship, Switzerland’s Thomas Luthi, was ruled out of the race after breaking his ankle in qualifying.
With an unassailable lead and light rain falling on the track, Morbidelli cruised across the finish line in third place, behind Portugal’s Miguel Oliveira, who won his first race in Australia last week, and South Africa’s Brad Binder.
Spain’s Joan Mir, who clinched the Moto3 crown in Australia, won his 10th race of the season in Malaysia.
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