FOOTBALL
‘Futility’ parade for Browns
More than 2,000 Cleveland Browns fans on Saturday held a parade around their team’s stadium to vent their frustration at the team’s 0-16 season, their 15th campaign in a row without making the playoffs. The “Perfect Season Parade 2.0” — named after the Browns joined the 2008 Detroit Lions as the only teams to finish a season 0-16 — the parade was considered a protest by fed-up fans. “It was that kind of macabre-type humor that I think the Browns fans have,” organizer Chris McNeil told ESPN. The parade included a pickup truck sponsored by a funeral home with a casket on the back and several Browns-painted buses with signs criticizing team management and owner Jimmy Haslam. Many watching or participating wore bags over their heads. The parade also included a quarterback graveyard, with faux headstones for every starting quarterback the team has had since 1999. McNeil said at least four vans were full of food to donate to the Cleveland Food Bank and nearly US$14,696 was raised for the charity.
FIGURE SKATING
Chen likely to lead US team
Nathan Chen on Saturday signaled his Olympic intentions with an emphatic triumph at the US Figure Skating Championships in San Jose, California. Although the three men who will represent the US at next month’s Winter Games were not to be announced until yesterday, Chen is sure to head the squad after landing five quadruple jumps in his free skate to continue his unbeaten campaign. The 18-year-old finished with a total of 315.23 points — 40.72 more than silver-medalist Ross Miner, who rose from fifth place after the short program to finish second on 274.51 points. Chen, who had missed training because of illness, singled one planned triple Axel in a still outstanding display.
ANALYTICS
Obama to speak at forum
Former US president Barack Obama is on Feb. 23 to speak at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan Sports Analytics Conference to discuss his time in office and the next chapter in his life. MIT has held the conference annually since 2007, hosting industry professionals to discuss the role of analytics in sports. This year, MLB commissioner Rob Manfred, NBA commissioner Adam Silver and NHL commissioner Gary Bettman are scheduled to speak. Obama routinely filled out NCAA Tournament brackets on ESPN during his presidency. His White House press secretary, Josh Earnest, once said Obama would consider being part of the ownership group for an NBA franchise.
TENNIS
Nadal to warm up at Kooyong
Top-ranked Rafael Nadal is to make his return from injury at the Kooyong Classic exhibition to prepare for the Australian Open, which is to begin on Monday next week. Nadal joins former No. 1 Novak Djokovic in using the Kooyong event to warm up for the year’s first Grand Slam tournament. Nadal has been struggling with a right knee problem and withdrew from the ATP tournament in Brisbane to give himself longer for recovery. He is scheduled to play tomorrow at Kooyong, which regularly hosted the Australian Open on grass before the tournament moved to hard courts at Melbourne Park. Djokovic is returning from a right elbow injury that has kept him off the tour since July last year.
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