FORMULA ONE
Netflix to document season
Netflix is to make a documentary series chronicling this Formula One season, which is to be screened next year, the sport’s rights holders announced on Saturday. Formula One said the makers of the 10-part series would have unparalleled and exclusive access over the course of the year to the drivers, team bosses and owners, as well as the sport’s management team. “Formula One is a global sport that we are actively repositioning from a motorsport company to a media and entertainment brand,” F1’s managing director of commercial operations Sean Bratches said in a statement. “The agreement with Netflix serves to chronicle the fascinating story of what transpires behind the scenes during a Grand Prix season... This series will unleash a compelling vantage point to the sport that will delight fans and serve as a catalyst to entice new fans.”
BASKETBALL
Curry out for three weeks
Stephen Curry is to miss at least three weeks with a sprained left knee, meaning the Golden State Warriors are to be without their second-leading scorer for the rest of the regular season. Curry could be back at the start of the playoffs next month if all goes well in rehabbing his latest injury. The team said Curry would be re-evaluated in three weeks — that would be April 14 and a possible Game 1 of the playoffs for Golden State. Curry had on Friday returned from a six-game absence after his latest right ankle injury, only to injure his left knee. The defending champions were already without their three other All-Stars: Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson. Green was likely to be back from a bruised pelvis for yesterday’s home game against Utah. Durant is still recovering from a broken rib and Thompson has a fractured right thumb.
SOCCER
Owner on trafficking charges
The owner of reigning Greek champions Olympiakos and English Championship club Nottingham Forest has been charged with drug trafficking. Evangelos Marinakis is being prosecuted for “possession and trafficking of drugs” and for “associating with criminals,” a judiciary source said on Friday. Prosecutors in Piraeus have also banned Marinakis from leaving Greece because of a probe into the financing of a company that chartered the Noor1, a petrol tanker that was seized off the Greek coast in June 2014 with 2 tonnes of heroin on board. Marinakis has furiously denied the charges.
MARATHON
Ethiopan sets half record
Ethiopa’s Netsanet Gudeta on Saturday broke Kenya’s dominance in the World Half Marathon Championships by smashing the women’s only race world record in Valencia, Spain. Kenyan women had swept the medals at the previous two championships, but Gudeta pushed on alone from 15km to win in a time of 1 hour, 6 minutes and 11 seconds. The 27-year-old finished a comfortable 43 seconds ahead of Kenyan Joyciline Jepkosgei, who holds the overall world record of 1 hour, 4 minutes and 51 seconds. The previous record for a single-sex race was set by Lornah Kiplagat in Udine, Italy, in 2007. Earlier, Geoffrey Kamworor won his third successive title in the men’s event in 1 hour and 2 seconds. The Kenyan, who won silver in the 10,000m at the 2015 World Championships in Beijing, was followed over the line by Abraham Cheroben of Bahrain and Aron Kifle of Eritrea.
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