MOTORSPORT
F1 to launch show on Twitter
Formula One is to launch a live post-race show on Twitter that is to involve retired 2016 world champion Nico Rosberg starting from next week’s Spanish Grand Prix in Barcelona, Spain, the motor racing series said. Global followers of the official @F1 account would be able to watch interviews with drivers, team bosses and other key players at the Circuit de Barcelona-Catalunya, Formula One said in a statement on Monday. The show, to be presented by British commentator Will Buxton, would also air after nine further races and feature panelists including Rosberg, who was a Mercedes teammate to reigning champion Lewis Hamilton. Liberty Media-owned Formula One said the partnership with Twitter would also extend beyond the social network’s exclusive license for the live F1 show.
RUGBY UNION
Phipps apologizes for antics
Wallabies scrumhalf Nick Phipps has apologized for urinating on a bar while wearing a cow costume during his stag night at a Sydney venue. Phipps was kicked out of the Woollahra Hotel one day after he played in the New South Wales Waratahs’ 29-0 defeat to the Lions in their Super Rugby match on April 20. “I’m a goose, if I’m going to do the crime, I’ll pay the time,” the 29-year-old told reporters in Sydney yesterday. “It’s always been in my character to stand up and accept the responsibility, I was a bloody idiot.” Phipps, who has won 61 Test caps and represented his country at two World Cups, said he had spoken to national governing body Rugby Australia and expected a sanction from the Waratahs. “There are going to be some sanctions handed down and I’ll accept them... There won’t be any fight from me.”
SOCCER
Real Betis beat Malaga 2-1
Real Betis Balompie on Monday defeated last-placed Malaga 2-1 in La Liga to keep alive their hopes of qualifying for the UEFA Champions League. Betis’ seventh win in eight matches left the team eight points behind third-placed Valencia with three matches left. The result secured Betis a place in the UEFA Europa League for the first time in four years. They last played in the Champions League in the 2005-2006 season. Fabian Ruiz scored the winner with a shot from outside the area in the 73rd minute at the Estadio Benito Villamarin. Youssef En-Nesyri had put Malaga on the board in the 20th and Riza Durmisi equalized for the hosts soon after. Betis had not conceded a goal in six matches. “Happy with the three points and with the return to a European competition,” Ruiz said.
TABLE TENNIS
North Korea shock Taiwan
A North Korean women’s table tennis team funded by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) scored an unexpected win to open the world championships in Sweden. The IOC said it paid the costs for 12 men and women from North Korea to compete at the week-long team worlds in Sweden. The travel and accommodation funding, complying with the restrictions of UN sanctions against North Korea, is to help the team qualify for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the IOC said. In their opening group game on Sunday of a 24-team competition, the 19th-seeded North Korean women beat third-seeded Taiwan 3-2. North Korea’s men play in a six-nation group including China and Russia.
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