BASEBALL
Koo voted CTBA chairman
Jeffrey Koo Jr, a major shareholder of CTBC Financial Holdings, was on Saturday elected as chairman of the Chinese Taipei Baseball Association (CTBA). Koo won 1,025 votes out of the 1,138 ballots cast by association members, becoming the 12th chairman of the baseball association since its founding in 1973. He is to replace incumbent CTBA chairman Liao Cheng-ching in July. The chairman-elect is owner of the Brothers. The CTBA is to convene another meeting on May 31 to select chief supervisors and other top officers, it said.
? SOCCER
Zidane plays son in final
Real Madrid coach Zinedine Zidane handed a competitive debut to his son, Luca, by starting him in goal in Saturday’s final La Liga game of the season at Villarreal, making him the third member of the Zidane family to play for the Spanish giants. Zidane was expected to rest first-choice players in their last game before next Saturday’s Champions League final against Liverpool, but fielded a full-strength side against Villarreal, with the exception of the 20-year-old goalkeeper. The second-oldest of Zinedine’s four sons, Luca had only played two friendlies for Madrid’s first team, pre-season matches against an MLS all-star team and Serie A side ACF Fiorentina in August last year. Zidane’s youngest two sons, Theo and Elyaz, are part of Real’s youth set-up, creating the possibility that all four children are to follow their father in turning out for the club.
HOCKEY
Switzerland, Sweden in final
Switzerland booked their place in yesterday’s World Championship Final against reigning champions Sweden after a shock 3-2 win over Canada on Saturday. They will be up against a Swedish team in red-hot form after hammering the US 6-0 in Saturday’s earlier semi-final. Sweden led 1-0 after a cautious first period, but they left the US reeling with a three-goal salvo in the second as Patric Hornqvist and Mattias Janmark netted two goals in 11 seconds. The US will be left scratching their heads as to how Swedish goalie Anders Nilsson managed to shut them out, despite facing 41 shots during the 60 minutes. “We just made too many mistakes and they capitalized,” US captain Patrick Kane said. “They’ve got a lot of good players over there and made us pay for those mistakes. It’s gonna be tough to regroup [for the bronze medal game]... but we have to do it.”
CYCLING
Froome wins tough stage
Chris Froome on Saturday responded to his critics with a fantastic ride up Monte Zoncolan to win the 14th stage of the Giro d’Italia. Nevertheless, British compatriot Simon Yates consolidated his overall lead. Froome attacked with about 4km remaining of the tough 186km route from San Vito al Tagliamento. The four-time Tour de France champion gritted his teeth on the final curves of the iconic climb and managed to finish six seconds ahead of Yates. Domenico Pozzovivo was third, 23 seconds behind Froome, whose chances of winning the race all but ended after a difficult opening week. Froome, who dropped out of the top 10 earlier this week, moved up to fifth, although the Team Sky rider is still more than three minutes behind Yates. “We’ll take it day by day — it’s not over yet,” Froome said.
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