BASEBALL
Reyes to miss season
St Louis Cardinals right-hander Alex Reyes is facing a second straight lost year after needing surgery on Wednesday to reattach a tendon in his right lat. “We’ve been told by doctors they expect him to be fully recovered,” general manager Michael Girsch told reporters. Reyes, who missed all of last season after undergoing Tommy John surgery, pitched in the majors for the first time in 20 months against the Milwaukee Brewers on Wednesday last week. Girsch described the injury as “uncommon,” saying that the lat “wasn’t completely torn off, which means there was good blood flow, which means they’re very optimistic for recovery.”
BASEBALL
Phone lights pause game
Fans using their cellphone lights caused a brief delay when the Detroit Tigers were batting in the seventh inning at Fenway Park in Boston on Wednesday night. It started to grow with one out in the seventh of Boston’s 7-1 win and circled the stands, when Detroit’s Niko Goodrum took a third strike from pitcher Matt Barnes. Before Nicholas Castellanos stepped to the plate, he chatted with umpire Mike DiMuro. Detroit manager Ron Gardenhire also came out to talk with DiMuro, who walked over to Boston’s dugout. “You ever tried to hit with a light like that in your face? It’s not supposed to happen,” Gardenhire said. “The umpires should have, in my opinion, stopped it right away” Security asked fans in the center-field bleachers to stop using the phones as flash lights and play resumed. “It was kind of cool,” Boston center fielder Andrew Benintendi said.
SOCCER
Mamic handed prison time
Former Dinamo Zagreb director Zdravko Mamic on Wednesday was sentenced to six-and-a-half years in prison for embezzlement and tax evasion over deals that included the sale of Croatia World Cup stars Luka Modric and Dejan Lovren. Mamic, 58, was not in court when judges read the verdict and sentence. He left for Bosnia-Herzegovina a day ahead of the session and called the verdict “monstrous.” The court issued an arrest warrant for Mamic, who said he would not return before the end of the appeals process.
SOCCER
Film angers Ghanian fans
Hundreds of Ghanaians on Wednesday trooped to Accra to watch alleged acts of bribery involving officials, including the head of the nation’s soccer association, captured on video demanding kickbacks. Kwesi Nyantakyi was seen in a hotel room taking a US$65,000 bribe from a supposed businessman seeking to sponsor the league for up to US$15 million over three years. When Greed and Corruption Become the Norm is the work of undercover journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas. The scenes shown in the 6,000-capacity auditorium drew intermittent uproar from the crowd, which included business leaders, clergy, diplomats and sport administrators. The video also showed Nyantakyi offering to facilitate the award of key government contracts to the businessman on conditions that he paid kickbacks totaling US$12 million through him to top officials, including Ghanaian President Nana Akufo-Addo. In different segments, other officials such as referees were shown accepting bribes ranging from goats to cash sums of 300 to 4,000 cedis (US$64 to US$858).
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