YOUTH OLYMPICS
Lee takes taekwondo silver
Taiwanese taekwondo athlete Lee Meng-en on Thursday settled for a silver medal in the men’s 73kg at the Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires. Lee, who beat Ethan McClymont of Canada 15-7 and Jakub Sadurski of Poland 10-2 to reach the final on the same day, failed to extend his winning streak, losing to Mohammadali Khosravi of Iran 1-2.
SKIING
Vonn to retire next year
Lindsey Vonn, who is four wins shy of the all-time mark for World Cup race wins, is to retire from competition at the end of the 2018-2019 season, NBC Sports reported on Thursday. The 33-year-old American, whose 82 World Cup wins trails only Swedish great Ingemar Stenmark, is to retire, even if she does not break the record. “If I get it [the record], that would be a dream come true,” the report quoted Vonn as saying. “If I don’t, I think I’ve had an incredibly successful career no matter what.” NBC said that Vonn had considered racing until 2020, but her lengthy injury history had made the decision for her.
BASKETBALL
Yao Ming plays in N Korea
Former NBA star Yao Ming on Thursday attended a friendly between China and North Korea in Pyongyang. The eight-time All-Star is visiting North Korea this week as part of a high-level Chinese sports delegation. North Korean leader Kim Jong-un was not present. After the match, ex-Houston Rockets center Yao Ming posed for photographs with Chinese and North Korean players.
GOLF
Four share lead in S Korea
The world’s top two women, Park Sung-hyun of South Korea and Thailand’s Ariya Jutanugarn, were among four players tied for the second-round lead at the KEB Hana Bank Championship yesterday. Also on eight-under-par in Incheon, South Korea, were England’s Charley Hull and Danielle Kang of the US. Taiwan’s Hsu Wei-ling and Chien Pei-yun slipped further back, settling in a share of 59th on six-over.
GOLF
Woodland matches record
Gary Woodland yesterday shot an 11-under-par 61 to tie the course record and join Marc Leishman in a share of the second-round lead at the CIMB Classic. Woodland and Leishman (62) were on 14-under 130 on the revamped TPC Kuala Lumpur West course. Woodland’s bogey-free nines of 30-31 matched the 61 that Justin Thomas shot in 2015. Taiwan’s Pan Cheng-tsung tumbled to a share of 29th on six-under.
SOCCER
Probe over pop star fight
Police late on Thursday questioned Turkish international midfielder Arda Turan over reports that he fought with a pop star at a night club in Istanbul, the Demiroren news agency and other media said. Turan, on loan from Barcelona at Istanbul Basaksehir, was summoned to make a statement to police after they received reports of the player’s clash with singer Berkay Sahin, the agency said. It quoted Turan’s statement as saying that he rejected allegations he harassed Sahin and said that a bullet fired from his pistol when he went to the hospital where Sahin was being treated for an injury was fired by mistake as he was tucking the gun in his waist.
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